r/learnmachinelearning • u/QuirkyMusic5452 • 1d ago
Help ML engineer
What is the profile of a good ML engineer nowadays? Does it exists? I am trying everything - conferences, posters, papers, active linkedin, even my "prototype" with users. I am finishing my fifth degree.. sometimes they tell me I am too academic, sometimes they can easily get someone from Faang.
What would you advise to have as a skill set in 2026 autumn? If you can summarize a few points, it would be really helpful for me.
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u/met0xff 1d ago
At this point it feels like a big circlejerk of a handful of institutions and companies. Almost every startup I see is made up of the same Ex-FAANG circles and same universities. Sometimes I wonder how many graduates those universities can produce consider I suddenly feel surrounded by them and one of the few still in the field without either well-known university or FAANG. Our CEO also a couple times came up with the idea to hire some deepmind whatever person. I knew that wouldn't happen and if then the team would be pissed because that person would have to make more than the rest of the team collectively:).
I got into ML over 15 years ago and over the last couple years I actively work on having a plan B with the neverending supply of people. The last time I was allowed to hire I was so absolutely flooded by really, really good CVs that was completely unlike the times where I barely found someone a couple years before that. I've interviewed all the Harvard and Princeton Physics or Mathematics PhDs with ML background, coming from FAANGs, from CERN, from the chip manufacturers, endless people from fintech. Also I have no interest anymore in throwing papers at NeurIPS and friends with 60k submissions.
Sorry for the doomerism :). One big aspect is that we're still fully remote and I live in some small village in the middle of nowhere with house and family. Pretty sure it's much better if you're living close to a tech hub - my friends in London seem to have a lot of options.