Thread by @karlhigley

This has been exactly my experience in the workplace as an autistic ML engineer. I’m still doing machine learning, building recommender systems, attending conferences, contributing to open source projects, publishing my work.

I’m just not getting paid, because I don’t fit in.

https://twitter.com/aspergersgirls/status/1313543348607623168

When I mention that I’m not currently employed, people sometimes reach out to see if I’d be interested in a position with their company—which I appreciate but often don’t know how to respond to.

I might be, but the truth is that I have absolutely been through the wringer with work these past five years or so, and I have some lingering workplace-related trauma that makes me very hesitant to pursue the next thing.

I would love to be working again! I really like having problems that matter to work on and people to tackle them with.

What typically happens—assuming I can find a niche for myself at all—is that I end up in a position where I’m highly valued but pushed beyond my limitations.

And they aren’t things that are going to change with learning or practice or exposure.

Large groups, loud spaces, chaotic projects, indirect communication, and unrealistic optimism are never going to be my forte.

I work best with a small group of people who work together iteratively on small, shared projects in service of big goals for extended stretches.

I have experience creating those circumstances but it’s not always possible to do from a position of informal authority (at best.)

Each person has their own project? Projects have milestones every 6 months? Team members change every month? Team is bigger than 8 or so? Work tracking is very informal? Every project has to be approved by the big boss?

Count me out, because I will not be functional there.

I have the skills to be successful doing this kind of work, I can see the big picture and the small details and connect them to each other, I value and care about my coworkers, and I bring a lot of insight into ways of working you might not expect from an engineer.

But I will never feel comfortable at team social outings, and I don’t rely on social connections to form working relationships. (I do the reverse.)

Like many aspects of personality, people don’t know what to make of that, and have a tendency to read all kinds of things into it.

So, there you have it:

I’m one of the skilled but underemployed autistic people this article is discussing.

Would love to find a place where I do fit in and can do the kind of work I know I’m capable of (having done it before.)

It ain’t easy though.

P.S. I didn’t learn a lot of the stuff I know from work experience. I’ve been working on machine learning and recommender systems in my own time and between jobs for many years.

(Some of the upsides of being autistic are that I have deep interests and I’m _very_ persistent.)