

Ask HN: Is a Ph. D necessary for machine learning jobs? - stannisdamannis

I'm an undergrad majoring in CS, and I wanted to know if a Ph. D is necessary for machine learning/data mining jobs. I'm not sure if I want to go to graduate school; both personally, and since I transferred colleges midway (going to be a rising junior at a new school), so finding a new advisor to work with and all that jazz may not be enough to get into a top grad program for ML(given the time constraints).
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mathattack
I can't possibly fathom this to be true. Machine learning is one of the few
fields where having the Phd is useful, but it's definitely not mandatory.
(Same for data mining)

Get an entry level job, learn the technology and the theory behind it. Make
yourself invaluable. Nobody will worry about the degree.

A masters can be useful, but it can also wait until you have some experience.
(And someone else can pay for it)

One thing about data mining is it's helpful to know the context. If you're
doing data mining for consumer products, it can help to learn some Marketing.
If you're doing data mining in Finance, it can help to learn some Finance.

This gets to a bigger point of the field - it's very much about breadth.
Unfortunately Phds push you towards specialization rather than breadth.
(Though it still can be useful)

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m_ke
I'd also like to get some feed back on this as I'm currently finishing up a
double major in applied math and CS (with a focus on AI).

Would taking ML, advanced ML, Data Mining, Computer Vision, NLP, SLP,
Biometrics, Computational Learning Theory, Robotics, Linear Programming, Real
Analysis, Convex Optimization, Analysis of Algorithms I + II and Differential
Equations be enough to get me in the door?

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iandanforth
At my last job we were working on novel machine learning techniques and were
hiring either recent CS grads or quite experienced programmers. The only PhD
was our VP of engineering. I would say the organization was atypical though
and even an in-progress PhD provides a significant boost to your chances of
getting hired.

