Books3 creator Shawn Presser makes public appeal for machine learning work to avoid homelessness

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A friend said that this is oversharing and makes me seem unhireable. But standard approaches aren’t working. This is a last ditch effort to avoid homelessness. I promise I’m fun to work with and quite effective.

Shawn Presser@theshawwn

I’ll be actually-homeless soon (living out of my car) if I can’t land a job. Our house is being sold within two months if I don’t find work. I’ve been trying everywhere, but very few companies are answering. So please, email me or DM with literally anything involving computers, or ask a friend, or your business’s HR person. (I’d love to work with you.) I’ll do a good job, and I can learn and adapt to any working style you need.

I was employee #2 at Carmack’s AI lab, Keen. I worked at Groq helping to design and implement their LPU chips. I made Books3, a dataset trained on by LLaMA and Claude. I’ve been programming for 25 years.

Location: Lake Saint Louis MO Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: yes Technologies: Python, PyTorch, JAX, C++, JS/TypeScript, Objective C, Swift, Rails, Linux, Lisp, and anything else you give me a week to learn. Résumé/CV: https://shawwn.net/docs/shawn-presser-resume.pdf Email: shawnpresser@gmail.com

I wanted to avoid the humiliation of begging, but nothing is working. I need money or else our 3yo daughter loses her birth home. I’ve been through dozens of interviews from the companies that do answer, but the market is bad right now. You can have me for a steal.

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Lucas Beyer (bl16)@giffmana

@theshawwn @xeophon My gut feeling is that HF and Cohere should fit your background well and are very remote friendly so you could stay at your place, have you tried them? I think a good chunk of my followers work there so maybe someone seeing this can reach out to Shawn?

Shawn Presser@theshawwn

I’ll be actually-homeless soon (living out of my car) if I can’t land a job. Our house is being sold within two months if I don’t find work. I’ve been trying everywhere, but very few companies are answering. So please, email me or DM with literally anything involving computers, or ask a friend, or your business’s HR person. (I’d love to work with you.) I’ll do a good job, and I can learn and adapt to any working style you need.

I was employee #2 at Carmack’s AI lab, Keen. I worked at Groq helping to design and implement their LPU chips. I made Books3, a dataset trained on by LLaMA and Claude. I’ve been programming for 25 years.

Location: Lake Saint Louis MO Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: yes Technologies: Python, PyTorch, JAX, C++, JS/TypeScript, Objective C, Swift, Rails, Linux, Lisp, and anything else you give me a week to learn. Résumé/CV: https://shawwn.net/docs/shawn-presser-resume.pdf Email: shawnpresser@gmail.com

I wanted to avoid the humiliation of begging, but nothing is working. I need money or else our 3yo daughter loses her birth home. I’ve been through dozens of interviews from the companies that do answer, but the market is bad right now. You can have me for a steal.

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Shawn Presser@theshawwn

@giffmana @xeophon Unfortunately HF wasn’t interested. Didn’t even get an interview. But I’d be happy to try Cohere. If you know anyone in particular I should reach out to, let me know.

Lucas Beyer (bl16)@giffmana

@theshawwn @xeophon My gut feeling is that HF and Cohere should fit your background well and are very remote friendly so you could stay at your place, have you tried them? I think a good chunk of my followers work there so maybe someone seeing this can reach out to Shawn?

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Ben (no treats)@andersonbcdefg

@theshawwn @giffmana @xeophon hey @joelniklaus hire this man

Shawn Presser@theshawwn

@giffmana @xeophon Unfortunately HF wasn’t interested. Didn’t even get an interview. But I’d be happy to try Cohere. If you know anyone in particular I should reach out to, let me know.

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Shawn Presser@theshawwn

My theory is that people have been passing on me because they think as an AI researcher I would demand AI researcher prices. I’d happily work for anything better than Walmart rates right now.

Thank you for the encouragement. I hope you have a nice week.

(At least 5 SF companies, yes, but it’s been generic "thanks for applying" responses, or none at all. I have to get noticed somehow, and although begging is a bad idea, I’ve tried everything else.)

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Ankit Gupta@agupta

@theshawwn check out http://workatastartup.com. Caveat is just about everyone is prioritizing in person in Bay Area. Even seed stage companies can pay 200k.

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Hugo Montenegro (get the card 💳)@uwwgo

@theshawwn That's insane, isn't ai market hot rn!?

Have you tried reaching out to companies in sf? All I see is people hiring here

Best of luck Shawn, following you for a long time

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Hugo Montenegro (get the card 💳)@uwwgo

@theshawwn For what it's worth, I think this is a very contrarian post and if I was founding in ai id immediately hop on a call, vibe check, and consider a work trial

I think many will think this is bad but you're likely to get _someone_ interested!

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Shawn Presser@theshawwn

@robertsdionne Is there a way to apply?

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Ankit Jxa@kingofknowwhere

@theshawwn Shawn I am sorry to hear this. If you spot anything in my org /prev orgs let me know. Happy to refer. I have sent you a LinkedIn connection so you can see and pick

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Shawn Presser@theshawwn

@andersonbcdefg @giffmana @xeophon @joelniklaus I’d be happy to interview!

Ben (no treats)@andersonbcdefg

@theshawwn @giffmana @xeophon hey @joelniklaus hire this man

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Robert Dionne@robertsdionne

@theshawwn .

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Sour Patch Mom ن@sourpatchlyds

@theshawwn @ACrapuchettes @RedBalloonWork i wonder if these two @'s might have options for you

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Marcos@maceo_eth

@theshawwn Good luck in the search!

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Shawn Presser@theshawwn

@maceo_eth Thank you. I hope you have a nice week.

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Sean Lane@_seanlane

@theshawwn We're hiring for senior software eng roles at neighbor. Would require being in Utah tho, let me know if you're interested and we can talk

https://www.neighbor.com/careers

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MrSane@MrSaneApps

@theshawwn @grok there has to be a bunch of people looking for someone like our man here who are saying they are hiring. List out the x handles of at least 10 legit opportunities for him

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Shawn Presser@theshawwn

@uwwgo Also I really think the "AI" label is why I can’t find anything. People think that all I do is AI. I can work on anything. I wish I’d get chances with more non-AI companies. The AI market might be hot, but it’s overly specialized; the stars get $2M/yr offers. I just need basics.

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Tricky@trickylabyrinth

@theshawwn have you tried applying to some of the roles at @PrimeIntellect? they're hiring aggressively afaik

@vincentweisser @kalomaze

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jonathan rowden@jonathan_rowden

@theshawwn Doing what you must for your baby girl and family is not embarrassing. Wish I had a role for you, but keep pushing!

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