[HN Gopher] Arsenal FC AI Research Engineer job posting
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Arsenal FC AI Research Engineer job posting
Author : pr337h4m
Score : 90 points
Date : 2025-01-25 14:47 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (careers.arsenal.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (careers.arsenal.com)
| selectodude wrote:
| The slider only goes to PS150,000 per annum.
|
| Good luck with your search!
| karaterobot wrote:
| I'm not going to underestimate the dedication of football fans.
| And I do feel someone could get by on PS150k if they had to.
| Obviously they'd need to live an ascetic lifestyle, eating only
| porridge and drinking only lukewarm water. With luck they'd
| make it through winter.
| bkovacev wrote:
| This comment made my day.
| sz4kerto wrote:
| > someone could get by on PS150k if they had to
|
| I know you're kinda joking, but it's just so HN :)
| karaterobot wrote:
| It's more than I make, and I own a house! The idea that
| someone could be a big football fan, but would refuse to
| take a job making less than the equivalent of that magic
| $250k a year seems like such a misalignment* of values. I
| agree that you see it a lot on HN, and elsewhere.
|
| * (pun not intended, but sort of proud of it now)
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Of all the ML/AI researchers I know (20+), none of them
| are football fans. I suppose it could happen but I have
| not seen it.
| transitionnel wrote:
| I wore their away kit for Halloween this year :D
|
| But I suspect they're just like all the others -- looking
| for credentialling where it doesn't yet exist.
|
| [Guess we'll find out... not holding my breath for what
| would be a dream for us both]
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| You must not know any Indian researchers then. Almost
| every one I know supports a football club
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Huh, I do not. I guess most of the people I know in this
| space I knew prior to 2015 and the field was not as
| widely popular back then.
| wink wrote:
| They'll be given a couple of server racks with GPUs for their
| tiny London apartment, that should do.
| chdove wrote:
| Hiring manager here!
|
| While living off of porridge shouldn't be necessary, I will
| say the porridge at the training ground is absolutely top
| tier.
| desideratum wrote:
| This is an exceptional salary for the UK.
| pbalau wrote:
| Plus, jobs like this are for people that have a connection
| with the organization. I can't see myself doing anything,
| however good the pay might be, for Arsenal. Would be very
| glad to do that for Chelsea.
| shrikant wrote:
| Having done a bit of consulting for Chelsea FC, I wouldn't
| recommend working there in an office job. Poor pay (I doubt
| anyone below "Head of"/CxO even touches 6 figures) and very
| average working conditions.
| ksynwa wrote:
| I thought at first that you might be bantering but after
| reading your last sentence I am not sure anymore. I don't
| think being associated with Arsenal at this posting is ever
| going to be a blemish on anyone's CV. They are higher than
| Chelsea in PL standings at this moment.
| pbalau wrote:
| Why bantering?
|
| 150k a year puts you in the 1% earners in UK, plenty to
| comfortable live on.
|
| As you mentioned, having such a job in ones CV can only
| help.
|
| But, I've been a Chelsea fan for most of my life, if I
| take such a job at Arsenal and do it properly, I'll be
| actively working against the organization that brought me
| so many emotions over the past 30ish years.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Oh that's a fascinating reaction I never thought of. I mean
| people might refuse to work for any gambling company or any
| arms maker, but I cannot I imagine someone offered a job in
| banking refuse say Goldman but take JP Morgan, simply
| because their family have been Morgan fans for generations
| and would never accept any other bank ...
| alt227 wrote:
| So they are looking for people in the Venn diagram cross
| section of AI researchers and Arsenal FC supporters, of
| which I imagine there are very few.
| pbalau wrote:
| Not sure if you intentionally obtuse or simply don't get
| it. There is no reason to be a fan of an organization
| whose main goal is to be making money, but there are
| plenty of reasons to be a fan of an organization whose
| main goal is to be better at a sport than other similar
| organizations.
| addandsubtract wrote:
| There's no reason to be a fan of an organization whose
| main goal is to make money, yet GP said he's a Chelsea
| fan.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| You don't think professional soccer teams are an
| organization whose main goal is to make money?
| dambi0 wrote:
| If it is, and it probably isn't, they are really not very
| good at it.
| atq2119 wrote:
| I don't think the distinction is about whether the
| organizations make money; the distinction is about
| _entertainment_. Professional sports are primarily a form
| of entertainment. Sports fans are a bit like music fans
| in that regard. The rivalries in sports can get toxic
| sometimes, but there 's weird snobbery in music and other
| arts as well.
| druskacik wrote:
| You underestimate how much being a soccer fan means,
| especially in countries like UK.
