Looking for a new job as a Computer Vision / Machine Learning Engineer - How to go about it?

You have some ambiguity about whether you're ready for the interviews or not. The best way to combat this is simply to interview.

Apply for a company and schedule an interview in the next month. This will help you calibrate how much more prep you need to do, and the timeline will give your studying some direction.

The other thing to consider is to explore more about the CV/ML roles you're interested in. Sounds like this is a new field for you, so find people at your current company (or use Taro Networking) to talk to practitioners. This will give you an idea of the company size/domain/technology that you're most interested in.

I highly recommend reading my career pivot/stack switch guide here: "How to transition from back-end development to distributed systems?"

I study consistently but not sure if it's the most efficient way.

Consistent studying with no action is the easiest way to waste your time, especially in this economy. As Rahul mentioned, bias towards action. It is almost impossible to feel fully prepared for an interview. The important thing is to figure out how unprepared you truly are and where you stand in the market: You do that by applying and taking interviews. You're not laid off, but I recommend this thread as well to learn more: "How to prepare for interviews after layoff?"

The market still sucks, but I'm quite confident things will get better in 2024. Enjoy your holidays and when the new year starts, I recommend really amping up your job search. Follow this playlist when that time comes: [Taro Top 10] Finding A Tech Job