(not an ML person, take with grain of salt) I think someone without experience training a model to high-accuracy might struggle at a startup where they're the

(not an ML person, take with grain of salt) I think someone without experience training a model to high-accuracy might struggle at a startup where they're the first hire in the department, but at a larger company, presumably there are senior folks to help newcomers along. I think having motivation is a much better signal, and you need to be motivated to develop a side-project of significant magnitude.