Switching from Data Science to Software Engineer
Hi folks, I have a PhD in Electrical Engineering from a tier-2 US public university, and have been working as a Data Scientist (DS) in the semiconductor industry. I have a good background in math, statistics and machine learning (currently picking up on some Deep Learning with Prof. Andrew Ng's Coursera courses). Also I have developed some software in Python with PyQt for GUI for colleagues to automate their data analyses. WLB is nice and laid back here; managers are nice and supportive but markets are in bear cycles. I want to make to pump up TC so do you think I should switch to a Software Engineer (SWE) role as SWE can get paid more than DS? How do I get into FANG as I don't have SWE experiences? I just started some leetcodes last week. TC 130K YOE 4 years Appreciate your feedback.
Go to fang as DS? Work with pm/see while you learn and practice do internal transfer to swe
I have seen folks from tier 3 universities with PhDs working in top companies and making good money. If you think you are good in stats and math then why are you wasting your time at semiconductor industry with below market tc? LinkedIn pays top of the market with pretty good wlb.
I'm in the same boat as you. I'm preparing for machine learning software engineer interviews. It's a niche between machine learning engineers and software engineers. The interview bar for areas like system design is lower than SWE. Try to get a strong base in CS fundamentals like algorithms and data structures. Take princeton algorithms course from coursera. You'll be well equipped to think ctirically in the interviews. Practice leetcode easy & medium problems. Also practice problems from craking the coding interview book. Read blogs/watch youtube for system design and operating system fundamentals. Finally, for machine learning, understand the basics & intuition behind core ML techniques. No need to try to get hands experience about all the models under the sun, you can't keep up. I recommend introduction to statistical learning book.
i know this is old, but what advice do you have on how to create a swe resume despite not having hands on experience on the job? side projects? does it look bad if your swe experience is only reflected in side projects?
Leetcode