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Ask HN: Programmer –> ML Engineer?
Hello, all my professional life had something to do with programming, I was a SWE, team leader, architect, SWE again. I enjoy what I do but I also enjoy other aspects of CS fields at large.
In University and in my master's program I did some introductory courses to ML/AI. I probably forgot most of it since I didn't use what I've learned.
If I am to get up to speed in the ML/AI thing, it would mean probably one or two years of part time learning since I work full time and I have kids.
I enjoy ML and find it useful, probably not more than software engineering but enough to be willing to work in the field.
My questions are:
1. from a financial perspective is it worth to dedicate a long time to learn and become a ML engineer? Is the pay much better?
2. is the field stable, the need for ML engineers in 10 years from now on be at least the same as in present
3. for people who quit programming to become ML engineers: do you like it, do you derive enough satisfaction from what you do, are you paid better?
Thank you!
- jstx1 4y ago> for people who quit programming to become ML engineers This is a weird way to frame it; there's no quitting programming involved, it's a switch from one kind of software job to another. > I enjoy ML and find it useful, probably not more than software engineering Again, MLE is a kind of SWE. So overall it's not as big of a switch as you're making it out to be. Think of it as being similar to a front end web dev who moves to mobile development, or some other domain change.
- DeathArrow 4y agoStill, it's a lot to learn. I don't want to just use ML algorithms, I want to be able to thoroughly understand and be able to build ML algorithms. Learning something for me means from the lower to the higher levels. If the phrasing is more important that the general idea, let me rephrase it: * for people who quit other software engineering fields to become ML engineers *
- jstx1 4y agoDepending on how deep you want to go in the implementation details, you may want to look into research positions. An MLE job isn't that different from a backend dev job.