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Machine Learning Engineer: Career Path

Machine Learning is a top-growing skill. Good engineers are in-demand in a wide variety of industries and as a fast moving field, recent experience is valued and needed.

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What does the Machine Learning Engineer career path entail?

Machine Learning Engineer

Machine Learning Engineers combine the skills of AI Researchers with the ones of Software Engineers. The result of that is a data-inspired engineering role that's crucial to businesses today.

Even better – Machine Learning is a fast-moving field. Newcomers can pick up the basics quickly and position themselves with cutting-edge knowledge.

Machine Learning is set for another high-growth year. It's not too late to get into it!

Table of Contents

Best books to explore the Machine Learning career path.

A well-written and thorough book can be an amazing path to build deeper understanding and also act as a handbook as you discover the internet's vast resources.

These are our and our experts top picks to get started building career-relevant skills.

Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction

Richard Sutton's book on Machine Learning is universally regarded as one of the most fundamental and important pieces on the matter. Reinforcement Learning is quickly becoming a major part of AI innovation, and a good read for any engineer and scientists to go through.

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Generative Deep Learning

It’s now possible to teach a machine to excel at human endeavors such as painting, writing, and composing music. With this practical book, machine-learning engineers and data scientists will discover how to re-create some of the most impressive examples o

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Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

Bishop's book on pattern recognition is a classic textbook and staple in Machine Learning. Beimg aimed at grad students, but also at researchers and practitioners, it's no easy lecture, but a truly fundamental course book.

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Federated Learning (Synthesis Lectures)

How is it possible to allow multiple data owners to collaboratively train and use a shared prediction model while keeping all the local training data private? In this book, we describe how federated machine learning addresses this problem with novel solutions combining distributed machine learning, cryptography and security.

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Mastering Machine Learning on AWS

AWS is constantly driving new innovations that empower data scientists to explore a variety of machine learning (ML) cloud services. This book is your comprehensive reference for learning and implementing advanced ML algorithms in AWS cloud.

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Probabilistic Machine Learning: Advanced Topics

An advanced counterpart to Probabilistic Machine Learning: An Introduction, this high-level textbook provides researchers and graduate students detailed coverage of cutting-edge topics in machine learning, including deep generative modeling, graphical models, Bayesian inference, reinforcement learning, and causality. This volume puts deep learning into a larger statistical context and unifies …

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Courses to deepen your Machine Learning skills.

These days, courses are no longer a sequence of videos. They are usually accompanied by projects and a learning community, keeping you accountable and on the path.

Our experts recommend these courses, from free selections to paid programs.

Udacity's Machine Learning Nanodegree

Udacity has been a pioneer of Machine Learning courses since launching their wide range of ML, Data Science and Robotics courses a few years back. These Nanodegrees are pricey but often come with career support and human project grading.
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Deep Learning Specialization

In five courses, you will learn the foundations of Deep Learning, understand how to build neural networks, and learn how to lead successful machine learning projects. 38% of students started a new career after completing this specialization.
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Machine Learning Specialization

#BreakIntoAI with Machine Learning Specialization. Master fundamental AI concepts and develop practical machine learning skills in the beginner-friendly, 3-course program by AI visionary Andrew Ng
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Machine Learning & Deep Learning in Python & R

You're looking for a complete Machine Learning and Deep Learning course that can help you launch a flourishing career in the field of Data Science, Machine Learning, Python, R or Deep Learning, right? You've found the right Machine Learning course! After completing this course you will be able to: …
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Learning through online courses can be challenging. Get 1:1 guidance from an experienced mentor who can help you stay accountable and answer your questions along the way.
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Machine Learning and AI with Python

It’s time to make a decision: beach or mountains? When choosing where you want to go for vacation, it can be simple. The options may be a or b. From a decision-making standpoint, it’s easy for the brain to process this decision tree. But, what happens when you’re faced with more complex, multifacet…
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End-to-End Machine Learning

Introduction to End-to-End Machine Learning Dive into the world of machine learning and discover how to design, train, and deploy end-to-end models with this comprehensive course. Through engaging, real-world examples and hands-on exercises, you'll learn to tackle complex data problems and build po…
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Top Machine Learning Certifications

Understanding all core concepts of Machine Learning is key to claiming your next certificate. If you need help brushing up on your skills, consider reaching out to one of our mentors.

