MS in AI/ML after 10+ yoe as software engineer? Need suggestions.
Hi, I have 10+ yoe in software engineer field and considering to go for MS in AI/ML from Georgia tech or ASU. It will take 2 years for the program. Plan is to get into AI/ML as I think career wise it will be more relevant and good $$$. MS from those universities will good on resume. Suggestions welcomed.
Ms in Georgia tech was a great idea for me. It let me get into ML and also kept the brain sharp.
I am loosing my brain now..no motivation to work at all.
Are you already in US?
Yes
Don’t do it. Become a better software dev and you’ll have much better growth opportunities
Better software dev by doing LC?
Yes and no. Do LC first (a lot of LC) to get a huge pay bump sooner, and be in a place that helps you grow. When you’re there, build on the skills you already have, go all out!
I'm not sure if the Masters alone would be enough to break into ML. What matters more is practical experience so maybe invest time in side projects, Kaggle etc. Also would be good to have a clear understanding of why you wanna get into ML. If the answer is $$$$, then it's a bad idea. But if the answer is you enjoy work related to data, model analysis, productionization, latency monitoring etc etc, then yes.
Are you at ml in Google? I am not able to get into ml at Google. So I built up experience reading articles and getting a part time MS in ML and had to go through a fb loop
Yeah I'm an MLE here. I'm not sure about your internal transfer to ML would work, I'm guessing it's really hard. I was doing ML at Apple before this, I was downlevelled when I joined G but at least I directly started working on ML/data projects. I'm sure you can join as backend, deployment, monitoring type roles in ML teams if you can find them
I work in software and ML. Mostly on scaling ML systems so I would say that most ML problems after assembling libraries requires serious brain power and credentials. I'll just focus on improving software design skills instead of focusing on ML. You could look into ML Systems or MLOps alternatively.
To be honest what we study in Theory and what we do in practical are poles apart. I have seen many MLE whose complete work just revolves around parameter tuning of open source models and data preparation. I don't say there is no good work in ML, but majority of it is done in research labs like MSR/Google Research and these research labs have complete different work when compared to normal Dev work which may not interest to everyone.
Don’t do it. Waste of $. Instead do masters in CS.
You can do ms in AI part time
I know - but it’s still a waste on money.
I doubt AI/ML will pay you more from those schools. To make it big, I think you need to go to a brand school and maybe do a PHD
I guess MS is just not required. Do LC and get a good $$$ job. Also if MS in Al/ ML won't get you a job in that particular area then what will?
You can get your foot in the door in a less competitive company, have good success there and build your resume, then move up to the company of your choice. That's what worked for me
If $$$ is the motivation, do LC and switch every 2-3 years, no need of wasting time in MS
Yes $$$ is a motivation. But also to do something else rather than building enterprise apps and platforms.
AI/ML is not all fun as well. A lot of it is figuring out how to prepare the data and tuning the model by tweaking parameters. Just get an MLE position and help scale the models