Long story short, I became aware of the position through networking in the tech/startup community in Ann Arbor, and eventually got introduced to an ML prof who

Long story short, I became aware of the position through networking in the tech/startup community in Ann Arbor, and eventually got introduced to an ML prof who knows the profs who are actually running the lab. I applied to the position with a resume and cover letter customized to relevance of the role (compressed a lot of startup / product / leadership stuff down, went into more details on tech stuff, emphasized ML studies, excitement for mission of their lab) and met with the profs a few times and it worked out. If I can extract any advice from this, it's that putting yourself out there and letting the world / your network know that you are interested in something or working towards something (in my case: a transition to a career applying ML), things might turn up. Also: if you have more experience you should feel comfortable completely customizing your resume to the role so you have one page jam packed with relevance; it's ok if they don't see (or won't care) about some of your experience. I also notice that in some of your previous HN discussion you lamenting companies not really looking at your open source work; it's annoying that they wouldn't take the chance to look. But if I were you I might highlight specific projects on your resume relevant to the role you are applying to if you haven't been doing this already; this could elevate your open source work to job experience in its emphasis. Assume 99% of people will only see your resume, everything else should be supporting resources in case they get interested enough to look (or wish to validate your claims).