| dh2022 wrote:
| I met some Americans who would never work for the New
| England Patriots.
| haliskerbas wrote:
| Aren't they both owned by pompous rich dudes and private
| equity, like most companies? Tasty is the boot we enjoy
| licking.
| vasco wrote:
| Everything is owned by rich people, is your solution to
| not enjoy anything?
| andrepd wrote:
| Actually in countries like Portugal or Germany, most
| clubs are owned by its members (or at the very least, 51%
| owned by its members), which can e.g. vote on its
| president.
| superfrank wrote:
| You're not totally wrong about the 51% thing (although
| it's really 50% + 1 vote), but it's not like that is a
| panacea that keeps out corporate interests. Leverkusen
| and Wolfsberg are owned by Bayer and Volkswagen
| respectively (although I understand there's historical
| reasons for that) and Leipzig is 99% owned by Red Bull,
| but they only have 50% - 1 voting rights to comply.
| Zenul_Abidin wrote:
| Arsenal's owned by Stan Kroenke. Chelsea by Todd Boehly
| the LA Dodgers guy.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Yes I think that's just in the top 1% of salaries
|
| But I'm pretty sure Brad got Jonah Hill for much less.
| meesles wrote:
| Surely you mean Scorcese got Jonah??
| kgen wrote:
| I think he means in Moneyball
| Irishsteve wrote:
| Better off getting a pro contract with them I guess
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| Like for their players, they propose reasonable salaries, never
| too high, makes sense
| jimbokun wrote:
| Season tickets would likely motivate a lot of supporters with
| the right background to apply despite the low salary. But they
| only offer "preferred access" to tickets and I'm not even sure
| what that means.
|
| If there would be opportunities to present to Mikel Arteta and
| other high level football personnel, that would also be very
| motivating beyond raw salary.
| thom wrote:
| That's extremely good for a job in soccer analytics. It's a
| really fun domain, you'd be working with very smart and bought-
| in people at Arsenal, and they have their own collection
| operation so control their own destiny in a way a lot of other
| places don't.
| swyx wrote:
| what is a "collection operation"?
| chdove wrote:
| Hiring manager here!
|
| Aside from 3rd party data, we contract with a nonprofit in
| Laos where operators collect event data for us (~2000 data
| points per match) across roughly a dozen leagues worldwide.
|
| We also extract player tracking data from video.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| The salary ranges in London are different than the US.
| mattlondon wrote:
| 150k GBP total comp is not especially competitive with a BigCo.
|
| If that is just salary though, it might be competitive in
| London depending on the rest of the comp package (i.e. about
| the same again for equity, 20-25% bonus - so total about
| 300-325k GBP - would be Ok for mid/senior level IME)
| te_chris wrote:
| What are you on about?
| glawre wrote:
| What are you defining as a BigCo? In the UK I can only really
| think of FAANG, a small number of hedge funds / HFT firms,
| and more recently some AI firms that are paying that level of
| salary.
|
| I'm also guessing that salaries in football might be
| suppressed similar to video games jobs. There'll be a lot of
| people willing to work under market rate because they enjoy
| the football environment.
| mattlondon wrote:
| Yup those guys and fintech. They're the big players in UK
| (well London) tech employment if total comp is what
| matters.
| thomastraum wrote:
| man, I am so poor
| PaulHoule wrote:
| London's an expensive place to live.
| druskacik wrote:
| It's still crazy to me that 150K can be considered an
| unsatisfactory salary. I thought that must be enough anywhere
| in the world.
| rabiescow wrote:
| Lower middle class in Massachusetts...
| kadushka wrote:
| 6k mortgage for a modest house in any decent area in US, 3k
| per kid private school, 3k other monthly expenses, 2k food:
| that's already 17k/mo with just 2 kids. Plus vacations, plus
| setting aside at least a few thousand a month for retirement.
|
| I can do jobs like this one but I can't consider any job
| offers for less than 500k (total comp).
|
| Are houses and private schools cheaper in London?
| djij wrote:
| I'm butting up against Poe's Law on this one. Is it a joke,
| or peak HN?
| philwelch wrote:
| It's probably a little self-aware but what he's
| describing is a lifestyle attainable by people with
| similar jobs and qualifications as what Arsenal is asking
| for, and it's reasonable to expect it if that's what you
| can get from other employers.
|
| Also, housing in much of the US is criminally expensive,
| and some people have unreasonably snobby attitudes about
| what constitutes a "decent area" in the US. Or maybe he
| was just making an understated and backhanded joke about
| the London housing market, which I've heard to be
| similarly absurd.
