Hi, there! Congratulations on (again?) stumbling across this dark, dingy corner of the web. Or rather, this bright, beautifully lit corner. It depends on what you consider sacrilege — admiring light themes or obsessing over dark themes. This is my corner of the web. And I’m humbled to have you here. Make yourself at home and come along for a ride.
So, just like that, a week has passed in my new Research Fellow (RF) position at Microsoft Research (MSR). I want to say a lot about my recent visit to Bangalore, but perhaps for the sake of brevity of my creative burst, I would restrict myself to the spotlight of my this week — I’ve started as an RF at MSR! (Yeah, I’ve said that thing. You’ll hear this a couple more times, so please bear with me.) And I think it helps to describe my new position before ranting about how unprepared I felt on my first day as a Research Fellow.
I started as an RF this week in the Network Brain Team at MSR. My team mainly explores the complexities and advancements of networking and system architecture and develops innovative solutions that optimize network performance, enhance scalability, and strengthen security. You get the idea? They do the network and system design thingy. (Thingy is my manager’s lingo. I think I’ve started picking it up now.) It’s a small and closely-knit group of Network and System Researchers who are already delving deep into the realms of networking. And I’m on cloud nine for being able to work with them!
So, that’s a bit about my team. But I couldn’t give an account of my week at MSR without ranting about my first day there.
I reached the office 15 mins late because, of course, Bangalore’s traffic is commendable. And my decision to shift to the pg before going to the office is equally remarkable. As you might guess, I was already on edge, patiently waiting for the red light to turn green, when I realized I didn’t have my onboarding documents ready, which were required to be submitted to HR on reaching the office. Yes, that was a bit careless on my part. I agree. Now how I managed to dig out the soft copy of documents from my phone and decorate them with my signature while stressing about being late on my first day is something we need the time machine to look back at. Just kidding. I wasn’t that panicked. But it helps set up the scene, so why not?

On reaching the office, I asked the receptionist whether I could show my family the office.

Receptionist - So, who is along with you?
Me - My parents.
Receptionist - Okay, Your mom or your dad?
Me - Uh, both of them and…
Receptionist - Okay
Me - …my brother…
Receptionist - Okay
Me - …and my sister
Receptionist - (smiling) So, your whole family is here?
Me - (nervously smiling) Yes.

She didn’t say anything. But I imagined her saying Your whole family seeing you off? It’s not a Kindergarten, Palak. She handed me our visitors’ pass. And I nervously walked alongside my family, exploring the limited accessible areas the office had to offer without my access card and which became even more inaccessible with each new face I came across that seemed to smile at me mockingly. Just to be clear, no one did anything to make me feel so. This happened because, as you know, when you start on the wrong foot, generally, things like this happen. After a few minutes of strolling and wondering if I was supposed to be here with my family, I asked them to return back to the hotel. They knew how awkward I was feeling, so they kissed me goodbye. I’m sorry I couldn’t give them all a nice tour of the office. I’ll do it the next time they come here. That’s a promise. By the way, I’m not to be completely blamed for the lack of my touring skills; none of the other interns were accompanied by any other living soul, let alone accompanied by their whole family. They came alone, They went alone. I came with my family and went back with my family. Yeah, they all came back to pick me up! How lovely, you say. That’s how exactly I felt. That sight of them standing in front of the office with brilliantly smiling faces made me believe I could do anything for them, even come to the office the other day with them XD!

I met my manager. He briefed me about the team and asked me to enjoy the rest of my day. I headed for an HR session. They, too, welcomed us and briefed us about the company. We introduced ourselves to each other and started setting up our laptops. It was during lunchtime I actually realized LLMs aren’t just some seasonal stuff. They’re going to stay. I’ve never really found myself inclined toward ML/AI much, so most of the conversation went over my head. But I immediately realized I had bought Network to an LLM fight. And I vowed not to back off from this fight.

(This was supposed to be published after my first week at MSR. But I procrastinated, and here I’m, publishing it after my third week at MSR XD!)