
Show HN: Insight AI – 7 week fellowship for scientists and engineers - jakek
http://insightdata.ai
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jakek
Founder of Insight here (YC W11). Since 2012 we've been running free
fellowships to help PhDs transition to roles in data science [1] and more
recently health data [2]. Similarly, since 2014, we have been helping
professional software engineers learn and move into data engineering roles
[3]. Over 750 Insight alums now work as data scientists & engineers at 200+
companies.

This past year, we've seen more highly specialized applied AI / deep learning
roles emerge in the industry. We're also increasingly receiving applications
from scientists and engineers who have some machine learning experience and
are learning to build out sophisticated deep learning models during their time
at Insight. The new Insight AI [4] program will focus on allowing Fellows with
these backgrounds implement the latest ML techniques from research or
contribute to open source projects under the guidance of industry leaders,
then join AI teams in Silicon Valley and New York after the program. Insight
AI will accept both software engineers and quantitative scientists (no PhD
required).

[1] Data Science:
[http://insightdatascience.com](http://insightdatascience.com)

[2] Health Data: [http://insighthealthdata.com](http://insighthealthdata.com)

[3] Data Engineering:
[http://insightdataengineering.com](http://insightdataengineering.com)

[4] Artificial Intelligence: [http://insightdata.ai](http://insightdata.ai)

~~~
syntaxing
I actually pretty interested in joining this program since I am near one of
the locations! Do you guys accept other type of engineer (in my particular
case Mechanical Engineering) with a background in programming?

Also side note, I think you guys probably just migrated to new domains but
there seems to be a couple 404 links/pages on the site? The ones I was looking
in particular are these two
[http://insightdataengineering.com/insightdataengineering.com...](http://insightdataengineering.com/insightdataengineering.com/data-
engineering-notification-list)
[http://insightdataengineering.com/insightdataengineering.com...](http://insightdataengineering.com/insightdataengineering.com/data-
engineering-notification-list)

Also, there's an cert error that pops up in Firefox for
[http://insightdata.ai](http://insightdata.ai)

~~~
ronaknnathani
Sorry about the broken links on the Data Engineering page. Here is the correct
one to subscribe to the notification list.
[http://insightdataengineering.com/data-engineering-
notificat...](http://insightdataengineering.com/data-engineering-notification-
list)

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yurisagalov
I've been following Insight since Jake was subleasing office space from us for
his first class of fellows (there were six of them occupying ~500 sqft. Their
Palo Alto office alone is >14,000 sqft now, I think), and from the very first
class it felt like a very special program.

I've come back to both mentor and hang out with their fellows every single
batch since (I think I've been to 15 now), and it continues to amaze me just
how incredible the people are, and how cool the community is.

If you're thinking of a career in AI and you have some of the fundamentals
they're looking for at
[https://www.insightdata.ai](https://www.insightdata.ai), you'd be crazy not
to apply.

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sqrt
Is there any advantage (e.g. higher likelihood of admission, or earlier
notification) to applying earlier, assuming you apply by the deadline?

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Eridrus
This is exciting for me personally since I've been working on building a
portfolio to transition into a position where I can work on cutting edge DL/RL
work, so I will certainly apply, though July feels so far away .

Can you say which companies you have lined up to hire people in NYC?

P.S. If anyone is looking to hire a research engineer before August of next
year, my email is in my profile... :)

~~~
jakek
Since the New York session is a bit further out, we're still finalizing the
mentor companies. That said, for our NYC data science and engineering
programs, companies hiring Insight Fellows include Facebook, Bloomberg,
Capital One, New York Times, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and
dozens of others. We expect many of these companies plus other NY AI teams to
be actively participating as we have already received significant interest.

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conjectures
Is it possible to track the value added of these programmes?

I'm curious about the extent they already take 'winners' and usher them into
jobs they could have landed without the programme (and the converse).

~~~
jakek
The litmus test for me on whether we're adding adding value as an education
company has always been: are there Insight Fellows who get rejected from
companies X,Y,Z prior to Insight then get offers from X,Y,Z after Insight?
From the very first session through to today, we have numerous examples each
session of this happening.

A recent example was a Data Science Fellow who was a physics postdoc at
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab prior to Insight. Right after his postdoc
ended, he applied to half a dozen bay area tech companies (all the usual brand
name suspects), got rejected from all of them. He came to Insight and during
his fellowship built a video scene segmentation & object detection project
with a YC startup. After Insight he got an offer from every one of the
companies he previously got rejected from. He went on to accept an offer on
the LinkedIn data science security team (which is led by another Insight
alum).

We’ve seen this happen time and again on the software engineering side as well
with our data engineering program. A Data Engineering Fellow prior to Insight
has a generalist software engineer experience but a passion for big data,
wants to do big data full-time, but no one will take a chance on her/him. At
Insight they build a sophisticated data pipeline on AWS, while being mentored
by leading data engineers, and then the same companies previously rejecting
that Fellow for data engineering roles make offers because they now have the
evidence they need that she/he can solve the types of specialized problems the
company is facing.

~~~
mailshanx
In your experience, how much of the interviews for an AI / DL role consists of
classic CS algorithm puzzlers, compared to a regular software engineering
interview at a place like Google / Facebook?

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xmdgngsnsgnn
When you say "engineers," do you mean actual engineers (i.e. aerospace,
control and power systems, etc.), or just web and app developers?

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deepGem
This is very cool ! Do you accept foreign applicants ? If so, any specific
advice

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DrNuke
I must admit that my interest in this field has peaked in 2015 (say a mid 2014
- mid 2016 cycle) and that I'm now only keen on applications for my industry.
It's a good sign, though: DS/ML/AI alphabetisation is progressing very well
and a lot of people and outsiders like me are starting to use the tools for
their own agenda.

