Should I quit or let them fire me?
I am working on startup since 4 months as mid level ML engineer and my employer called me to say that they might fire me because my performance is not okay. He was true that my performance is far from good because I am busy preparing documents for my MSc. I am thinking about quitting but at the same time, pandemic is hitting hard and lots of jobs are lost and I might be unemployed after this.

So at least in the US if you quit....no unemployment benefits....

I'd just stay and keep working on improving my craft. If they let you go that doesn't cost you anything you just get another job. Getting fired is nothing to fear you just get called into a mtg and asked to pack up your stuff and then you get to enjoy a nice vacation.

Complaining about performance a couple months in is pretty nonsensical anyway imo, do you even have a firm grasp on the organization and codebase at this point? I bet most of your time is still spent finding what's where.

What task did they give you that you underperformed so badly at? What part of it was challenging?

How was the onboarding process?

Are you getting along with your boss and colleagues?

@ArtOfBBQ I am working remotely and hired remotely. My employer wants me to make a way to generate offline synthesized hand written signatures using some research papers. But I am failing to achieve it.
The company is small (<10) and I have talked with only one colleague yet.

I haven't been studying machine learning for years and I don't understand exactly what you're saying but basically you're reading in image (signature) data and making some kind of prediction? It may not even be possible what you're trying to do with the data you have

Is it possible that your real problem is negotiating / explaining / managing expectations and not your ML skills?

How do you think a random ML engineer would perform if they switched places with you?

BTW the kind of people who create a startup are self selected to be massively overly optimistic and they probably have no idea how ML works or what you're doing so it's really up to you as the most knowledgeable person to explain it to them. They may think it's the magical perfect solution to every problem

You seem pretty harsh on yourself so I'm worried that they're misreading the situation because of that

@qviper Not to be an alarmist, but wouldn't that algo and model, when finished, be able to fake real signatures? Like deep fake for handwriting?

@qviper
Looks like your job is about improving the scam industry by adding the ability to fake signatures of victims.

Do you really want to be part of that?