How to Become an AI Engineer (Without a Degree)

Key Takeaways

specifically those who are interested in AI or machine learning engineering three simple steps in how to increase your chances of Landing that perfect dream job the competition is going to be really tough get out of your own way and start coding hey there welcome back to the channel well if you're anything like me and you're getting started in the world of tech it probably kind of feels like you're navigating through a maze with blindfolds on I'm Jean and I've been working in tech for over 15 years and when I first started my career back in 2007 at IBM I really had no clue what I was getting into but luckily I've been fortunate enough to be part of lots of opportunities like being the 19's engineer at whatsapp which was acquired by Facebook for $19 billion and from then on I became a software engineering manager and now I'm on YouTube sharing my insights and advice with you guys and in this video I want to share a road map a guide or a blueprint whatever you guys want to call call it for people who are getting into software engineering or getting started with software engineering and more specifically those who are interested in AI or machine learning engineering because that is what everyone's been asking me about but these three simple steps are pretty much applicable to any field in software engineering whether you want to apply it to AI or machine learning think of it like a ladder that we can all climb and at each level there are lessons and choices that you can make so I'll call these levels level one start level two level up and level three is to strategize we're going to dive into each level disect the choices that you can make at each level and I'm going to have time stamps Below in the video so you can skip or go back and rewatch certain sections but before we get into starting your AI and machine Learning Journey I do have a favor to ask please please do hit that like button because it really helps the YouTube algorithm and to let YouTube know that you're interested in content like this so please give it a thumbs up up thank you and let's get right to it all right let's kick off with level one start at this stage the main goal is to get moving many folks find themselves stuck in this level it's kind of like playing Monopoly but never leaving the start box and this is the stage where you break through your own barriers get out of your own way and start coding you need to dive into building projects and get coding even if the first few lines of your code turns out to be not so great you'll probably feel like you banging your head against the keyboard at some point but that is normal and that is okay it doesn't mean you're dumb it doesn't mean that other people are smarter than you it's just part of the process and at level one you won't know how to be a good AI engineer yet and that comes at level two but starting is the key here and there's no way around this really you've just got to start coding the activation energy Theory Compares this to giving a little push to start a chemical reaction and the momentum principle says it's like like a Snowball Effect making it easier to keep going once you are in motion so for all beginner AI Engineers career switchers or CS students my advice is to overcome the fear of blank screen and start coding and start with baby steps build your first mini project it doesn't have to be grand no one has to see it for the first one and if you're not sure where to start or how to start check out my other video learn AI engineering f with chat PT I share tips on finding the perfect projects how to get the ideas where to start all using chat PT guiding you step by step you can also download the exact prompts that you need to get going so go check that out so I'm not going to focus on the step by step in this video but the point here is stop watching tutorials and start building things will start making more sense when you start being really Hands-On and trust me the more you do the better you'll be and the reason why I say to stop watching tutorial videos is because when someone's just talking and you're listening everything seems to make a lot of sense but once you start coding on Hands-On projects things start to maybe click or you might have better questions and it's just a whole another beat when you start going once you decide to get started on your first project the next question is often what do I make next what language do I need to learn and you're going to have all these questions and at this point it doesn't really matter just pick something that seems easiest for you stop getting caught up in all these like questions about language and text stacks and all the debate around it for beginners you know it really doesn't matter python is often mostly recommended for especially for AI and machine learning and python is great just use Python unless you have you know a strong reason why you should not be learning python just pick Python and just pick any ml algorithm they're all great to learn and just start building a project around it your first project might be just really simple and not very exciting and that's perfectly fine because the goal here at level one is just to get started now at the end of level one you're going to face an important choice to make and this is Choice number one you have three options here so Choice number one give up the question here is if you've tried coding and maybe you feel like it's a bit much for you you don't really feel passionate about it it's okay to acknowledge that and engineering may just not be the thing for you the important thing is that you gave it a shot you tried it out you were Hands-On you built some things now you won't have regrets thinking maybe I should have tried it when I was younger or whatever now you can say that you've tried it and move on Choice number two is to switch tracks maybe this particular thing that you tried it is not really your thing and you want to explore a different type of software engineering which is completely fine as well there are so many types of software engineering and coding and languages that you can choose from you don't have to stick with AI and that's okay if you choose number two you just go back to the starting point go back to level one and get started with something else you can pick web development app development whatever you feel interested in honestly they're all great options Choice number three is to keep going are you ready to commit to AI engineering and take it really seriously if not that's really okay but if that is something that you are going to be committing to or you are interested in moving forward to level two now it is time to level up so level two is all about becoming a better AI engineer the goal here is to dive deep because becoming a really good AI engineer is not going to happen overnight especially if you don't have a PhD or extensive years of experience working in the tech industry you have a lot to catch up here in this level you're probably going to have to figure things out on your own and it's not going to be easy Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hour rule popular from the book outliers it talks about the importance of prolonged and focused practice to excel in any field it emphasizes the need for continuous hard work and practice to become an expert if you can manage to get a job at this stage good for you but chances are that it's going to be really hard to get a job because you're not quite there yet most companies are going to really want to hire you once you're really good so level two is all about leveling up