“How’d you get started with machine learning and data science?” [Interview]
By: Daniel Bourke
Tags: Machine Learning, Editors Pick, Learning To Code, Data Science, Getting Started

How did you land a job whilst studying online?

Whilst I was studying, I drove Uber on the weekends to pay for courses, books, food and rent (I was a hermit so these were my only costs). Then one night I got a fine for picking up people in the wrong spot. The fine was $220, more then I earned the entire night. And I’m sitting there on the way to drop these people off, it was like 2 AM, on a Sunday morning and I’m thinking to myself, I’m out here picking up drunks and taking them home (safely) and I get slapped with a fine by some guy standing on a curb taking photos with a smartphone.

On the way home, and by this stage, it’s closer to 3 AM. I decided there and then. I’m not driving Uber anymore. And this was a big deal because usually, Sunday afternoon’s I’d get a good amount of fares, because Friday nights, Saturday nights and Sunday’s were the only real good time to drive. So I woke up that Sunday morning, tired but I’d basically forgotten about the fine because I had a new mission.

I was about 8 or 9-months into my self-created AI Masters Degree and I thought, f*ck it, I’ll figure it out.

My original plan was to just buy a one-way ticket to the US and find a job there at some startup.

Looking back, my skills were probably 70% ready to be working anywhere (which is a fancy way of saying, I wasn’t as good as I thought I was) but in my head, I knew I’d be able to figure something out.

The breakthrough came four days later.

As I mentioned before I’d become a frozen yoghurt machine of putting things out there. And a girl I used to work with named Ashlee noticed what I was posting on LinkedIn.

Ashlee worked with a guy named Mike who knew a bunch of people in the tech space. She sent me a message saying, “Hey Dan, I’ve seen what you’ve been posting, you might be interested in meeting Mike”.

So I said sure and met Mike.

Turns out, Mike’s a real cool guy and when we talked, he said you should meet Cam, he’s the health lead at Max Kelsen. And my eyes lit up.

So about a week later on Monday, I met Cam. We talked, I told him what I’d been up to, studying artificial intelligence in my room, making things online, driving Uber, my plans for the US.

And then he asked me, “Why the US?”.

Which kind of blew my mind. Because I didn’t really have an answer. Other than all the things I’d seen online were coming out of the US.

He kept going and told me, I could work on the things I wanted to right here (I live in Brisbane, Australia) if I wanted. And of course, right here meant at Max Kelsen.

“Why don’t you come in on Thursday?” He asked.

And so I did. And then again the next Thursday (during this time I was working on mostly exploratory data analysis things, no machine learning, just cleaning data with pandas). And then the Thursday after that, I went to the cafe down the road with the CEO Nick and the machine learning lead Athon and was offered a role.

About 14-months later, I went to the same cafe with Nick, handed in my letter of resignation (which was a very hard decision, because it was the best job I’d ever had) and left to work on my own business.