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Ask Slashdot: How To Get Into Machine Learning?

Posted by samzenpus on from the starting-over dept.

An anonymous reader writes: I know this is a vague question, but hoping to get some useful feedback anyway. I'm an experienced SW Engineer/Developer who is looking to get into the Machine Learning arena. I have an MS in CS and a solid 15 years of experience in a variety of areas, but no experience in Machine Learning.With that as background, my question is: What is the most time-efficient (and reasonable cost) way to:
(1) Decide whether Machine Learning is for me and
(2) Make myself employable in the field.
An additional constraint is that I can't afford to quit my full-time day job. Thanks.

1 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Coursera by Aighearach · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I'm not sure that would help a failed engineer.

    He says he has 15 years as a "SW engineer/developer" which I take to literally mean "SW developer with no engineering training."

    He also says that even with 15 years of experience, which should make him a high paid senior developer making six figures, he can't afford to quit his day job. Well gee, whiz.

    My advice, forget about machine learning for now. Spend the next 5 years learning to budget your income, and setting aside some money to live on for a few years while you transition away from the job that you don't like but borrowed yourself into slavery to. Also, gosh, what if you lost your job for other reasons, or there was a natural disaster? You'd be screwed if you're living paycheck to paycheck on "15 years experience" money. An earthquake could mean losing your house and car, because you overflow your buffer as soon as there is an interruption in the money signal.

    And when you get there, I can answer the original question for you easily:

    Q: Is [narrow specialization] for me?
    A: No

    Just keep repeating until you hit a specialization that you don't have to ask about, because in your generalized work in the field you've already been interested enough by it to learn about it, and so you know a bit already and you know a bit about how it relates to the rest of the field. If you're not there yet, the answer will remain "no," and once you get there, you're not going to be asking; you'll already be a specialist, just one who is working in a general position. And then you can easily decide to change jobs, or not.

    If you have 15 years experience, you should be approaching paying off your mortgage. You should be in a position to change careers if you want.