How I got Machine Learning Job
This is first article in Machine Learning Series. I would like to give an introduction on how i have learnt ML and moved to ML job position from other working profile.I would like to share with you on how i have learnt ML through Online Courses, Projects and other materials. I am going you share you those links as well.
My First ML Course¶
I completed my Masters in Control Systems in 2014 and started my professional career in an Automotive Company. I have no background of Machine Learning till then. But, both of my roommates are placed in DataScience companies and they started discussing on how amazing Machine Learning is and all the wonders it would be able to do. This has motivated me to learn Machine Learning and when i asked them, they suggested an Online Course Machine Learning by Andrew NG which is available on Coursera.
Andrew NG is a well known Professor in this field and his lectures , in this course would enahnce the enthusiam to learn more in Machine Learning. He explains the concepts like Linear Regression, Logistic Regression, Evaluting your model, Introduction to Neural Networks, Support Vector Machines and few other.
One good part about this course is that we should submit the codes which includes implementing these algorithms as part of Assignments.
It took me around 2 months to complete this course as i do this course after my work hours.
Is this enough?¶
After completing my first course, i asked my roommate to refer to ML Position in his Company. First round of Interview is Telephonic one. I am overconfident that i can crack this interview and get a Job in ML. In Interview, I introduced myself and told that i studied ML from Coursera's Machine Learning Course. She was expecting that i learnt ML during my college.
Here are few question she asked for which i answered as well.
- Explan Linear Regression
- What is SVM and explain its working
- Quoted some example and asked if this is overfitting/underfitting scenario
- List Activation functions that you know
I could answer all these questions without much trouble.
But She asked me either i have implemented them in any real time projects for which i said no.
Interview is over and finally when i enquired about the result, he told that interview is not successfull. I was in shock by this and then realized, lack of real time implementation amy be reason for my rejection. There was a network breakdown a multiple times, that may have also impacted the result.
I am already 1.5 years of experience by this time and company would prefer freshers with basic ML knowledge than an experienced with zero realtime ML experience.
I have realized that this isn't enough for getting into ML Position. So, i decided to learn more and can get a ML Job later.
My Second ML Course¶
I started searching in Quora and Online for suggestions and found "Learning From Data" Course from Prof. Abu Mustafa, Caltech is a good one.
Following link would give you the playlist of all the video lectures that professor has taught during the course
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbyG85GZ0PI&list=PLnIDYuXHkit4LcWjDe0EwlE57WiGlBs08
This Course will take you to the mathematical concepts behind Machine Learning Algorithms and its process of learning. This is comparatively harder course to do. While explaining, this course would seem very understandable. but, for me. its been quite a challenge to remember these concepts. I had to refer my notes back again and again to recall them.
Main highlights of this course are the concepts of VC Dimension, Derivation of SVM and few others which really made me awestruck
A lot of content in this course is not taught in Andrew NG's ML Course and viceversa is also True. This is because both course are intended for different objective. One for covering possible ML algorithms and other for covering the math behind them
Completing this course gave me a proud feeling that i did what everyone couldn't do. :-p
My First DL Course¶
Realizing the emergence of Deep Learning during this time, I again searched online for Deep Learing Course and found one offered by Oxford University which is available on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlhFWT7vAEw&list=PLcmaziH9sW6PHBhsM_qgf52Ay6EVY8cWT
These are again recorded video lectures, taught in 2015 which was a year old by the time i am viewing it. This course introduces to deep learning, and concepts of CNN, LSTM, RNN and soon. It also touch upon various architectures available at that time.
These lectures are very interesting and helped my grew my interest in Deep Learning.
My First DL Implementation¶
I am now little worried that i am learning theoritical part of ML/DL but not implementing on realtime projects. Then i came to know about a online course website "Kadenze"
There are a collection of three courses which are focused on implementation of DL Aritectures and Solutions using Tensorflow. This course is mainly focused on the implementation where the presentor would code each line in the session and show its output. This has made my life easy and also helped me in trying out the code which watching those videos.
The examples taken in this course and implementation made be awestruck and further made my interest inclined towards Deep Learning. I couldn't stop myself from talking about what wonders Deep Learning can do.
Moved to a ML Position¶
I have spent most of my after work hours learning ML/DL courses. I have drained a lot of my energy as i am loaded with current Job work and also working on learning DL after that. This concerned me a lot and thought of changing to another job where i could see potential of ML implementation. I am 1.9 years experience by this time. I started looking for a Job and got a Wind Turbine Control Design Engineer Position in another company. Though its not direct ML position, i could feel that there is a chance to implement ML as one of solutions in Wind Turbine.
Now, when i resigned and serving my notice period, my department head called me and was discussing on possible ways i can be retained. In that discussion, he listed me possible oppurtunities i can take up. I am very much delighted seeing that list. He had mentioned two ML related positions. Both are still in planning stage. Still i felt, i can take up one and discussed with those two department heads regarding what are their plans about the team. One of them is not so sure on how the team going to progress and also on forming this new team.
I met the Department Head of other team. He asked me whether i know ML , where did i learn it, do you know image processing. I dont know much of Image Processing but learnt how dealing with solving Image related DL problems on Kadenze. Finally he is satisfied with me and told me that he would take into that new team on Machine Learning and Computer Vision Team.
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