We are at the dawn of enormous societal change, driven in large part by the breakthrough of large language models (LLMs). Among many other shifts, I believe the tenure-track faculty job — as we know it today — is set to transform. In this blog, I'll share my thoughts on how it will change, with a focus on the electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) domain in the United States. That…
I was on the academic job market for the 2026–2027 cycle, mainly targeting EE/ECE departments in the United States. For background, I am Zhengqi Gao , a PhD student at MIT EECS, working in design automation for integrated electronics and photonics. This cycle has been brutal due to widespread funding cuts. While the previous cycle (2025–2026) was already difficult — many departments opened…