ai, women in tech, and your career isn't linear w/ apurva misra, sr. ml eng

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I know it's me running my mouth. I forgot, let's give the people what they want. Who are you? What do you do at a high level? And we'll go from there. Hey, everyone. My name is Apulva Mr.. I'm a machine learning engineer. And I also consult for companies with their AI strategy and how to build it into the day to day. Other than that, I am into public speaking as well. I've been going to conferences, talking about AI. And I think it's really important that everyone, understands how it works and what the limitations are. Yeah, absolutely. So lots of cover today. I want to talk about AI at a high level.

This isn't going to be an AI show. I'm sure people are already tired of hearing about AI. But let me ask you this. What are some big things you're seeing companies do or not do with AI right now? Let's start there. I'm seeing a lot of companies build chatbots. That's the easiest. I'm not surprised once chat security came out there. And the face was so simple. Everyone was, it was so approachable. Like everyone started using it. And the easiest, because it gives you amazing national language understanding and generation. The best use is everyone could think of was chatbots. So I think they are getting adopted by every company very quickly.

I am not sure how useful they are though. What are companies not using right now? It depends, actually. I think a lot of companies are still using classical machine learning, which is still revenue generating. And it's amazing. You don't need deep learning and national language for everything. So I can say what companies are using yes classical machine learning. People, I am excited about agents, actually. I'm not sure in a company storing that. Maybe because the technology is in production already yet. Sure. What, when you talk to companies or help companies with kind of their AI strategy, I know you mentioned chatbots and how that's kind of an easy thing to get to the low hanging fruit I feel like for companies, what would you advise them?

What's kind of your biggest tip across the board for companies who hire managers who may watch this right now or in the future who are looking to adopt AI in your organization? What's kind of your blanket statement to them but hey, you should consider this, this, give kind of more of a thesis type statement that you give to folks. Just be talking about AI in general. They always advise them like organizing the data, cleaning it up and keeping it well maintained. Because in the beginning, like a lot of companies want to use AI or machine learning, but they don't have the data for it. Sure.

Other thing is like if you focus just on generated AI, I cause this technology is not like typical software engineering, like it's not deterministic, it's probabilistic. There are a lot of things that needs to change. It's a completely different technology. So like the user interface, if you go to chat GPD at the bottom it sees that chat GPD makes mistakes. So you need to like update your user interface such that you're like setting a level link deal with the users. They know the stress. Weeks, you know? So user interfaces, one thing, getting user feedback that also you would have seen like chat GPD asks for a thumbs up, thumbs down.

Or it's implicit like if you copy these stuff that it generates like it knows you like it. So it helps in improving iteratively. So that I think is really important. Yeah, absolutely. Do you think, let me just say this. Do you think everybody needs to incorporate AI or is it one of those things where it's like not everybody needs to, depending on their business model? Or do you think the majority of businesses probably should start? That's a good question. So cost this technology has become so popular in the past year or so. I know. Everyone thinks that they need to, but just cause we have a hammer, not everything is a need, right?

Just for the problem that doesn't mean you have to apply AI on it. There's so many little ways, heuristics that you can solve it with. But I think how it is, how it's more useful is in your day to day workflow. So like personally like you can use it to like, I'm not a needed English speaker. So I use it a number of times like improve what I've written. So like day to day for personal users, it's amazing. Cause even if it makes mistakes, like you are the decision maker, you get it. You figured out what I'm gonna say to that. I love that. And I think too, I mean, I think it obviously varies on businesses to business and in case to case.

But I also feel like people are trying to just rush to it. And I feel like people aren't seeking out individuals like yourself to kind of guide them through that process. Cause I feel like it's just a hot thing and everybody wants to kind of jump on it and say we do it. Sure, it obviously helps your evaluation with VCs and stuff like that. We're an AI company now, right? So, but no, I think, I think that's good information. And I think too, and just in regards, if people want to reach out to you regarding AI stuff and how it helps, how you can help their company, what's the best way for folks to do that?

Just my LinkedIn. I have a little bit as well. My last name. For statement last name. Sorry, fantastic, fantastic. So I know one of the topics that we talked about as well is you kind of set it backstage about careers not being linear, right? So you set it at the backstage. Obviously you had a podcast for a little bit. Do you want to talk about that super high level? Cause I think it does apply to obviously this conversation. I think a couple of your friends is very like, it's really important. Like just cause you have done an undergrad and something or like you studied something that doesn't mean you'll be working in that field.