Andrew Ng’s Machine Learning Specialization

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AI visionary Andrew Ng’s Machine Learning Specialization is an online, three-course, educational program designed to help course takers master fundamental AI concepts and develop practical machine learning (ML) skills, such as building and training machine learning models.

The highly-regarded spec…

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Machine Learning Certification Coaching

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Consider reaching out to a coach specialized in Machine Learning certifications. They can help you prepare for your exam, and provide you with the necessary resources to succeed. MentorCruise is the best place to find a coach for your Machine Learning certification. Here are a few top picks:
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IBM Machine Learning Professional Certificate

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IBM’s Machine Learning Professional Certificate is an online, six-course educational program that equips course takers with practical ML skills, such as supervised learning, unsupervised learning, neural networks, and deep learning. At the same time, the program also introduces course takers to suc…

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AWS Certified Machine Learning - Specialty

Hosted by aws.amazon.com

Amazon Web Service’s (AWS) Certified Machine Learning - Speciality Certification indicates your expertise in building, training, and running ML models in AWS.

To earn the certification, you must take and pass a 180-minute exam consisting of 65 multiple-choice and response questions. Designed for …

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Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer Certification

Hosted by cloud.google.com

Google’s Professional Machine Learning Engineer Certification indicates your expertise in designing, building, and producing machine learning models using Google Cloud and industry-proven techniques. To earn the certification, you must take and pass a two-hour exam consisting of 50-60 multiple-choi…

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University of Washington Machine Learning Specialization

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The University of Washington’s Machine Learning Specialization is a four-course online educational program covering the major areas of ML, including prediction, classification, clustering, and information retrieval. Through the course, you’ll also analyze large and complex datasets, create systems …

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Machine Learning Workshop

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Consider joining a workshop specialized in Machine Learning. Workshops are a great way to learn new skills, and get hands-on experience. MentorCruise is the best place to find a workshop for your Machine Learning certification. Here are a few top picks:
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Johns Hopkins Applied Machine Learning Specialization

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Johns Hopkins University's Applied Machine Learning Specialization is a three-course program designed for intermediate learners. In it, you'll explore core techniques including supervised learning, ensemble methods, regression analysis, unsupervised learning, and neural networks. The courses emphas…

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Get the guidance you need on the Machine Learning Engineer career path

There is no better source of accountability and motivation than having a personal mentor. What used to be impossible to find is now just two clicks away! All mentors are vetted & hands-on!

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Shahzeb Naveed 🇨🇦

Data Science and Machine Learning Engineer at General Motors
4.8 (13)

PROMO: Get 40% OFF Premium CodeCrafters using https://app.codecrafters.io/join?via=shah-zeb-naveed During my 5 years of data science experience at General Motors, Royal Bank of Canada and TELUS, I've successfully delivered multi-million dollar data science and automation projects at scale. I have strong knowledge of machine learning, statistics, A/B testing, optimization, time series …
Engineering & Data Data Science Machine Learning Deep Learning Python SQL Power Bi
$80 / month
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Reza Fazeli 🇨🇦

Machine Learning Engineer at IBM, Ex-SoundHound
5.0 (23)

Need help with data science and machine learning skills? I can guide you to the next level. Together, we'll create a personalized plan based on your unique goals and needs. Whether you want to build a strong portfolio of projects, improve your programming skills, or advance your career to the …
Engineering & Data Machine Learning Natural Language Processing Computer Vision Software Engineering Data Engineering Python
$390 / month
Only 1 Spot Left

Ishan Patil 🇺🇸

Senior Machine Learning Engineer at Apple
5.0 (13)

As a machine learning engineer with 6+ years of industry experience having worked at Amazon, Nvidia, a retail AI startup and now at Apple, I have helped many mentees throughout my career with interview preparation, switching over careers from traditional software engineering to ML roles, and positioning themselves to land …
Engineering & Data Interview Preparation Career Development Software Engineering Resume Review Career Growth Career
$150 / month
Only 1 Spot Left

