Flying to Neuralink

When I entered university, I was on the pre-medicine track because I was interested in the brain and how it works. This caused me to organically learn about Neuralink (when a company is implanting chips in the brain, it's kind of hard to not hear about it).

When I fully committed to computer science (dropping pre-medicine), Neuralink was an obvious company to pursue an opportunity at. Neuralink required both the medical and computer science aspects for creating implants to function properly in the human brain. However, as you can imagine, Neuralink receives so many applications that it's hard to be picked for an interview.

With that in mind, I realized I needed an in to Neuralink, so I regexed the company emails to find relevant people to my cause. It wasn't long before I got a response, but it read like this:

"We are hosting a small group of software engineers at our office in *redacted* to learn more about open roles and future projects. Event is 6-8(ish)pmPT. Let me know if you're interested in being added to the invite list."

The crazy thing was I got that response on Wednesday, giving me a day to travel from Iowa to the event location (spoiler alert, it was far). I honestly had no idea whether this would be worth it to attend that event. However, I strongly believed it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the tech that Neuralink was working on. $600 later, I got a 1 day round trip ticket to Neuralink's office.

What I saw at the event was insane. I signed an NDA so I there are some details I can't share. What I can share is that everyone at the event, especially the Neuralink employees, were super friendly and excited to share their work. I got to hear about Neuralake (linked below), Neuralink's solution to processes massive amounts of data. I also got to see the implants and the implant electrodes under a microscope, plus the robot they use to connect the electrodes to the brain. It's hard to convey how mind-blowing the tech they are working on is.

Additionally, something they talked about (this is public) was curing blindness. Imagine if a camera-like device could capture the image of your retina and simulate the relevant electrical signals to your brain. This would allow the brain to "see" the image. I don't know if it will work, but it could be possible, and if anyone will solve it it's Neuralink.

If you believe this is the place for you, I'd recommend checking out Neuralink. Be cautious, you will work hard. Overtime, weekends, and holidays, are all fair game (and were emphasized by the employees). However, that's what it takes to make the seemingly impossible possible.