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Ask HN: What is the outlook for a new career in ML or DS?

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Ask HN: What is the outlook for a new career in ML or DS?

#1

Post by MLwannabe »

More specifically, I'm in my early 30s and have been disabled with post concussive syndrome and ME/CFS.

I've been slowly hacking away at a math, coding and ML knowledgebase in concert with efforts to increase my work endurance, with the intention of accruing hard, demonstrable skills that could serve me well in any capacity. I assumed this was the most robust use of my limited energy because these skills could be used in almost any white collar position which uses computers to perform repetitive tasks or intersects with structured and unstructured data.

At least, that was the idea x years ago. Now it seems we're on the verge of a centralizing and commoditizing revolution in ML and UX where entire swaths of knowledge producer skills will become obsolete.

Where will that leave people trying for either ML engineer or more data analysis focused DS roles? Or even just everyday utility scripting/automating powers? Can even the latter two can be largely replaced by hybrid finetuned multi modal language/code models. I feel a bit lost and like I have wasted my time.

Will only elite scientists in the top percentiles of skill and resources be needed or will the future have room for more pedestrian aspirants?

Re: Ask HN: What is the outlook for a new career in ML or DS?

#2

Post by throwaway298525 »

I'm working in ML, and to be honest, looking to get out. The place I work seems to be rather keen on deskilling, replacing custom models with OTS components, requiring everything be written in Python and so on. I'd rather enjoyed working there the last couple of years, but the fun is slipping away, so I'm planning heading to general web-dev.

Re: Ask HN: What is the outlook for a new career in ML or DS?

#3

Post by moravak1984 »

throwaway298525 wrote: post #2

I'm working in ML, and to be honest, looking to get out. The place I work seems to be rather keen on deskilling, replacing custom models with OTS components, requiring everything be written in Python and so on. I'd rather enjoyed working there the last couple of years, but the fun is slipping away, so I'm planning heading to general web-dev.

Fun is gone, unless you like doing pharaonic "proof of concept" forever. There is still some dumb money out there, but I'm looking to jump ship to web-dev as well (since I'm doing IT anyway just for the money, academia is too corrupt, audiovisual arts are moonshot projects and everything else just sucks).

Re: Ask HN: What is the outlook for a new career in ML or DS?

#4

Post by bmitc »

throwaway298525 wrote: post #2

I'm working in ML, and to be honest, looking to get out. The place I work seems to be rather keen on deskilling, replacing custom models with OTS components, requiring everything be written in Python and so on. I'd rather enjoyed working there the last couple of years, but the fun is slipping away, so I'm planning heading to general web-dev.

> requiring everything be written in Python

This is the number one thing that doesn't make me want to even try the switch. I am trying to learn some machine learning for educational purposes, but I have free choice to use what I want: F#, Python, and Racket.

Re: Ask HN: What is the outlook for a new career in ML or DS?

#6

Post by nnoitra »

throwaway298525 wrote: post #2

I'm working in ML, and to be honest, looking to get out. The place I work seems to be rather keen on deskilling, replacing custom models with OTS components, requiring everything be written in Python and so on. I'd rather enjoyed working there the last couple of years, but the fun is slipping away, so I'm planning heading to general web-dev.

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: What is the outlook for a new career in ML or DS?

#8

Post by greatpostman »

My experience is that it’s a winner take all field. A small minority of candidates receive huge compensation. They have good degrees and publications. Generally they make 25-50% more than a similar level vanilla software engineer. This is especially the case at top tech companies.

If you aren’t one of those, being a regular swe is much better. A lot of ml roles are using canned models, and increasingly so. Many data science insights are ignored by the business, or the statistics don’t work on such a biased sample.

Re: Ask HN: What is the outlook for a new career in ML or DS?

#9

Post by timy2shoes »

neodypsis wrote: post #5

Are there more opportunities in the MLOps space?

As a hiring manager in the field, my opinion is yes. Companies are realizing reliably obtaining and processing data is harder and more critical than model built. Especially for early stage companies.

Re: Ask HN: What is the outlook for a new career in ML or DS?

#10

Post by yold__ »

greatpostman wrote: post #8

My experience is that it’s a winner take all field. A small minority of candidates receive huge compensation. They have good degrees and publications. Generally they make 25-50% more than a similar level vanilla software engineer. This is especially the case at top tech companies. If you aren’t one of those, being a regular swe is much better. A lot of ml roles are using canned models, and increasingly so. Many data…

> Generally they make 25-50% more than a similar level vanilla software engineer.

It's often even less in my experience. Despite having a "unicorn" skillset (soft-skills, advanced degree, domain experience, and SWE experience), I make about as much as a vanilla SWE. There are a huge number of inexperienced PhDs that want into the field, and we are flooded with resumes every time a DS leaves. Also, most of the time, models don't really matter. What makes or breaks most DS projects is soft-skills, stakeholder management, and data cleaning / feature engineering.

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