MACHINE LEARNING

Machine Learning is in itself a huge learning. The term machine learning is self

explanatory. Machines learn to perform tasks that aren’t specifically

programmed to do.

Machine Learning in a process is

1. Algorithms consuming humongous data

2. Dig out patterns from the data
3. Convert patterns to actions
Don’t be surprised if you come across an advertisement exactly similar to your
interests which you wanted to buy the last time you were shopping online. That
simply is machine learning.

Machine Learning being a vast field, knowing just python is not well enough. There
are lot many other things you should know to be a machine learning engineer.

Here are the skills you will have to develop other than Python to excel in the field of
machine learning.

Basic Skills

Machine Learning is a mixed bag of software engineering, math and data science.
These three are the basic skills and one should be proficient at it. Going deep into this

Probability and Statistics

One can learn about algorithms with the help of probability and statistics theories.
Some models like Gaussian Mixture Models, Naive Bayes and Hidden Markov
Models demand a sound understanding of probability and statistics. Learn measure
theory. Statistics helps as a model evaluation metric like receiver-operator curves,
confusion matrices, p-values, etc.

Data Modeling

Machine learning engineers also have to analyze unstructured data. This mainly relies
on the science of data modeling, the process of assessing the basic structure of a
dataset, locating patterns and bridging the gap where there are no traces of data. Data
modeling is the base of developing firm algorithms which can be enhanced over time.
Programming Skills

Your software development and programming skills will matter the most as machine
learning is all about developing productive algorithms.

Programming and Computer Science Fundamentals

There is a lot of computation on extremely large amount of data in machine learning.

Hence, one should be clear with

 Data Structures like queues, multi-dimensional arrays, trees stacks, graphs etc.
 Complexity like NP-complete problems, P vs. NP, big-O notation.
 Algorithms like searching, optimisation, dynamic programming, sorting.
 Computer Constitution like cache, deadlocks, memory, bandwidth, distributed
processing.
Once you are deeply know these fundamentals, you are also responsible to know how
to apply as well as deploy them while programming.

Software Design

What do machine learning engineers deliver? They deliver “Software”. If we look

closely, software is a very small component however, a game changer in a large
community of products and services. Therefore, it is important to form systems and
algorithms that can effectively be integrated with such software. Having a strong hold
on API, dynamic libraries will help in proper software designing and effective
interface development.

Applied Maths and Algorithms

Universal implementations of Machine learning are easily accessible through libraries

like Theano, scikit-learn, Spark MLlib, TensorFlow, H2O etc. However, choose an
appropriate model to implement them effectively like decision tree, nearest neighbor,
neural net, ensemble of multiple models, support vector machine etc. You need to
have knowledge about convex optimization, quadratic programming, gradient decent,
partial differential equations, lagrange etc. Moreover, it's important to have an idea
about merits and demerits of different approaches like overfitting and underfitting,
data leakage, bias and variance, missing data, data leakage.

Machine Learning Programming Languages

Machine Learning is not limited to any specific language. You will come across ML
libraries in different programming languages like C,C++, R and Python. Among all
these programming languages, the best language in my opinion to go ahead is Python.

Data scientists and machine learning engineers easily fall in love with python
language because of its easy syntax. Python ensures efficient scientific computing and
data processing, thanks to its helpful libraries like SciPy, NumPy and Pandas. Some
specialized ML libraries like Theano, scikit-learn and TensorFlow easily develop
algorithms with diverse computing platforms.
With so much hype of machine learning already in 2017, I am sure machine learning
will emerge more bigger in the coming years down the line. ML will play an
important role in moulding the future of online platforms.

Disclaimer: I am a co-founder @GreyAtom, assisting engineering talents find

sustainable careers in emerging technologies.

Some quick links

 Program - http://www.greyatom.com/full-sta...
 Chat with Academic Counsellor - You're welcome to share all your doubts,
insecurities paying an ear to which we'll try our level best to guide you to your
career path of success. https://calendly.com/greyatom/co...