[akshaysehgal]

Originally Posted by Samurai

In other words, less than 5% (may be lesser) of folks really do analysis and build models. Rest do clean up and prepare the data.

That means most of the data analysts/scientists are really data washerman or data dhobis.

...

Here, the customer thinks he needs ML/AI, the vendors pretends to give ML/AI. Everyone is happy.

This is true and I have seen this happen increasingly over the last decade I have been in this domain. I hope the following advice is useful for the large percentage of people looking to join a company offering a "data scientist" or an "ML engineer" role.

Machine learning teams can only thrive when the following conditions are met -

1. There is a LOT of data that the company naturally would generate
2. The company has a TON of money to push towards R&D which are the heaviest cost centers
3. Most importantly, the company is into building products that can actually use ML in the backend. If it's a service industry-based company, then people are mostly just building analysis reports with basic statistical models and calling it "AI".

These three should be good enough criteria for deciding whether the "data scientist" or "ML engineer" role that a company offers is actually what it claims to be.

For evaluating the specific team you plan to join -

1. Check the hiring manager's background. If it's in core ML roles and companies, it's likely they would have evaluated the company themselves before joining it.
2. Ask how closely the team works with DevOps and business teams such as sales/marketing. If they work closely with the latter, it's a red flag. DevOps and other development teams should be working directly with ML teams (intersection is nowadays called as MLOps), which is the true sign of a team that actually builds true AI, and ML models for a product, and not building reports, dashboards, and client Adhoc requests, which are a job for data analysts.
3. Ask for projects which the team has on its portfolio. They should have some solid applications of NLP, Computer vision, or Graph neural networks, at least in some of the primary projects. Else it's likely they are just building statistical models and calling it AI. You have the right to ask them this if they can ask you to describe a previous project of yours
4. Ask if the team has patents, papers, and other journals published through them. A sign of a good R&D-focused team is that its members participate in academia regularly.

Do remember though: The churn rate in this domain is extremely high, even though the salaries and job role might be super attractive on the outside. The reason is that it's not a standard 9-5 job role. For someone to succeed (or just survive) in this domain, they have to keep learning and upgrading themselves. It's a fast-moving research field and if you are not up to date with the latest research, you will soon be left so behind that you would yourselves move out of the domain.

Be prepared for -

1. A 9-hour job + a 3-hour study period each day for a 12-hour work day
2. Be prepared for forcing yourself to learn mathematics, coding, solution architecture, cloud infrastructure, and reading papers on a daily basis
3. Be prepared in spending major time in front of the screen
4. Be prepared to feel like a very small fish in a large pond. The academia-focused industries can sometimes feel very elitist and not that welcoming. Your credentials in academia mean a lot here, sadly sometimes overlooking your actual potential

What you get for all of this is -

1. Tier 1 salaries and unmatched hikes YoY
2. Quality of work is really good, never gets boring or monotonous. Always stimulating and enriching work
3. Usually (big question mark here) a good, well-read, worldly-wise leadership who comes from pedigree colleges/institutions and can act as great mentors
4. Solid brand names for your portfolio, since usually the bigger players in the industry, explore proper AI/ML products.

One last piece of advice for beginners who want to get into the AI space after college, avoid startups as your first job unless you are very confident about the work they do. It's hard to pour money into R&D and AI, when you are trying to stay afloat yourselves

Feel free to connect with me on Linkedin if you need any help.

- Akshay

[boniver]

Originally Posted by rnkgrg

I would appreciate any sort of help that anyone can provide, be it leads for jobs (for freshers) in your firm, or referrals, or even any guidance as to how can I go about it.

Cannot PM you as you're a newbie. Please drop me an email: sayantanc99 at gmail dot com

[chaitanyakrish]

Need expert opinions from our group

What would be the career options for 12+ years in IT ?

Current PROS :

1. Well paying job
2. Little Debt

CONS :
1. Little stagnant after 10+ years in IT and need a change in role.
2. current companies offer less flexibility in terms of career switches.

Is it worth pursuing a 1 year MBA or 1 year Masters? I am into SAP space but , I worked a lot of research/analytics projects within SAP Operations( not SAP BW)

With the current salaries almost equal to post MBA salary of graduates, will the ROI be justified ?

[sunilch]

Originally Posted by chaitanyakrish

Need expert opinions from our group

With the current salaries almost equal to post MBA salary of graduates, will the ROI be justified ?

Neither an expert, nor able to answer your full query. But, ROI will not be justified in pure economic terms. More so because you will have lost opportunity to account for, apart from the possibility of getting lower pay than current post MBA when you actually make industry/profile switch.

But, from a desire perspective, it will be a good path to take if you get an admit into a Good MBA school and the economy stays strong when you passout.

