Getting the job I think is only slightly more difficult than, say, two years ago. But being a top performer is definitely a lot harder, and it requires a level of SWE skills and pure AI knowledge that the ML industry has never seen.
There's a rift happening between the traditional ML types and scientists that have adapted to work equally well on both sides of the R&D equation. The former are getting left behind and are treated like second class citizens. Not pretty.
Senior level ML scientist at MSFT here.
Getting the job I think is only slightly more difficult than, say, two years ago. But being a top performer is definitely a lot harder, and it requires a level of SWE skills and pure AI knowledge that the ML industry has never seen.
There's a rift happening between the traditional ML types and scientists that have adapted to work equally well on both sides of the R&D equation. The former are getting left behind and are treated like second class citizens. Not pretty.