| alt227 wrote:
| > the London housing market, which I've heard to be
| similarly absurd.
|
| No matter how absurd it is, Ive never heard of a 6k per
| month mortgage, that is absolutely insane.
| senordevnyc wrote:
| I'm curious where you live?
|
| I live in NYC, on the UWS, in a nice (but not
| extravagant) 2 bedroom apartment. It's about 1000 sq
| feet, and I pay $5k per month in rent. Buying a similar
| place in my neighborhood would cost me literally double
| that per month, after putting down $300k or more. My
| neighborhood has hundreds of thousands of people in it,
| all paying similar amounts (or much much more). My
| building has about 60 units, and I live in one of the
| smaller ones. Almost half of the units rent for $12k-15k
| per month. This is just one of hundreds of buildings in
| my neighborhood alone, one of thousands in Manhattan.
|
| Of the ~350 apartments with at least 3 bedrooms for sale
| right in my neighborhood, only 77 cost less than $3mm.
| There are 52 for sale for more than $10mm, and those will
| almost all sell.
| desas wrote:
| A PS1.3 million house in London on a 10% deposit and a
| 4.7% interest rate over 30 years would be PS6094 per
| month.
|
| The average price for a terraced house in london zone 2
| is PS1.7 million
| duchef wrote:
| I have a 6k a month mortgage in London. So - now you've
| heard of one!
| kadushka wrote:
| Those are my actual expenses. Why do you think it's a
| joke?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Let me guess, you consider yourself firmly middle-
| class...
| kadushka wrote:
| As long as I have to work for a living - yes, I'm middle
| class.
| ziddoap wrote:
| Because _" I can't consider any job offers for less than
| 500k (total comp)."_ is absolutely wild for 99+% of the
| global population.
| kadushka wrote:
| I don't think it is wild for people with skills to do
| this job.
| rmacqueen wrote:
| 6k a month mortgage for a family of four seems low. It's at
| least double that in any major metro area.
| alt227 wrote:
| Im struggling to understand the math here. If a mortgage
| is 12k per month, how much does the house cost in total
| and how long is the mortgage term?
|
| I mean in a year, thats $144k.
| senordevnyc wrote:
| A $1.8mm 30 year fixed rate mortgage is about $12k per
| month at today's rates. That wouldn't include taxes and
| insurance, just the principal and interest.
| rerdavies wrote:
| Which would buy you a pretty nice house in Watford (where
| Arsenal's training grounds are), which has an average
| home price of $536,000.
| alt227 wrote:
| > Are houses and private schools cheaper in London?
|
| They are cheaper than that everywhere in the world. I think
| you need to realise that you are in the upper 0.001% of
| earners in the world and your expenses to the rest of us
| seem absolutely ridiculous.
|
| $6k per month mortgage?
|
| My entire expenses are less than half that, I have 2 kids
| and I consider myself to be middle class and doing ok.
| senordevnyc wrote:
| You're catching flak, but I'm with you, I live in NYC and I
| wouldn't even look at a job for less than $400k liquid
| total comp. And that would be cutting it close.
|
| That said, people do it:
|
| 1. What constitutes a "decent area" varies from person to
| person.
|
| 2. My kid goes to private school (at more $5k per month),
| but some people live in districts where public schools are
| great.
|
| 3. Living in a no income tax state helps a lot too.
|
| I could see a family being just fine on $10k per month
| take-home if they bought their house awhile ago, kids go to
| public school, they travel domestically, etc.
| amunozo wrote:
| You're a slave
| didip wrote:
| It's unsatisfying right now because the inflation (or price
| hike robbery) is so high.
| OxfordOutlander wrote:
| This would be the dream job for a gunners fan. After a decade
| of making seven figures at Meta/Google etc., they won't even
| look at the salary.
| jschoe wrote:
| You do realize that American salaries are not the norm
| internationally? The pay in Europe is far far far lower.
| buryat wrote:
| Yes, if you value your knowledge you should keep pushing for
| higher the market has enough elasticity as earnings show
| skc wrote:
| Fun fact, that's probably the median _weekly_ wage for the
| Arsenal players themselves.
| swyx wrote:
| one would think if they really believed in AI they'd pay more
| to improve their players rather than just pay it to players
| philwelch wrote:
| Isn't that an incredibly good salary in the UK?
| BrutalCoding wrote:
| There's a typo on your page: "you'll partner with with coaches"
|
| Other than that, pretty cool to see. I'll have to pass :)
| alt227 wrote:
| Repeated word typos are incredibly difficult to spot. I
| genuinely had to reread your post several times before I got
| the typo.