you'll continue to build interesting projects but using different types of algorithms maybe you tried a few different things in level one now it's time to dig deeper into the same ones or add into your portfolio different types of algorithms your goal here is to build up your skill set and each project that you work on will contribute incrementally pushing you forward by 1% over time as you build more projects you're going to gradually move toward creating more quality programs and projects that other people care about the path to leveling up my be different from every person so keep trying different things to know what works for you keep iterating keep improving you might be asking at one point what makes a good engineer and I'm sorry to tell you there's no consensus on this relase some people spend a good chunk of their lives chasing degrees and phds and while that's a fine route to pursue if that's not what you want to go for that doesn't have to be the only path and if the idea of diving into a DEC paid long higher education program doesn't really get you excited that's okay but here's the deal you got to make up for that time having bunch of projects on your GitHub is really not going to be enticing enough for employers to want to hire you especially if those GitHub projects don't even work in production if you compare someone who's been grinding away in the PHD program for 10 years with you who would you hire and again it's not about the credentials or degrees or the papers or whatever you get but it's more about your skills and there are many ways to level up you can launch your own business you can launch your own website or an app you can volunteer for local charities or businesses to create something really interesting for them you can take on Contracting gigs and build projects for your clients and get paid there are many ways to gain Hands-On real life experience to recap level one was to start level two was to level up and now just before getting into level three strategize we have to make another choice and each option comes with different sets of challenges and opportunities and which route you want to go depends on your goals and where you see yourself in the world of AI and Engineering so now you have leveled up on your skills so you have some options to consider Choice number one Be Your Own Boss if you go with option one you get to Be Your Own Boss working on the projects that you find interesting you may have the freedom to explore different areas of engineering but there's really no guarantee that you'll ever land a full-time job and your income may be good but it might be unpredictable it also Demands a high level of self-discipline and motivation to stay focused and productive on your own option two is to switch tracks if you go with option two there may be more opportunities in different areas of software engineering potentially you might have a higher chance of Landing your first role way more quickly than AI engineering and transitioning into a different role might provide more immediate source of income you could learn new things and maybe you might find those new things even more interesting but depending on the role it might mean you have to go back to step one and learn a few more skills and it might even take you further away from AI engineering and you might end up hating it anyways again now option three is to keep going you can keep trying to become an AI engineer and keep looking for that AI engineering job the competition is going to be really tough and there aren't a lot of entrylevel positions in AI engineering but if you're really really interested and passionate about becoming an AI engineer this could be the right path for you it is definitely going to be an uphill battle but if you're determined you can probably do it so as you think about these options consider your career goals and aspirations but also your skill set and the current job market demands but no matter which route you go the skills that you learn in level one and level two will still help you become more successful in the long term in your software engineering or AI career so now let's talk about level three strategize this is where we're going to talk more specifically about your job search strategy and how to increase your chances of Landing that perfect dream job let's take a look at where you are in your job search let's say you started job searching and if you're not getting any calls from recruiters there might be a problem with your resume and here's a little stat for you if you apply to about 100 jobs you should be hearing back from the recruiters about 10 to 20 times that is just the average statistics and if you're hearing back less than 10 to 20 times that means something is off with your resume and if you're in that situation I encourage you to check out the ultimate resumé handbook I made it for you to help you find the red flags in your own resumés studies show that recruiters only spend about 6 to 8 seconds looking at each resume what they're doing mainly is to just spot these potential red flags because they don't have a lot of time to just really comb through every single resume because they get so much volume go to our website and the book is $20 you can download the ultimate resume handbook and try to spot the red flags in your own resumés and if that's too much for you you can't spare $20 and you can you know try talking to your school most schools have career Counseling Services included in your tuition if you're at a boot camp you can try talking to the boot camp step two is let's say you did fix all your red flags and now you're getting those interviews but you're not getting the job offers this means you need to practice your interview skills how do you talk during your interviews you know can you do the coding challenges we just need to practice answering these common questions they tend to ask the same questions over and over do the mock interviews and try to get more feedback to improve your interview skills again there are programs that you can enroll in to get help on interview prep but if you can't afford one of those do it with your friends a lot of people are studying for interviews so you can do together find some buddies that you can have some accountability with and if you're going solo you can also even try recording yourself just on your phone it doesn't have to be anything fancy just make a video of yourself doing a mock interview or doing a coding challenge see if you make any funny faces listen to your voice how do you sound do you sound confident in camera and you can probably just learn a lot by watching yourself in the video I'm also going to share some interview prep tips on my website it's going to be all for free go check that out if you're not sure where to start step three if you're getting the job offers but not the type of ones that you like maybe you want to learn negotiation skills I made a video with my friend who's in the recruiting business it's called something like um startup Equity negotiation for software Engineers so go check that out it's all free you can also research industry standard there's um also websites like levels.fyi to help you know what your value should be I have a video about which software engineering jobs pay the most you can check that out to see what the different levels are supposed to pay but if you've made it to this stage I'm pretty sure you're going to be okay so big congratulations and that's pretty much it if you want general advice on software engineering career I made a video about getting ahead of 99% of software engineers in your 20s so go watch that and good luck