As someone interested in applying for Research Engineering roles in the near future, what would be your criterion for determining whether someone self-taught is “worth-interviewing”? (Also a question for others who are familiar with hiring practices at various AI safety organizations).

Two hiring (and personally-motivated) questions:

1. What would be a good pathway for a software engineer to become a viable member of your technical staff? You can assume that the engineer has had zero or minimal exposure to ML throughout their academic/professional career. If this isn't sufficiently different from what would be recommended to a software engineer interested in alignment in general, feel free to skip this, unless you think there are particular things you'd recommend someone brushing up on before applying to work with you.
2. Would you be comfortable sharing the structure of your compensation packages (e.g. mostly salary with possible bonuses, even combination of salary and equity, etc.)?