Getting job in AI Research Role without official Degree at Meta

Question

Hello,

I started learning Gen AI end of 2023 and learned how to finetune an LLM from hackathons and by talking with researchers at the University while working nearby, similarly I learned using Pytorch and learned how to finetune AI models.

I am a Gen AI expert, worked at a startup building ai tools from 0 to 1 and we got acquired in about half a year. I have a bachelors degree in computer science, only paper I wrote is during my bachelors didn't make much impact.

I am specialized at AI Document Processing with Agents.
For this I had to dive through all available OCR methods, document processing libraries available in python, java script and spend much time writing better ones.

For a side project I am training an object detection AI Model , I saw a colleague who did a masters in AI train a model classic way with labeling using roboflow, and so I just copy it.

These kinda jobs seem nice:

How to approach getting this kind of role without masters degree/phd? From my position? Are there some others with these roles without the degree/phd?

I'm wondering how I can leverage what I have now to get this kind of job.

Since joining Taro I've gotten to know a lot about Meta from Alex and Rahul and seems like the nicest place to work from all the Tech companies out there. From the archetypes to culture, and managers being expected to code being in the trenches with the engineers if needed.

I wonder what approach to take to land a job at Meta, heard they're paying top buck for AI expertise from OpenAI guys, so they are willing to spend money on AI expertise that's interesting.

thillai starsystems · Accepted Answer

Yes, it's certainly possible to get an AI research position at Meta or other comparable firms without a formal degree — but it requires solid evidence of your abilities, real-world projects, and being able to articulate your thought processes. Begin with a strong portfolio work on open-source AI/ML projects, post personal research or experiments on GitHub, and write about insights on platforms such as LinkedIn or Medium. Also, interview performance is a big part. I utilized VivaQuest mock interview software, which practices actual interview questions and provides feedback on improvement.

Getting job in AI Research Role without official Degree at Meta

Discussion

Related Course

Other Great Discussions

How to Learn/Practice Clean Code, particularly by oneself?

How possible is it to spot red flags about toxic culture during the interview?

Behavioral Interview Prep - "What's your greatest weakness?"

How do you get a remote job?

How to evaluate a startup?