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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3692 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 19, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Is there a straightforward path for a humble 40yo frontend web dev to learn machine learning and gain a massive career upgrade? Like can I just brush up on my linear algebra, learn some machine learning concepts, and get hired somewhere? Or is it gonna be a bit harder than that?

What are you trying to get into? Data Science in general is very gatekept by formal education and you'll be competing with PhDs for most positions. It doesn't help that the job title is seen as very hot so any opening gets flooded by resumes. That said, it's not very entry level friendly and if you know a particular domain really well and are good at design and communication you can get a leg up that way. Also stats nerds are really bad at programming, so you will likely have an advantage there.

I keep seeing this term "data science" come up lately. What is it and what is the connection to machine learning?

I'm not in the field but afaik it's an interdisciplinary field where you use statistics, math, programming, and domain specific expertise to analyze and interpret big or complex sets of data, and build models for predictions.

Machine learning is used to make programs or AIs that can more or less autonomously run and do the work of analysis and model building.

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