So what I remember is like when I was doing my undergrad, machine learning was even a field then. Like machine learning is how you do them. And once I graduated and like I worked in a startup, I realized, oh machine learning computer vision is a thing. And that's how it came from my masters and like got into the field. So you don't like, especially like kids in like 12th grade or 11th grade. Do not know like the different avenues that they could focus on. And when you're that young like by the time you come to the age when you're working those avenues, like there will be so many new ones popping up that would interest you more.

So I think it's really important to keep your mind open and like be not like it's good to focus on something but not limit yourself. Don't put yourself in a box. It's really important to keep learning. There might be something which comes up when you will find it more interesting. And it's the education system is such that like at 12th grade you have like decide like 40% or study. Yeah, for the. No idea. I had no idea. No idea either. Yeah, I relied a lot on my parents and like the substance is going to guide me but even they would know like what's gonna come up in the next four years.

So because world is changing so quickly. So it just helps to keep your mind open. What what what did you do or or I guess how did you set yourself up for success? I mean like you know you do AI ML stuff now. Were you like you know, were you reading articles or blogs or following people on Twitter and you started to see this and you're like, I should probably go that way. Like how have you kind of navigated your career? Or was it through a community group with friends? Was it you know, I'm just I'm always curious especially technical folks like yourself just kind of how do you keep up with the trends and kind of move swiftly to maybe a new role?

So I did my undergrad in electronics and communication because I won't get into hardware. And then once I graduated, I started working for a company. I was working as a software architect and then I let the job in like three months because I realized that is something I don't want to do in my whole life. And then I told like different things. I thought, do I want to do next? Do I want to do masters in technology? Do I want to do an MBA or do I want to like work for a startup? So I didn't internship at a startup after that. And that's where I was introduced to like robotics, computer vision, machine learning.

So I decided to do my masters. And during my masters, I might be so sure focused on autonomous makers and like how can you detect a private distraction? So I used machine learning in there as well. And close to my graduation, I was reading a book which is called NLP in action. And I got interested in national language processing. And my first jobs are for graduation was in like building chat boards, national language processing stuff. Yeah. And yeah, that was amazing. And now like you have chat GPD. This was the four chat GPD. Sure. So we were doing like basic statistical stuff and boards topic modeling.

I don't even think people need to do all of that now because of embeddings and like the models. That was interesting. Yeah. Have you, I mean, in the answer, if the answers, no, that's fine. Have you ever felt like you've taken a step back in your career to maybe take a step forward? Has that ever happened at all? Or would you say your career's pretty much been, you know, obviously straightforward from the get go? I'm just always curious. You need to take the step back. So that's what happened. You know? And that one year after my undergrad, that was a step back, like one year of like exploration doing like different things, doing an internship and sort of a job like after graduating.

I did that. Wasn't paid much actually close to nothing. But like that gave me that, that let me explore different things and got me interested in machine learning. Yeah. Yeah. So so you could arguably say the one step back that you've had in your career arguably was the thing that got you to where you're at now. Oh, that's easy. Yes. That's awesome. So let's talk, let's talk about no topic. It's obviously very hot and very important. And obviously is kind of goes in line with your career and stuff. It's getting more women in tech, right? I mean, one of the things again, I kind of, for those of you listening or watching now the future, I always kind of ask a question is like, hey, what's kind of on your mind and a poor way answer to this?

She was like, you know, trying to get more women in tech. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, I have my thoughts when it comes to diversity and tech. I think it's got to start young. Like I think companies need to be more get involved in colleges and internships and apprenticeships and all that. What what's kind of your thought and where was your head at when you answered that question on my questionnaire? So I have experiences my whole life and like the technology field. Even during my undergrad, there were very few goals in the same class that I was in. After graduation, wherever I worked, like I was the only goal in the team.

So I've always felt that. And I've tried my best. Like I try to like do talks, like help out with like help out goals. Well, like in the university time, like decide what to take what subjects to take, like what jobs, like how do I for jobs? I tried to do all of that, but I don't think it's enough. One person doing it is not enough. Like everyone needs to learn that this is a problem. Like there aren't enough goals and stuff. And it's it's really important because they bring such a such a diverse perspective to what is happening. And me alone cannot do that.

And I've seen like a lot of conferences. They are trying to make sure they have enough women's speakers, which is amazing. Because if if girls, when they're younger, they see like women speaking and women in the field, they would they would think it's more it's not very hard to achieve. It's just it seems like it's hard to achieve because they don't seem more of them represented in that field. So I think the presentation is really important. Yeah, absolutely. What I mean, in your experience with companies to get, I mean, like where does this start? Does this start on the collegiate level on the younger level?

