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How do you break into a career in machine learning? (2020)

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Re: How do you break into a career in machine learning? (2020)

#51

Post by NHQ »

bazmattaz wrote: post #43
NHQ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these academic types great engineers? Do you find that the academics have a major edge in domain knowledge over self taught programmer?

I lead a Ml Product team and in my experience no they’re not. The academic types are very proficient at research and exploratory data analysis. They’ll whip up a Jupyter in no time but they struggle understanding a live production system. This is where an ML engineer comes into play, they’re not so academic but way better at writing production code

What of the engineer, who mastered a more complex domain on his own, perhaps innovates in that same domain regularly, do you suppose he can do the academic research?

Re: How do you break into a career in machine learning? (2020)

#52

Post by NHQ »

xapata wrote: post #30
NHQ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these academic types great engineers? Do you find that the academics have a major edge in domain knowledge over self taught programmer?

You're not really an academic unless you're working in the academy, right? Once you move to industry, you're a professional.

Be consistent, a move to industry makes you industrial. It takes mere oath to profess.

Re: How do you break into a career in machine learning? (2020)

#53

Post by missingrib »

iratewizard wrote: post #37
sebastialonso wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally the path of becoming an excellent engineer is the best path (possibly hardest) to take on any situation, precisely because of the versatility in scenarios like this. I'm by no means an excellent engineer, but I like to plan and approach opportunities thinking someday I'll be one.

Starting the path is also age restricted. I've had some friends ask how they can switch into the industry by asking what languages they should learn. It's a hard pill for them to swallow, that they're better off becoming good at programming and great at IT, rather than trying to start from scratch after 30.

Your last sentence is confusing, rather than starting what from scratch after age 30? An ML career or trying to become a great engineer/programmer/IT person?

Re: How do you break into a career in machine learning? (2020)

#54

Post by drowning_sushi »

bazmattaz wrote: post #45
drowning_sushi wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too moved away from ML after actively pursuing it for many years. YMMV but here are my reasons - Scientists dont always make the best 'clients'. The requirements you spend months implementing may be completely obsolete by the time you are done and then completely unused. - You often dont understand or are made aware of the impact of your work. - Its challenging to compete with Masters/Phd graduates who have spent y…

Out of interest who led the team? Did you have a product manager? Ideally they should make everyone aware of the value of the work

We did not have a product manager. In my team, there was frequent churn at the manager position. Which should have been a clear indicator that my division had no clue what they were trying to do.

I was naive and trying too hard to stick to ML but lesson learnt eventually.

Re: How do you break into a career in machine learning? (2020)

#55

Post by edmundsauto »

fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #6

Get a job as a data engineer on an ML team. Build some credibility, eventually ml engineering tasks will flow your way. Study a ton outside of work, and then apply for a proper ml engineering jobs, embellishing the achievements at your current role.

What do DEs do on an ML team?

Re: How do you break into a career in machine learning? (2020)

#57

Post by iratewizard »

missingrib wrote: post #53
iratewizard wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting the path is also age restricted. I've had some friends ask how they can switch into the industry by asking what languages they should learn. It's a hard pill for them to swallow, that they're better off becoming good at programming and great at IT, rather than trying to start from scratch after 30.

Your last sentence is confusing, rather than starting what from scratch after age 30? An ML career or trying to become a great engineer/programmer/IT person?

Great engineer like the poster above mentioned. Switching from web apps to ML isn't that big of a jump.

Re: How do you break into a career in machine learning? (2020)

#58

Post by angarg12 »

iratewizard wrote: post #37
sebastialonso wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally the path of becoming an excellent engineer is the best path (possibly hardest) to take on any situation, precisely because of the versatility in scenarios like this. I'm by no means an excellent engineer, but I like to plan and approach opportunities thinking someday I'll be one.

Starting the path is also age restricted. I've had some friends ask how they can switch into the industry by asking what languages they should learn. It's a hard pill for them to swallow, that they're better off becoming good at programming and great at IT, rather than trying to start from scratch after 30.

I moved to my current team in my mid 30s, so there is always hope :)

Re: How do you break into a career in machine learning? (2020)

#59

Post by angarg12 »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #47
angarg12 wrote: post #15

I moved to a Machine Learning Engineer role a few years back. I just did an internal transfer to a ML team with no previous knowledge. The team trusted me to pick up whatever I needed on the job. Now I interview tons of people for MLE roles. Trying to get in "through the front door" is incredibly competitive. Not only you have to prove you are a great engineer, but also good ML knowledge. You'd be competing with peop…

> Now I interview tons of people for MLE roles. I come from fintech, what suggestions do you give to a former dev re-entering tech via AI and ML and wants to focus on the Product Dev side of things? I managed/collaborated with a team of 3-4 devs as a co-founder during it's peak and then did a dev and consultant stint at a mega corp after getting fed up with how bad PM can ruin everything and self-sabotaging itself. I…

I'm afraid my expertise is interviewing devs so I can't help you there. I'd also need more details to give more tips.

From the sound of it I'm not sure a BSc in ML will land you a PM job. I can also say that we are an applied science group. Our PMs are experts in our specific domain, not necessarily in ML.

Re: How do you break into a career in machine learning? (2020)

#60

Post by nachpatch »

serjester wrote: post #46

Personally I’m moving out of the field into general software development. As a data scientist I never found myself getting into a “flow state”. Most importantly I’ve found the impact of machine learning to be limited outside of massive companies which come with their own headaches. To add to that the number of jobs is limited and the competition is fierce. Not to say any of this is a negative, I just recommend people…

Same here, I did a bachelor in CS/math, then a masters in Data Science. Really enjoyed the theory/application a lot but did not like the idea of having to do it as a living.

If I have to build a piece of software then I can be quite certain that I can deliver. For a Data Science project on the other hand, there are a lot of ifs, e.g. quality of data, how well does it actual generalize, etc.

I think in an environment where the higher ups understand ML well and you have a good team it could be fun; the moment the higher ups don’t understand it so well, I feel like it could be the source of a lot of stress.

My recent recruiter was also skeptical at first when I applied for a swe position with an ML background.

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