Machine Learning Engineers — What Do They Actually Do?
The title is a trick question, of course. Much like Data Scientist before it, the title Machine Learning Engineer is developing into a trend in the job market for people in our profession, but there is no consensus about the meaning of the title or the functions and skills it should encompass. I imagine new entrants into the job market in DS/ML find this maddening to decipher. (Even experienced people do!) So, let’s talk about what it might mean depending on who’s doing the talking.
As I was discussing this with a friend the other day, I phrased it as MACHINE LEARNING engineer or machine learning ENGINEER. Basically, from what I have seen, there are roles and expectations in some camps under the title that either:
The former group probably would have just been “Software Engineers” in previous years, while the latter would have fallen comfortably under “Data Scientists” back in the day when I started my career (although generative AI was certainly not part of the game back then).
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