Like how can companies get involved? I mean, what are your thoughts on that? Just just to try to just level up everybody around them? I think it doesn't even start there. It starts so early on in life. Like once you like start separating on what girls can achieve and what boys can achieve, that's where it starts. And then they seem more of the boys doing computer science, machine learning, they think it's it's the norm. And women are supposed to be I don't know. Like there are these classifications. I don't like state out loud, but there are these classifications. Sure. Women, there are some jobs in the mental.

Men are good at sometimes. Women are good at some other things. Sure. That is just expected norm. And it starts right from the beginning. Like when you start saying pink is for girls and who is the boys, that's where it starts. And it just shows up later on in life where we can do statistical analysis and see, like there are in and of like girls in the class and college. Yeah. Yeah. And then at the end, like there aren't enough women in the leadership positions. Like, yeah. It's just shows up there. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, my big thing that I've pressed on a lot is I'm really big on, you know, I kind of equate it to sports teams, like sports teams, they usually have farm teams and lower level teams that help build the pipeline of talents and players.

Right. And I feel like organizations, companies don't do that. Like, like I think there needs to be a way to bring in younger talent. Right. Because in my experience in terms of volunteering at software schools and helping them out, your diversity is in the software schools. Right. And it's like all these big companies, they don't have an apprenticeship or an internship or any sort of partnerships with any universities or any software schools to build up that representation. I feel like that's where companies just are really missing the market. I feel like it's not that hard to put into place. It just requires a different level of thinking.

And I think that's really hard for companies right now. Yeah. So that's kind of, that's kind of my thoughts there in terms of, in terms of exes and strategies. Let me, let me ask you this, you know, you talked about speaking, you know, you've got in this public speaking. Can you talk about if people who want to get involved with speaking, how to get started? I feel like a lot of people think public speaking is just like huge hill to climb. And they don't know how to get started. So I wonder if you had any tips, especially because you said you've done a lot of speaking lately and you kind of ramp on that up.

Public speaking is a hard thing for people. I have read like a couple of books about that. The other thing I think which helps her is purpose. A purpose in works for everything. It's just the key. If you have a presentation ready and you're going to speak tomorrow, just like purpose at like a couple of times. And when you do it there, it's just like you're doing it like a gain. And it's not a big deal. There are like a bunch of people sitting in front of you while you're doing it. So I honestly like for me, practicing that a lot. Yeah. How do you how would you.

How how how how do you practice? So I think practicing is is hard enough in and of itself. I'm curious how how you practice. OK, so one thing is like liking what you're going to present. Yes, when when when you're like working in sales for your company or something, you have this like template presentation that you have like and you have like points written out there to see out loud. That doesn't help. So generally like whatever I'm presenting, I'm very passionate about that. So that does and then I make the presentation and I avoid writing pointers at the bottom. I just like kind of like remember what what I'm going to talk about and I have like hints right there and the slide which is going to help me remember the points.

And then what I do is like time with timing is really important. Yeah, it is. It starts out with the presentation and then like make sure like I'm finishing it on time and speak out in an empty room with my laptop and sometimes I've been in and like listen to my presentation like a couple of times as well. Have you ever recorded yourself and watched yourself back? I haven't. I will do more. I will do more. My voice, but that's what I get away. I have a whole thing. Yeah, so I had a I went to school. My mind was in public speaking. I had a major speech impediment when I was younger.

I had I'd stuntered. I couldn't pronounce a lot of my like L's, T H's, R's, S's and in college we had to record ourselves and it was it was brutal. It's absolutely brutal to watch back, but you start to you start to learn and notice inconsistencies in what you do that really, really helps, but it's very, very painful to do it the first few times. But Ricardo, thanks for hanging out by us. Good to see you. So do you have your talk ready for render? Can I ask you what you're speaking on? Is it ready yet? It is ready. I have to walk on it.

Okay. Okay. Is it is it around the AI ML space? Yes. Okay. Awesome. Excited. Exactly. Hopefully I'm seeing your stage. Yeah, Jordan comes in. You'll notice every weird ticker accent if you have record yourself, not for the faint of heart. Yeah, Jordan Jordan was doing some live stuff. So props to you, Jordan. It's really, really hard. It's really hard. So I want to kind of wrap up here and I kind of want to bring it back to career stuff, job search stuff. I always want to touch on it with every single speaker because just the mark it right now. Do you have any advice for job seekers that are looking right now?

