How I became an Intern Machine Learning Engineer
This post outlines how I changed careers and my journey to getting my foot in the door. I studied Mechanical Engineering at university, then started a career in sales. Technical sales to be specific, where I was selling all kinds of tech courses, conferences and free meet-ups.
I wanted to learn more about data and sustainability. During my time in sales, I self-taught myself python and had taken a 2-day course on Deep Learning. I was speaking to someone new every other week about advice for career changing, or a potential interview, but alas it didn’t lead me very far. After a year and a half of working in sales I’d had enough. I quit.
After quitting, I did some solo-travelling, started a few miscellaneous courses (data science and Tableau to name a few) and worked for a short time in sales again. It felt like the gap year I had always wanted to take (in a 6-month period).
I was eager to get my foot in the door, but at the same time, I came to a realization. I need to work on projects. If there is one piece of advice you take away from reading this article, it is that your experience and the projects you work on can provide you with a great grounding point to take off from.
This was the first year I participated in Hacktoberfest, but there were only 2 events left to join when I signed up. One where I learned a whole lot about Git, and another where I met 2 awesome guys who showed me how to start my own project, like a to-do list app. I had also kept in touch with a contact (we’ll call him Karl) that I had reached out to during my time in Sales, and Karl would periodically tell me about events and introduce me to his contacts.
My project work prior to this point was very limited. I had a large tech network on LinkedIn due to my time working in technical sales, so I made a post about getting started with project advice.
In the space of 1 week thereafter, here is what happened:
- Karl introduced me to another girl, but this time she actually referred me to her company for a Machine Learning Internship, which I actually got to interview for.
- I was offered a role as a Data Analyst by someone whom I had worked with before.
- A conference that Karl recommended I attend, led me to set up 5 interviews for potential data in sustainability roles.
- At least 5 people from my network messaged me saying that they would be happy to refer me to their company for a data role.
It all happened at once, and as someone who was changing careers, I thought it was best to start with the internship. It was research-based, would take me out of my comfort zone, and seemed like a perfect amount of time to let me figure out whether or not I would like to pursue a career in Data Science.
In my next post, I discuss my first week and some of the challenges I faced during the rest of my internship.
You can find/follow me on the following: Twitter, LinkedIn, and my website.