| stfleming wrote:
| The thing about arsenal is, they always try and walk it in!
| prashp wrote:
| This always makes me laugh https://grathium-
| industries.github.io/posts/deployments/bluf...
| askl wrote:
| What was Wenger thinking sending Walcott on that early?
| dalmo3 wrote:
| The norm these days at Arsenal is to be sent off early!
| buro9 wrote:
| not any more, now the thing about Arsenal is that it's all set
| pieces and over-reliance on corners.
|
| Saka isn't all that either, he'd be nothing within Odegaard.
|
| (this is convincing, and I know about as much as the IT Crowd
| did)
| ignoramous wrote:
| Under Mikel, they're more Tony "rainy night at Stoke" Pulis
| than Arsene "walk it in" Wenger.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| You beat me to it. Nicely done!
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| https://youtu.be/Sasksdm1Ftc fantastic episode.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I have a few reasons I want to go to the UK, and seeing an
| Arsenal game at their home stadium is one of them. It's not so
| much that it's my favorite team as that I (1) want to see a
| Premier League game, (2) their stadium looks beautiful and (3) I
| enjoy watching games from there because they are better equipped
| than average for telecasts.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It's a great stadium and loads of fun to visit as a gooner. Not
| all games are open to all though. Some require you to be a Red
| Member for a while before you can buy tickets. So keep that in
| mind.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> as a gooner_
|
| As _A WHAT_ now?
| renewiltord wrote:
| I've said what I've said.
| leemcalilly wrote:
| Those are some serious job requirements for $150k
| layer8 wrote:
| More like $190k.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| PS150K is more than 4x the average salary in the UK.
| layer8 wrote:
| Apparently knowledge about football/soccer is not a prerequisite.
| ctippett wrote:
| I live 500m from Arsenal stadium. Unfortunately not only do I
| know nothing about football, I'm just a lowly data person and
| would never purport to be an AI specialist.
| chdove wrote:
| Whew didn't expect this to get posted here but I'm not
| complaining!
|
| I'm Chris, Head of Analytics at Arsenal and hiring manager for
| this role (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-dove-43b7a85)
|
| I'm happy to answer any questions about the role, our department,
| football analytics, working at Arsenal, etc.
| ensemblehq wrote:
| Hey Chris. This is such an incredible opportunity and great to
| hear folks like you are spearheading the charge. I've a friend
| who's leading AI at Real Madrid and it's fascinating to hear
| what they're trying to do (without him revealing the secret
| sauce to me!)
|
| Does your team and department taking of analytics primarily on
| the footballing side? Like player performance? How does your
| teams work typically get incorporated and what does the day to
| day look like? Do you manage your own tech stack as well?
| thom wrote:
| If you could conjure up any data or video product from thin air
| to make your life easier, what would it be?
| alberto_balsam wrote:
| Arsenal are doing very innovative things in AI and I believe have
| Karun Singh on their team who is extremely influential in the
| football analytics revolution that has occurred over the last
| decade. Exciting role (that due to other interests I cannot go
| for!)
| zoenolan wrote:
| Some football analytics links
|
| Soccermatics course[0], the book of the same name[1], R code [2]
| and some more general resources [3].
|
| Learn Python and Data Science With Football[4] and Python library
| for plotting football charts[5].
|
| Machine learning Fantasy Premier League team [6] and Python for
| Fantasy Football [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]
|
| [0] https://soccermatics.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
|
| [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26073086-soccermatics
|
| [2] https://github.com/JoGall/soccermatics
|
| [3] https://github.com/eddwebster/football_analytics
|
| [4] https://fcpython.com/
|
| [5] https://mplsoccer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
|
| [6] https://github.com/alan-turing-institute/AIrsenal
|
| [7] http://www.fantasyfutopia.com/python-for-fantasy-football-
| in...
|
| [8] http://www.fantasyfutopia.com/python-for-fantasy-football-
| ma...
|
| [9] http://www.fantasyfutopia.com/python-for-fantasy-football-
| ge...
|
| [10] http://www.fantasyfutopia.com/python-for-fantasy-football-
| ap...
|
| [11] http://www.fantasyfutopia.com/python-for-fantasy-football-
| in...
|
| [12] http://www.fantasyfutopia.com/python-for-fantasy-football-
| ad...
|
| [13] http://www.fantasyfutopia.com/python-for-fantasy-football-
| un...
|
| [14] http://www.fantasyfutopia.com/python-for-fantasy-football-
| fe...
|
| [15] http://www.fantasyfutopia.com/python-for-fantasy-football-
| ra...
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