I got good at mathematics. IMHO, This is the key step in making the shift from enterprise dev to ML. This is also where I've seen many people making the attemp

I got good at mathematics. IMHO, This is the key step in making the shift from enterprise dev to ML. This is also where I've seen many people making the attempt give up. I also worked through some AI/Machine Learning books. I started with Norvig and Russell's AIMA and open sourced resulting Java code (yes it is a beginner's book and not tough at all, but it is very well written and a great starting point). Then I worked through more narrowly focuses books (and there are plenty of nice books see lists below). I got involved in the local ML community (mostly defence labs - Bangalore doesn't have many cutting edge startups/ sw companies yet). The combination of deep math and good programming opens many doors (as Bradford Cross and others point out elsewhere - see Brad's post at http://measuringmeasures.blogspot.com/2010/01/learning-about-statistical-learning.html http://measuringmeasures.blogspot.com/2010/01/learning-about... for a list of resources . I wrote a supplementary blog post on the books I found useful (I have a somewhat different focus from Bradford and so ended up working through a different set of books) at http://pindancing.blogspot.com/2010/01/learning-about-machine-learniing.html http://pindancing.blogspot.com/2010/01/learning-about-machin...). It helped that I didn't know I was not supposed to do such "crazy" things in my old age and (perhaps rather naively in retrospect) didn't doubt for a second I could teach myself anything I wanted to. I have zero academic background comp sci/math/ML etc. My proudest moment was when a senior researcher I respect highly at first refused to believe I had no formal education in ML and, when I maintained my position, said " Well if you don't have a PhD you should think about getting one. I never met anyone who levelled up as fast as you. If you ever need a reccomendation for a PhD I'll be glad to give you one". And this was someone with a few dozen credentialed junior scientists in his team (some of whom were majorly pissed off that someone with no academic credentials was in a position to tell them what they were doing wrong and what to do next but that is another story for another day). Well enough reminiscing for today. Back to work. My current project involves Computer Vision and Robotics. Quite a change from the Leasing System From Hell (Old time ThoughtWorkers will get the joke! ). But I am tackling tough problems, learning new things every day and often "going where no one has gone before" programmatically. Life is good.