exploring ml / ai / quant career paths after bachelor’s

[light fractal]

i’ll be starting my bachelor’s in computer science engineering next year.
been thinking about possible career paths and narrowed it down to a few that interest me:

data scientist / machine learning engineer

ai research engineer / applied ml engineer

quantitative analyst / quant developer

i’ve heard from a few people that “you shouldn’t pursue ml unless you plan on getting a phd or at least a master’s, since it’s really hard to get a job in the field with just a bachelor’s.”
is that actually true? are these roles still realistic for an international entry-level after a bachelor’s?

also wondering if i can get into research or internships during my degree to build towards these roles.
still trying to figure out what direction makes the most sense, so any advice or personal experiences would help a lot.

[torn hill]

depends on what you mean by "pursuing a career in ML", it's a lot easier to work in a product ML org with a bachelors than a research ML org

[versed smelt]

It would seem that there is a higher standard nowadays for ML engineers

By ML engineers I mean ppl who train and develop ML models for production

[torn hill]

this is not ML Engineering

that's applied science/data science roles

[versed smelt]

Sure

[torn hill]

ML Engineering is everything else

[versed smelt]

In any case for that the standard is master's or higher

[torn hill]

yes, science roles tend to require higher degrees

but there's a TON of ML engineering roles that accept bachelors only

[versed smelt]

If youre doing like data engineering or like writing software to support ML models, like a platform or software tool then I dont think master's is necessary

Since that kind of work is mostly software development

[torn hill]

to be blunt, basically no bachelor's only has the ML depth to be able to develop models

[versed smelt]

Just in the "ML domain"

[torn hill]

the majority of people in that area who are bachelor's only would've made the jump from ML Engineering and gained experience through partnerships, but a few courses at a bachelor's level is not adequate preparation

[versed smelt]

So out of those roles you mentioned I would say quant is probably the only one you can safely go for with just a bachelor
But like it's extremely competitive and the bar is really high

[torn hill]

ML Engineer is still accessible and much lower bar than quant

[versed smelt]

It says datascientist not ml engineer so no

Good luck

[torn hill]

she mentioned ML engineer twice...

[light fractal]

@versed smelt @torn hill Yeah, I am get (trying to) what you mean , I’m still early in my journey. I’m focusing on building solid fundamentals first (programming, math, and problem-solving), then planning to go deeper into data and ML step by step.

[torn hill]

So without additional degrees, ML modeling work will be hard, at least for frontier type stuff.
You could get some more basic modeling work (think like a bi-encoder based classifier) as a DS but that's a harder role to enter nowadays. MLE roles that are closer to SWE roles will be an easier way in, but not involved in modeling. So what part of ML specifically are you interested in?

Even the term MLE refers to about 5 or 6 distinct specialties nowadays

[light fractal]

Thanks for explaining all that, I’ll be honest, some of this is still way over my head. I’m still learning programming and building up the basics, but I’m really fascinated by the bigger picture that how intelligence and AI might help us understand the universe, consciousness, and our place in it.