Gaëtan Brison 🇫🇷

Lead Machine Learning Engineer at Institut Polytechnique de Paris
5.0 (5)

Lead Machine Learning Engineer @ Institut Polytechnique de Paris with the Hi! PARIS Research center https://www.hi-paris.fr/ Ex-Amazon Data Science & DHL Consulting I lead a team of 8 engineers (ml ops engineers, data scientists, data engineers) creating state-of-the-art open-source python packages. Before becoming a manager, my role involved being an …
Engineering & Data Deep Learning Machine Learning Python PyTorch TensorFlow Leadership
$140 / month
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Moon Ma 🇺🇸

Machine Learning Engineer at Amazon
5.0 (26)

I'm a biology-researcher-turned-machine-learning-engineer-turned-business-owner. Yep, that’s mouthful, just as any rich life is supposed to be. I landed my machine learning job in 4 months without a degree or experience, then joined Amazon as a full time machine learning engineer with only 9 months of experience. I've helped 60+ career changers …
Business & Management Growth Entrepreneurship Career Change Machine Learning Python AWS
$490 / month
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Mikhail Klassen 🇨🇦

Senior Machine Learning Engineer at Planet Labs
5.0 (2)

Scientist, entrepreneur, writer, and technologist. I am currently a Senior Machine Learning Engineer at Planet Labs PBC, where I am part of the Applied Machine Learning team. I also have a PhD in computational astrophysics, and a BSc in applied physics & applied mathematics. After my PhD, I cofounded an …
Engineering & Data Data Science Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Startups Entrepreneurship Data Analysis
$140 / month

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The Machine Learning must-reads you shouldn't miss.

Key articles and posts of industry experts can help you get a better picture of what you are getting into.

In our opinion, these are some must-reads you really shouldn't miss.

Karpathy on "Software 2.0"

Andrej Karpathy is the Director of AI at Tesla. Before that, though, he authored this blog post in 2017 talking about Deep Learning as "Software 2.0" of some sort. A must-read if you ever want to have another way of thinking about ML.

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Simple Reinforcement Learning with Tensorflow

This 8-part series by Arthur Juliani (Deep RL researcher at Unity) is an amazing entry point to the new and mysterious advancements of Reinforcement Learning, perfectly suited for folks coming from other topics in Machine Learning.

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Building Safe A.I. (Trask)

Andrew Trask is a specialist in Federated Learning and Safe AI. In this blogpost, he writes about training a neural network that is fully encrypted during training (trained on unencrypted data).

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Opportunities and projects in the Machine Learning space.

In the end, advancing your career is all about getting the right opportunities at the right time and a good portion of luck.

These are some interesting things going on in the Machine Learning space and you probably don't want to miss them.

Specialize with Kaggle

It wouldn't be the first time I've seen someone get hired over good Kaggle results! Kaggle competitions are data science and ML projects that are graded through a public leaderboard. A good place on the leaderboard shows that you know your craft and can apply your knowledge to real-life problems!

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Find early stage positions

While Google & co. are saturated with academic talent, there are incredible opportunities to get your foot in the door quicker with an early-stage positions.

Today, startups and early-stage businesses are looking for ML engineers more and more for a wider variety of jobs than what's possible in the more established industry.

Platforms like AngelList can help you find those positions!

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Get into open-source

The world thrives on open-source software and this is no exception. Core contributors to core libraries and fast-growing tech like React, scikit-learn, Bitcoin and TensorFlow prove their abilities by going into the inner workings of a framework to improve it. For many companies, that's a desirable skill!

These projects are always looking for fresh faces. Grab an issue from the issue board or review a PR to get started!

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Growing into a Senior Machine Learning Engineer role pays off – $50,000 up to per year.

Not only is the progression from individual Machine Learning Engineer to a Senior role a natural progression, it also makes all the difference in your average salary.

On a global average, Senior Machine Learning Engineer receive a $50,000 salary hike over entry-level Machine Learning Engineers when they go from individual contributor to senior personnel.

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Related career paths

If you like Machine Learning careers, you might also be interested in these other career paths.

Get the help you need & advance your career

There's more than one way into Machine Learning, now you just need to decide which one to take! Our mentors are here for you if you encounter any issues, need a bit of accountability or some extra help!

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