[hothatchaway]

Honestly speaking, if you are thinking of doing an mba now, after 12 years, in order to change your field, it may be dicey. You will be neither here nor there as recruiters will not know how to fit you.
If possible, try and get a job in the field you want. I hope it is not completely unrelated as it makes things difficult

[warrioraks]

Originally Posted by chaitanyakrish

need a change in role.

I would not suggest an MBA or making any move till the time you are able to write at least a paragraph on the four quoted words above. What exactly are you looking for in a new role? Is there a way your current role provide that? One advice I can give right off the bat - It’s always better to run towards something you want VS running away from something you don’t want.

[drumbrakes]

Hi,
I am a psychology undergraduate at IGNOU. Since I am in my second year, I can't take up a psychology job where they will pay me. (or maybe they can IDK I couldn't find any).

I mostly stay at home and I am getting a little frustrated due to that.

My goals are:
1. Develop a deep understanding of psychological theory.
2. Earn a little money.
3. Have some real-life exposure.

I tried LinkedIn and Internshala but no luck, sadly. I also sent emails to almost every psychologist nearby. I did an internship with a counsellor and she wasn't good but still, I worked with her for four months learning all I could. Now I don't know what to do next.

Any advice would be highly appreciated. Thanks.

[vgaquarius]

Hi Guys. I have come across the posts on this thread multiple times but little did i know that I'll land up here writing my stuff.

It did take some courage to put it down all, but at the end of the day it all comes down to what we actually are deep inside. I recently completed my Bachelors in Mechanical engineering and had plans for a masters degree. I didn't prefer attending the campus placements as I was busy developing my resume for the long term goal I had. I did have some plans to purse a masters in Automotive Engineering from Germany which did go into vain due to some reasons. Somehow, I managed to get an admit from one of the best universities in US for Automotive Research in the end of May 2022 and I was on cloud nine in those days. Now this is where the main story begins.

US is referred to as the land of opportunities but the situation is actually contrasting. As soon as i received my admit, the biggest hustle was to get a F1 Visa slot in the US embassy. In brief, after opening the visa booking portal, you have to choose 2 appointments, one for the biometric verification and the other for visa interview. Both these slots would be different and can't be booked separately. Moreover, You can open the portal 3 times a day with no more than a few clicks to check for the slots at different locations, else your account would be banned for 72 hours straight! The slots can open at any time of the day, millions of candidates in the pipeline and not more than 10-15 slots opening altogether.

Without any second thought, I pounced into this endless loop and did the needful. Stayed awake the entire night, used to sleep for not more than 4-5 hours a day and that too not at a stretch. After this exercise from 26th May to 13th June, i finally got a slot at the Mumbai consulate.

Opting for a place nearby wasn't an option as you'll have to pick what you get! Travelled from Shimla to Mumbai and had to stay there for almost a week. Could have considered it fruitful if the last day at Mumbai would have been good enough. My Visa interview was on the 5th of July and I was ready with all the necessary documentation and something way too strange happened.

Me: Good Morning Officer!
VO (Visa Officer): Ignore (just pointed towards the passport and i20 to be handed over)

VO: Which university are you going to?
Me: I am going for my masters degree at XYZ University

VO: Course?
Me: I have chosen an automotive engineering course.

VO: Which universities did you get and an admit from?
Me: I applied to ABC and XYZ university and chose XYZ.

VO: You have been denied the US Visa. Please try the next time.

There was literally no reason to be rejected as I had all my documents complete. Most of the rejections are either due to blacklisted universities or due to lack of funds. Neither was the university blacklisted, nor did i even reach the stage for presenting my financial documents.

Still, I flew back to Shimla and kept my morale high. I thought of retrying, but little did i know that the visa booking portal is blocked for 20 days. There were millions of candidates who were rejected just because of a moody visa officer and now were not getting slots. Multiple whatsapp and telegram groups flooded with messages all the day and people in distress but there was one common link of having a hope from an old tweet by the US embassy where they said that they would be opening the slots for refused candidates. This is where many people found the opportunity to sell visa slots at unbelievable prices (ranging from 10k to 5 lakh INR). You won't ever know if you were talking to a refused candidate on telegram or a dealer.

The dealers were never able to get anyone a refused slot as they haven't opened till date. However, these dealers used to mark these refused candidates as "freshers" and get them a slot. It was entirely a try your luck situation which i wanted to refrain from!

It happened multiple times when people used to blow a whistle for open slots and we ended up wasting our logins. This was to terrify the refused candidates to make them reach their maximum logins. So, a person playing safe at the end would opt for a dealer instead of opening the account himself.

