I'm a machine learning engineer at an AI speech recognition startup. There are tons of different job descriptions for a machine learning engineer, so let me define my job.
I'm part of a deep learning team at a small startup organization. Just to emphasize how small we are, I was his second machine learning engineer and third hire in the entire startup. My job is to conduct research and development of various deep learning methods. This includes implementing and training new neural network architectures, scaling out the ML training infrastructure on large compute clusters, and devising ways to best optimize models for production environments. As a small team, we are proud to have built one. Speech recognition service with the highest performance It has defeated technology giants such as Google, AWS, and Microsoft to achieve its top position in the world.
I know from experience that seeing job postings related to machine learning can be very discouraging. It is very common to come across job openings that require advanced degrees such as master's degrees or doctoral degrees. Some posts may require more years of framework experience than the framework has been around.
I have a bachelor's degree in computer science. I've worked with people who have degrees in fields unrelated to computer science. I've worked with people who don't even have a degree and are still doing machine learning professionally.
In this article, I want to talk about the steps I took to land a job in machine learning and how it can be possible for you too. Now I know that my path is not the only path, but it's the path that worked for me and I want to show you a plausible path to the career you want.
I learn most of my machine learning from the greatest knowledge base that has ever existed: the internet. Many resources out there recommend starting with the basics, such as statistics and probability, linear algebra, and calculus. It is stated that you need to have a deep understanding of these mathematics subjects before you begin. That's because that's how PhDs most likely got into machine learning.
