This told essay is based on a conversation with Darryl Roberts, 30, principal AI and machine learning engineer at Obney.ai, an AI consulting firm near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His identity has been confirmed. This story has been edited for length and clarity.
I was a freshman in college when my grandmother passed away. My parents had health issues, so her income really helped. I thought it was selfish to go to school, so I dropped out and joined the Marine Corps Reserve for medical benefits and a small paycheck. I also started looking for a well-paying civilian job that I could do while I was off-duty.
Although he had never changed the oil in a car before, he decided to take a job as a diesel mechanic at a local industrial equipment dealership. During my interview with my future boss, I said, “I’ve never done anything like this before, but I’m a quick learner, so if you don’t understand, you can fire me.” He said we had a deal.
I worked as a diesel mechanic for about three years, working with heavy equipment such as forklifts, manlifts, and skid steers. Then I started climbing the ladder. I became a service administrator, dispatcher, and eventually operations manager.
But even as he rose to the top, he realized he was unhappy and decided to move into AI. ChatGPT was growing explosively at the time, and I’ve been interested in robotics and machine learning since I was a kid. My family has always been better off financially, so I thought now I could afford to be a little selfish and go back to school. However, I never thought I would go to a four-year university.
AI boot camp
One day, while scrolling through Facebook, I saw an ad for an AI boot camp called Fullstack Academy, offered through Louisiana State University. I have registered. This was a six-month online program with an instructor and career coach for two hours a day, two days a week. I was in the first group and they were offering a discount. On top of that, I also received a military discount. I paid about 100,000 yen in total.
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We started with statistics, then machine learning, traditional data science, neural networks, and more. After a few months, with the support of my fiancé, I was able to quit my job and immerse myself in my studies.
I enrolled in about 50 additional classes on Udemy, an online education program, about topics not covered in the bootcamp, such as Transformers and reinforcement learning. Many of them were on sale and priced as little as $10.
Towards the end of bootcamp, I started looking for jobs in AI. I built a small AI bot that could automatically apply to jobs on LinkedIn, but all I received was a rejection email. I really started to think I had failed.
Pet project pays off
During that time, I was working on my own AI projects and posting on LinkedIn. One of them caught the attention of the owner of a company that uses AI to analyze boxers’ punches and movements. He asked me if I was interested in freelance work. Things didn’t go well, but it was a wake-up moment for me. I realized I didn’t need a full-time job. I wish I could be freelance.
Thanks to networking connections I made through LinkedIn, I landed my first paid job working with AI analyzing chicken behavior. I was tracking chickens around the farm. Next, we did 2D to 3D modeling. I took on a lot of these projects and I learned a lot very quickly because I was pushing myself really hard.
Once I had some experience, I started looking for a full-time job. I started by attending a networking technology conference and meeting a cybersecurity vendor who was planning to start an AI company. We hit it off and he promised to remember me if he ever pulled the trigger.
Six months later, he called me and asked me to meet him and his co-founder. They said they are starting a consulting firm to help small and medium-sized businesses with their AI needs. And because of my freelance experience, I was able to offer my two cents. That was a really great moment for me. And soon we all started working together.
50% in the middle
It’s been a year and we’ve accomplished some amazing things. I’m the head of AI, and some of the interns I manage have master’s degrees and PhDs in this field. I can offer them advice, but it’s crazy to me. That’s just crazy.
Looking back, the boot camp was great and I have a certificate in AI Machine Learning with the LSU mark, but I probably only made it to 50%. You have to combine it with something like I did in my Udemy course. I also read research papers.
AI is changing rapidly and requires constant learning and getting your hands dirty. You won’t get great results if you only put in the bare minimum effort.
