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Comment by abdullin | Hacker News Reader

I work as head of ML & Innovation at my day job.

On the side, as a technical consultant, I help teams to ship products with ML under the hood.

I live in Vienna, so that makes it convenient for evening calls with USA/Canada, where my three clients operate.

Usually this involves weekly 30min calls with the teams to show them shortcuts, working recipes and save time by avoiding pitfalls. Mostly around ChatGPT/Local LLMs and RAG/Business automation type of things.

I run a newsletter [1] to try extending my client base. Not very efficient yet, since all clients came through the LinkedIn [2] and personal contacts.

[1] https://abdullin.substack.com/ [2] https://www.linkedin.com/in/abdullin

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Is it possible for someone who has no knowledge of ML (but can code) to get into this space? Where would one start?

Yes, that is the perfect spot!

If you already have a coding background and want to focus on practical applications, there is surprisingly little to catch up with LLM/ML/ChatGPT.

Here is my quickstart on LLM/ChatGPT for developers: https://abdullin.com/llm/faq-chat-gpt-quickstart-for-program...

Don't hesitate to ping me with questions, too!

Thank you. I subscribed to your newsletter. Might take up your offer for advice :) Thank you

this is a very helpful guide, thank you!

in particular this: https://abdullin.com/llm/how-to-get-into-ml-for-developer/

i find it surprising that you can't find people who can do what you suggest at the bottom. it doesn't look like it should take more than a few weeks to learn that.

i sent you a connect request on linkedin.

What did you do before 2023 as a technical consultant?

I’ve been working in software since ~2004. Mostly working with startups as tech lead/team lead or full-stack.

Half of these companies were about big data/data science. But applications of AI/ML always attracted me more :)

What about AI/ML attracted you more? I’m at a point in my studies, and I can either go down the big data route (more backend focused) or AI (frontend focused, i.e. how the computer interprets data), and I just can’t decide. Any insights would be much appreciated! :)

Generally I'd suggest to pick the route the excites you the most. Because you'll naturally spend more time and energy there, allowing you to advance the most.

Personally I've always been fascinated with AI/ML, because of reading too much SciFi as a kid :) Plus modern LLMs are a bit like magic - you can make computer do amazing things if you just manage to say the correct incantation :)

I've also spent a large chunk of my career around big data (worked in a couple of startups). Data is interesting and important, but it was boring for me.

Long story short. If you like learning a lot of things - AI/ML would be a wonderful field. But you'll need to keep on learning. If you like messy code - also AI/LLM.

If you like working with data, predictability and stability. Then big data might be your thing. Also if you like digging into different business domains and connecting numbers to processes and people.

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