How I Got a Job at DeepMind as a Research Engineer (without a Machine Learning Degree!)

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In this video, I share my story on how my journey to DeepMind looked like.

I cover some details of my background story, how my ML curriculum looked like, how to get a referral for a top-tier company such as DeepMind, and finally how my final preps looked like.

⌚️ Timetable:
00:00 Intro - I landed a job at DeepMind
01:11 My story
07:16 ML curriculum
14:57 Landing an interview at DeepMind
17:34 Final preps

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#deepmind #engineering #job

[alfcnz]

It's always refreshing to hear how many times one may need to fail to eventually get where they deserve to.
We may think the path to our destination is a straight line, but it's just knocking to whatever number of doors, until we find the one that we can open.
Also, it was (somehow) surprising you failed the DeepMind interview for being later rerouted to (still?) DeepMind.

Thanks for sharing your story.
I think we all can learn much from our experience.

[kyokushinfighter]

You won't believe how inspiring you are for me. Thanks a lot for making this video. Some takeaways:
1. You going the extra mile implementing papers from their original authors.
2. You open-sourced the implementations.
3. Contribute to existing Open source projects.
4. Re learn the fundamental of : ML, Statistics, CS, Math.
5. For interview: Learn technical interview, learn the interviewers works.
The result is that you have a thorough understanding of how the techniques (graphML, GAN) works. For me, the first step would be to watch ALL your videos. Thanks!

[sinenomine]

Hey Aleksa! I am heading to my final year in college (Computer Science) and I have decided I'm going to do everything I can to work for an AI research company like Deep Mind someday. Your story has given me the confidence I needed. I hope I can come back here in the future and share my very own story. Cheers from Brazil 🇧🇷

[aaronschulze]

Awesome video!!! As a 20 years-old student these tips are invaluable to me!
The 3 key lessons I take away:
1. Keep learning and following your own curiosity

2. Do 1. relentlessly since you cannot connect the dots looking forward.
You never know how one particular subject could change your life later on
3. No matter what your background is, you can learn and achieve anything you want if you have patience, passion and persistence

[minos]

I'm feeling really proud of you Aleksa. You have the passion and you do put in the hard work. You deserve it. Cheers.

[mateja]

I remember when I met Aleksa in 2017 at an AWS meetup. He was already very passionate about software development and he recommended me some resources on the topic speed coding. He seemed very inspired to accomplish great things in life. It's awesome to see this ambition come to fruition!

[GeorgesSegundo]

Your personal story is so Epic that you redefined my course in life. I taught it was impossible to reach Big Tech without Ph.D. and you are the very living proof that it is. Thank you so much for your existence brother, now i believe that i can do that too.

[sandraviknander]

Really inspirational! I also appreciate that you are so transparent with the rejections you got before landing this dream job. The process of applying for jobs are certainly not something I enjoy, and are dreading once I’m leaving academia. although it is those periods when applying for positions that I have learned the most both technical knowledge and social knowledge.

Thanks for all your great content!

[TheAIEpiphany]

Looking out for further questions! ❤ I'll answer every single one over the next couple of days. If I see there is a lot of similar ones I'll make another video addressing it in depth.

[Fordance]

Thanks for sharing your story. I am amazed by your passion for learning and technology, your preparation, and doing it properly by not skipping steps.

[vinnuvinay]

Very useful content Aleksa. Sharing your interview experience with DeepMind more elaborately would be great. Just each-round and the typical type of questions asked. This will give a very concrete model for all of us preparing for this type of roles.

[mikhaeldito]

Hey man, you're such an inspiration. You are the proof that hardwork + passion are valued by top notch research institutes.

[yves.dantas]

Muito legal que você esteve no Brasil! Esse é o primeiro vídeo que estou vendo do seu canal e gostei bastante. Mais um inscrito de Natal/RN - Brasil :)

[siddhantrai]

Well deserved Aleksa, most of us generally share our success and refrain from failures, but the way you depicted/portrayed your rejections is really amazing. All the best for you work at Deepmind. Hope to join you there someday.♥️

[abhijeetnarharshettiwar]

Hey Aleksa,
Thank you for sharing your journey. It is very inspiring.
I am also a machine learning engineer and you are one of my favorite people in this field.

[juandiegocastanogomez]

Thanks Aleska for the great videos, I came to your channel because of the VQ-VAE paper explanation... it's not very easy to find authentic and knowledgeable content. Although how impressive the end goal you reached is (getting into DeepMind), what's most impressive to me is the long journey you have traveled to get there (all the micro/macro cycles, projects, read papers aside from performing in the full time job, while keeping balance in other aspects of life: how did you do it? Haha).
I'm currently working as a ML Engineer / Researcher in a startup, and I'm witnessing how frustrating is to convert research into comercial products sometimes, specially when results don't come perfectly... Big inspiration, please keep the good content! Cheers from Colombia!

[thequiickbrownfox]

I remember reading your blog on medium when I was reading about research scientists at Deepmind, a few weeks ago, and your hard work is inspirational, to say the least. All the best!

[kshirsagarabhayshrikrishna]

Thank you for sharing your story. I am a Bio Major in my 2nd year and interested in ML applications in Biology. Your story really inspired me to keep pushing towards pursuing a career as a Deep Learning Researcher. 🤗

[denysmenfredy]

Good to know that you have been here in Brazil 🇧🇷! Love your videos, and I also wanna work in a big tech company doing ML.

[malthusoh]

Wow Aleksa, this video found me at a really good time, thank you for taking the time to talk about your journey. Currently in my second year of college doing Business and Computer Science, and wow I really relate to your journey. Have been really interested in ML for a while now but it's such a big and scary field for a kid like me. Was almost going to give up but came across this video. Was really encouraging to hear that the process to your dream job is rarely ever linear and that good things usually take time. Thank you Aleksa for re-igniting my curiosity in ML and showing the rest of us that this journey might be tough but definitely possible :-)