吴恩达：人工智能领域求职的小tips

作者：吴恩达

Dear friends, （中文译文见下面）

I’ve written about how to build a career in AI and focused on tips for learning technical skills, choosing projects, and sequencing projects over a career. This time, I’d like to talk about searching for a job.

A job search has a few predictable steps including selecting companies to apply to, preparing for interviews, and finally picking a job and negotiating an offer. In this letter, I’d like to focus on a framework that’s useful for many job seekers in AI, especially those who are entering AI from a different field.

If you’re considering your next job, ask yourself:

• Are you switching roles? For example, if you’re a software engineer, university student, or physicist who’s looking to become a machine learning engineer, that’s a role switch.
  

• Are you switching industries? For example, if you work for a healthcare company, financial services company, or a government agency and want to work for a software company, that’s a switch in industries.

A product manager at a tech startup who becomes a data scientist at the same company (or a different one) has switched roles. A marketer at a manufacturing firm who becomes a marketer in a tech company has switched industries. An analyst in a financial services company who becomes a machine learning engineer in a tech company has switched both roles and industries.

If you’re looking for your first job in AI, you’ll probably find switching either roles or industries easier than doing both at the same time. Let’s say you’re the analyst working in financial services:

• If you find a data science or machine learning job in financial services, you can continue to use your domain-specific knowledge while gaining knowledge and expertise in AI. After working in this role for a while, you’ll be better positioned to switch to a tech company (if that’s still your goal).

• Alternatively, if you become an analyst in a tech company, you can continue to use your skills as an analyst but apply them to a different industry. Being part of a tech company also makes it much easier to learn from colleagues about practical challenges of AI, key skills to be successful in AI, and so on.

If you’re considering a role switch, a startup can be an easier place to do it than a big company. While there are exceptions, startups usually don’t have enough people to do all the desired work. If you’re able to help with AI tasks — even if it’s not your official job — your work is likely to be appreciated. This lays the groundwork for a possible role switch without needing to leave the company. In contrast, in a big company, a rigid reward system is more likely to reward you for doing your job well (and your manager for supporting you in doing the job for which you were hired), but it’s not as likely to reward contributions outside your job’s scope.

After working for a while in your desired role and industry (for example, a machine learning engineer in a tech company), you’ll have a good sense of the requirements for that role in that industry at a more senior level. You’ll also have a network within that industry to help you along. So future job searches — if you choose to stick with the role and industry — likely will be easier.

When changing jobs, you’re taking a step into the unknown, particularly if you’re switching either roles or industries. One of the most underused tools for becoming more familiar with a new role and/or industry is the informational interview. I’ll share more about that in the next letter.

亲爱的朋友们，

我曾撰写过关于如何在人工智能领域建立职业生涯的文章，重点介绍了学习技术技能、选择项目以及在职业生涯中安排项目顺序的技巧。这一次，我想谈谈找工作的问题。


求职有几个可预测的步骤，包括选择要申请的公司、准备面试，最后选择一份工作并进行商谈。在今天这封来信中，我想重点介绍一个对许多人工智能求职者有用的框架，特别是那些从不同领域进入人工智能的求职者。

如果你正在考虑换一份工作，请先问问自己：

• 你需要变换角色吗？例如，如果你是一名软件工程师、大学生或是一名想成为机器学习工程师的物理学家，那么这就是一次角色转换。

• 你需要变换行业吗？例如，如果你目前在为一家医疗保健公司、金融服务公司或政府机构工作，之后想为一家软件公司工作，这就是行业的转变。

科技初创公司的一名产品经理变成了同一家公司（或另一家公司）的数据科学家，他就转换了角色。一家制造公司的营销人员成为一家科技公司的营销员，他就改变了行业。如果一位金融服务公司的分析师成为了一家科技公司的机器学习工程师，那么他既转换了角色也转换了行业。


如果你正在寻找人工智能领域的第一份工作，你可能会发现单独转换角色或行业比同时进行这两件事更容易。假设你是金融服务业的分析师：

• 如果你在金融服务业找到数据科学或机器学习相关的工作，你可以沿用你再特定领域的知识，同时获得人工智能方面的知识和专业技能。在这个职位上工作一段时间后，你将更适合转投科技公司（如果这仍然是你的目标的话）。

• 或者，如果你成为一家科技公司的分析师，你可以继续使用你作为分析师的技能，但需要将其应用到不同的行业。作为科技公司的一员，你还可以更容易地向同事学习人工智能面临的实际挑战、在人工智能领域取得成功的关键技能等等。

如果你正在考虑进行角色转换，创业公司可能比大企业更容易实现这一点。当然也有例外，但初创公司通常缺乏足够的人员来完成所有的预期工作。如果你能够帮助完成人工智能任务——即使这并非你的正式工作——你的付出可能会受到赞赏。在无需离开公司的前提下，这为可能的角色转换奠定了基础。相比之下，大企业严格的奖励制度更有可能奖励你出色完成了本职工作（以及支持你完成工作的经理），但不太会奖励你在工作范围之外做出的贡献。


在你理想的职位和行业（例如，科技公司的机器学习工程师）工作一段时间后，你会对该行业更高层次的职位要求有更好的了解。你还将在该行业中拥有一个关系网络来帮助你继续发展。因此，如果你选择坚守岗位和行业，未来的求职可能会更容易。


更换工作是你向未知迈出的一步，特别是当你换角色或换行业时。为了更熟悉新角色和/或行业，信息性面试是最未被充分利用的工具之一。我将在下一封信中更多地分享这一点。

请不断学习！
吴恩达

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