Till date, no exclusive slots for refused candidates have been opened by the US embassy and the candidates like me waiting for 'refusal' slots and not trying anything unethical are suffering!

As i didn't participate in the campus placements, I was jobless after my degree. I had two entrepreneurial ventures which I had to shut down in order to complete the formalities for the US student visa so that they don't become a hurdle or a point of doubt.

Ultimately, I have landed into a business development and analyst role in a startup based in Gurgaon and I just don't know where life will take me as I got into this just to pull off the tag of a 'jobless' mechanical engineer.

I was into cars since my childhood and tried everything i could. The things did slip out of hand but now I'm glad that i gave my best and now I am looking forward to apply for opportunities exclusive to the automotive sector. My decision of doing a masters is getting way too dicey now and I want serious suggestions and leads for job would be appreciated!

[Red Liner]

Originally Posted by vgaquarius

My decision of doing a masters is getting way too dicey now and I want serious suggestions and leads for job would be appreciated!

Better posted at the career guidance thread.

Why dont you apply to europe, japan or other countries apart from the US?

[vgaquarius]

Originally Posted by Red Liner

Better posted at the career guidance thread.

Why dont you apply to europe, japan or other countries apart from the US?

I did try Germany, but due to the feedback of many working professionals there, i decided to pull off this decision. Other than that, I'm looking for other countries too! Japan seems to be difficult in terms of linguistic barriers!

[saitvsk23]

Hello all. I'm pursuing my B.Tech in Automobile Engineering from a reputed deemed to be university situated in Andhra Pradesh. Currently i'm having CGPA of 8.34, and by January of 2023 i'll be finishing the final semester exams of 4th yr 1st sem. And in 4-2, it is mandated in our regulation to do an internship. I have no local opportunities in and around my campus, and in my home state (Telangana).

I'm looking for an intern position in any automobile company (preferably 2-wheelers - 4-wheeler companies are also appreciated) in designing department. I am trained in autoCAD, Siemens Solid Edge and presently undergoing training in ANSYS. Willing to travel anywhere for the position. Any leads are appreciated.

Also, anyone who's working at Hero MotoCorp's CIT Jaipur centre, with ability to hire interns or something along those lines, please help me out. I'll be forever indebted to you.

Thanks in advance.

[Black_Star]

I am looking for advice from the senior members. I recently completed my MBA from a Tier II college this summer, specializing in HR but the college placements didnt offer any placements in the HR field so I rejected those jobs. I also work as a manager of a local contract firm, working to maintain their labor wages, looking after their EPF, ESI accounts, e-commerce website, social media pages, and even deal with customer relationship.

However recently I have been selected for a position of Senior Associate in Tech Mahindra Hydrabad, its a BPO job but they need someone with experience in HR, thus I get to pursue HR field. The thing is my parents want me to purse LLB, stating that I will get better job offers if I pursue that from a top university or college, considering I already have a MBA degree. So is it worth getting an LLB degree (specializing in labor laws, business law or international law) after MBA, or will I be wasting my time for 3 years? Or should I hold out for a more HR focused job?

Also the thing is I want to pursue PhD abroad, after working in the HR field and gaining the relevant experience. So is it worth getting the job now, or should I pursue LLB or search for an HR executive position? Or try to pursue HR or labor law degree abroad now?

Sorry if my questions are not focused, but looking forward to your advice.

[vedirah]

Hi all, didn't know where to post this so I'm posting it here. I'm currently employed by Rolls-Royce and drawing an annual salary of 12 LPA. Recently I was offered a job at Airbus in Bristol, UK. The salary they are offering is 29k GBP. It is a global graduate program.

I currently hold close to 3 years of experience in the industry and a master's degree from a reputed college. Is it worth moving to UK on the salary they have offered? Or should I stay back in India and probably look at a job switch to get a better salary here? To be honest, the prospect of moving to the UK is quite alluring. But I need to make a sane decision. To give you some context, I'm a single guy and I'm 29 years old.

[Samurai]

The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

OMG, my tribe is dying off...

But the take away for this thread:

Even so, C++ regularly appears in the top 4 of the TIOBE index, earning it a place in their “big 4.”

The reality is that there are plenty of C++ jobs available in finance, and that compared to other languages there are comparatively few people to fill them. The language may be hard. But it's also worth it.

And finance jobs pay a lot. Wish I could apply, but I can't.

[AltoLXI]

Originally Posted by Samurai

The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

OMG, my tribe is dying off...

NSA wants developers to switch over from C/C++ to memory safe languages. No trampling on the system memory or tables

The spy agency cites recent research from Google and Microsoft that 70% of their security issues, respectively in Chrome and Windows, were memory-related and many of them were the result of using C and C++, which are more prone to memory-based vulnerabilities.

Link