"Pivoting to an AI job may be trendy, but that doesn't mean it's an easy feat. As AI-related jobs continue to pop up, and companies invest heavily in upskilling, more workers are looking to add "AI" to their job titles. While each followed a different path, all of them spent roughly a year building the necessary skills to land new roles - and for some, the transition took several years."
"Emrick Donadei said he didn't feel qualified to pivot to an AI team until he participated in Google's seven-day employee hackathon in 2024. The 32-year-old engineer said he didn't create a revolutionary product, but it gave him hands-on experience with tools, and something tangible he could use to start conversations with teams across the company. Roughly 10 months after his first hackathon, he said he landed his new role."
"Roughly 10 months after his first hackathon, he said he landed his new role. While the hackathon kick-started his transition, his work didn't stop there. The Googler continued to experiment with tools outside the hackathon, he said. He also created a podcast about AI developments and watched Andrej Karpathy's YouTube videos to get up to speed with machine learning concepts and anything related to LLMs."
Four Google employees transitioned into AI-focused roles by dedicating roughly a year to building skills, with some taking several years. Paths included participating in employee hackathons to gain hands-on experience, creating AI-focused content such as podcasts, self-study with resources like Andrej Karpathy's videos, and pursuing advanced degrees. One engineer leveraged a seven-day company hackathon to create tangible prototypes and conversations that led to a new role within ten months, then continued contributing via open-source committees and AI research. Company investments in upskilling and the growth of AI roles enabled these internal pivots.
Read at Business Insider
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