What can I do to prepare myself as an incoming ML scientist?
I recently landed the role of a senior ML scientist at a well-known company. My previous experience has been mostly in software engineering with a few ML-related projects. I was expecting to be evaluated at IC3 or lower, but the hiring team evaluated me at a senior level. I want to make sure that I deliver at the level I was hired for. To that end, it would be greatly appreciated if anyone has any recommendations about what can I do to prepare myself for the job.
Edit: The role is going to be mostly R&D related but also take scalability, deployment, and monitoring into consideration.
Discussion
(4 comments)- 1
3 months agoThoughtful TarodactylTaro CommunityJust to clarify your role will be in core ML -- ML R&D/Data Science (building and training ML models and ML R&D) and less ML Engineering (Building and scaling ML systems)?
Going along that assumption, in my experience senior ML scientists have shown incredible depth and understanding of ML. I would definitely deep dive into the ML stuff they are working on and understanding the technical details of the underlying stuff they work on. e.g. if they do computer vision object detection I would ensure I have a deep understanding of object detection
- 03 months agoSearching Jobs [OP]Taro Community
Thank you, appreciate the response! You are correct - the work will be mostly R&D while considering some aspects of production deployment.
The manager mentioned a few things about the kind of projects I would be working on during the interview. I will spend some time brushing up on those skills. Would it be acceptable to reach out to the manager to share the plan and ask them if anything additional is worth considering?
- 1
3 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroCongrats on the new role! I personally wouldn't worry too much about preparing prior to starting the job (you should just relax as interviews are such a grind), but if you really want to do so: "What's the best way to prepare 'before' joining the next team/company?"
I don't have advice on specific ML stuff, but for great overall onboarding tactics, check out our course: [Course] The Complete Onboarding Guide For Software Engineers: Succeeding When You're New
Since you got some information on the projects you'll be working on from your manager, building related side projects is another way to prepare.
- 13 months agoSearching Jobs [OP]Taro Community
That's great! Thank you for the links to those resources, Alex. I was planning to watch the Onboarding course later. I am glad you agree with that too!
