> Your answers feel like you are engaging in cognitive dissonance.
I am not sure where you are getting this from. My intent is only to point out that there is more to consider than publication output. I will try to make this position more precise.
I again want to stress at this point that I do not want to hire students to perform non-core work; this is not what I wrote in the article and I am certainly not advocating for that because it is exploitation (almost of the form 'trading a PhD for years of programming'). My point is that modern research has some non-core aspects, and in my experience, these are ignore by the PIs insofar as they are expected to be performed, but they will not be rewarded or recognised.
> On the other hand, your replies indicate that you are following the "traditional" European research hierarchy, where the PhD student does years of "non-core" work for the Professor, ultimately ends up with less publications. This leads to issues competing internationally, a chain of short term contracts, post-docs or adjunct positions and finally, many leaving academia (or at least the EU). Which, by the way, is a real problem.
Fully agree with you that it's a problem. But in my experience, we cannot get around the fact that ML research is certainly helped by good SWE skills. Now there are people that like these sort of aspects more than others; and my point is that they can also help to enrich a team, even though---if just seen through the lens of publication output---they might seem less strong.
> In European academia, we are all aware of these traditional hierarchical sentiments. At each university, there are stories about the Professor who said something like: "Your first research ideas belong to me", or Professors who actively resist the establishment of a stipend-based PhD program with the argument that "Someone (the PhDs) has to do the work at the institute!".
Agreed, but I have to emphasise that I am not talk about doing work for the institute or for maintaining lab infrastructure. I realise how one could arrive at this impression, but this is far from my original intent. I wanted to point out that hiring someone with a more generalist skill set and mindset can enrich a research time _just as well_ as hiring someone with a more expert mindset.
> And here, your reply here worries me. No, you do not hire PhDs to work for you. You hire them to train them to be researchers and to collaborate on that. Next to publishing and teaching, as a Professor, you are responsible for enabling these PhD students to have a successful career. More than in any other career, it is YOU, the advisor, who ends up making or breaking the future of a human being.
If I could rephrase this in my own terms, I would also state that I hire them to work with me, to collaborate with me. I also agree that I should enable them to have a successful career---regardless of where they choose to work in the end.
> The thought that PhDs are merely hired workers who have to work through "menial, non core" work before they are allowed to get to their research, is one of the main reasons why academic research in the EU is doing so badly compared to other regions in the world.
Fully agree with you here, but this is not what I wrote at all. A PhD student is foremost a budding researcher. My point is that it makes sense to consider their skill sets in a more holistic fashion when hiring them.
> In the interest of your future PhD students, I implore you to consider how much impact you really have on their lives!
I am keenly aware of this responsibility. I realise that my points above might have been misconstrued, but please understand that I have foremost their interests in mind. It is disheartening to see how my more generalist friends who are doing their PhDs are not recognised at all in academia. _This_, IMO, is also some form of 'brain drain' that could be avoided.