Just any words of encouragement because it's just obviously it's very, very heavy right now. So I will take you prime and don't take every rejection too hard. Yes. That's really important. I know how every rejection feels, but please, like it's not personal. Don't take it personally. And sometimes like, I know why it's the case, but you spend so much time interviewing and you would get a tempted rejection. No one gives you a feedback. It's just a tempted rejection automated email that holds, but just don't make it close to me. That's all I can say. Yeah, I think, you know, there's when it comes to the job search, I mean, I would say being on the talent side of things, I mean, like 80% of the reasons why you're rejected probably isn't even because of you.

There's accountless other things. Other people could be a little bit better. There could be a budget cuts, realignment of role, reclassification of role. I see and you're right down the mid, you know, whatever. Like there's just so much going on. So and I've said this a ton too, where it's like, if you can get the mental state of like, I'm going to get rejected, right? And I hate that you have to go there, but if you can be like, I'm going to get rejected more times than not. That's okay. If you can start there, I think it's going to be a little easier on you.

Thoughts on that? Yeah. Yeah. When you imagine the negative scenario, V to many times, I wouldn't suggest do that too often. But yeah, yeah. Yeah. When it actually happens, it doesn't hurt as much because it already feels. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Katie. Katie, thank you. We're all doing cards. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's it's it's it's a lot right now. So as we wrap up here, I kind of do like a quick four question rapid fire here, totally unprompted. Um, so let me ask you this, if if if money was the same. And you could not do a job in tech. What would you do? There is stuff.

Really? Yeah, you were you were you were quick on that. You were quick on that. Oh, this landed up. Oh my god. Everyone like, I want to go up. Um, it's just amazing. I feel like I'm in a chemistry lab like playing around. Yeah. Look what's it. I like that's awesome. I love you were you were quick to the trigger. So obviously if tech ever doesn't work out, obviously it's working out, I'll find you at a Breaston Vancouver. Um, let me ask you this outside of work. What do you do for fun? Um, what do I'm learning Spanish? Um, I love it. I love it.

So I decided I love it. I love it. Cause I love traveling a lot. Anything Spanish is going to help there. Um, and I love excluding new restaurants and new yoga studios. Um, very much into yoga. Yeah, that's about it. I love that what where where's been your favorite place that you've traveled lately? Um, I would say youky London was really good. London was very beautiful. I love the architecture. Otherwise, if you think from the nature of perspective, it's very close to one point. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you can't. I have not been to London or BAMF, but they're obviously on my list for sure. Um, third question is obviously this is AI ML related.

Um, any, you know, the original question is any tech trends, frameworks, et cetera, that, that you want, that you've been reading up on or you've been experimenting with. Is there anything in the AI ML space that's kind of interesting that you're tinkering with right now? Um, I'm tinkering with the agents, frameworks. So there are like a couple of them. Uh, one is true AI, the other one is auto gen. The third one is like land. So I'm exploring auto gen a bit more. It's a Microsoft based framework. Um, it's it'll let you like set of multiple models that you can talk to each other. It's actually one of the different problems, but they can talk to each other.

So they can like fix their own mistakes. Um, so an agent framework. I love that. That's awesome. Um, all right. Last question is you wrap up here. And again, thank you all who watched. I have the, the, the counter up here. A lot of you all watched. Um, so again, thank you so much. Um, but, uh, if, uh, so the show is called guidance counselor 2.0 because we had guidance counselors at middle school high school and college. But now as adults, we don't really have a guidance counselor turn to and ask for career advice. So what would be your biggest piece of career advice you would have told your younger self?

To my younger self. Yeah. Uh, it's that's a hard question. Um, I think. Um, do you want me to so worried about things? Um, yeah. I think I worked way too hard, especially like I was in the Indian education system. It's, it's very hard on you. Um, it's, it's, everything like really. You would find a way to make it work. That's, that's the thing. Like as, as humans are worried about it, they do find a way to make everything work. And that, like at that point of time, it, things, it feels like a big deal, but in 10 years you wouldn't care about that. Um, so like not nobody as much.

I love that. I love that. I love that. All right. Oh, well, thank you again for hanging out with us this morning. Time flies. We have fun with friends as always. Um, so tomorrow morning we're back at the normal time. Another render, a Tl speaker, Charlie Girard coming on the show. She's a staff engineer. Um, so we're going to talk about, uh, learning new tech and experimenting with weird stuff when it comes to tech is per her word. So we're going to talk about that. So it's time to hang out with her. Appreciate you so much for hanging out with me. I appreciate it. Stay on real quick, sexy about you backstage.

But y'all have a good one. We'll see you on tomorrow morning, 9 30 AM central. Peace. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode and I am very grateful. Cause you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finished an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening. If you're a reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the app store. I want this to be discoverable to others and the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it. Please like right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it.

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