As I did not become a machine learning specialist

Success stories are loved by everyone. And there are a lot of them on Habré.

"How I got a job with a salary of 300,000 dollars in Silicon Valley"
"How I Got a Job at Google"
“How I earned $ 200,000 at 16”
"How I got to the Top AppStore with a simple application of the exchange rate"
"Like me ..." and another thousand and one similar stories.

It's great that a person has succeeded and decided to tell about it! You read and rejoice for it. But most of these stories have one thing in common: you cannot repeat the path of the author! Either you live at the wrong time, or in the wrong place, or you were born a boy, or ...

I think that failure stories in this regard are often more useful. You just do not need to do what the author did. And this, you see, is much easier than trying to repeat someone’s experience. Just such stories people usually do not want to share. And I will tell.

I have worked for many years in system integration and technical support. A few years ago, I even went to work as a systems engineer in Germany to get more money. But the area of ​​system integration has not inspired me for a long time, and I wanted to change the sphere to something more monetary and interesting. And at the end of 2015, I stumbled upon the article “From Physics to Data Science (From Engines of Science to Office Plankton)” , in which Vladimir describes his path in Data Science. I understood: this is what I need. I knew SQL well and it was interesting for me to work with data. I was especially impressed with these graphics:

Even the minimum wage in this area was higher than any of my wages in my entire previous life. I was determined to become a machine learning engineer. Following the example of Vladimir, I signed up for coursera.org for a specialization of nine courses: "Data Science" .

I did one course a month. I was very diligent. I completed all the tasks on each course until I received the highest result. In parallel with this, I took on assignments for kaggle, and I even did it !!! It is clear that the prizes did not shine for me, but 100 times I got.

After five successfully completed courses at coursera.org and another “Big Data with Apache Spark” on stepik.ru, I felt strong. I realized that I was beginning to get into the subject. I understood in what cases what methods of analysis should be used. I figured out pretty well with Python and its libraries.

My next step was to analyze the job market. It was necessary to find out what else you need to know in order to get a job. What subject areas are worth exploring which are of interest to employers. In parallel with the remaining 4 courses, I wanted to take something more highly specialized. What a particular employer wants to see. This would increase my chances of getting a job for a newbie with good knowledge, but no experience.

I went to the job search site to conduct my analysis. But there were no vacancies within a radius of 10 kilometers. And within a radius of 25 kilometers. And even within a radius of 50 km !!! How so? It can not be!!! I went to another site, then to the third ... Then I opened the vacancy card and saw about IT:

It turned out that I live in the very center of the anomalous python exclusion zone in Germany. None fucking acceptable vacancy of a machine learning specialist or at least a Python developer within a radius of 100 kilometers !!! This is a fiasco, bro !!!

This picture is 100% reflecting my state at that moment. It was a low blow that I delivered to myself. And it really hurt ...

Yes, you could go to Munich, Cologne or Berlin - there were vacancies there. But on this way one serious obstacle fell.

Our initial plan for moving to Germany was this: go wherever they take. It was absolutely no difference to us which city in Germany would abandon us. The next step is to get comfortable, arrange all documents and tighten the language. Well, then rush to the big city to earn more. Our preliminary perspective goal was Stuttgart. A big tech city in the south of Germany. And not as expensive as Munich. It is warm and grapes grow. Many industrial enterprises, so many jobs with a good salary. High quality of life. Just what we need.

We were cast by fate into a small town in the very center of Germany with a population of about 100,000. We settled down, settled down, filled out all the documents. The city was very comfortable, clean, green and safe. The children went to kindergarten and school. Everything was close. All around are very friendly people.

But in this fairy tale it turned out not that the vacancies of machine learning specialists, nobody even needed Python here.

My wife and I began to discuss the option of moving to Stuttgart or Frankfurt ... I began to look for vacancies, look at the requirements of employers, and my wife began to look after the apartment, kindergarten and school. After about a week of searching, my wife told me: “But you know, I don’t want to go to Frankfurt, Stuttgart, or to any other big city. I want to stay here. ”

And I realized that I fully agree with her. I am also tired of the big city. Only while I lived in St. Petersburg I did not understand this. Yes, a big city is an ideal place to build a career and earn money. But not for the comfort of a family with children. And for our family, this small town turned out to be just what we needed. Here was all that we lacked in St. Petersburg.

We decided to stay until our children grew up.

But what about Python and machine learning? And those six months that I have already spent on all this? Yes, nothing. There are no jobs nearby! I no longer wanted to spend 3-4 hours a day on the way to work. I have already worked in St. Petersburg for several years: I traveled with Dybenko to Krasnoye Selo, when I hadn’t built a circular one yet. An hour and a half there and a half back. Life passes by, and you look at the flashing houses from the window of a car or a minibus. Yes, on the road, you can read, listen to audiobooks and all that. But it quickly bothers, and after six months or a year you just kill this time, listening to the radio, music and looking aimlessly into the distance.

I have had failures before. But such nonsense, like this, I have not done for a long time. The realization that the work of a machine learning engineer I can not find, knocked me out of a rut. I dropped all the courses. I stopped doing anything at all. In the evenings, I drank beer or wine, ate salami and played at LoL. So a month has passed.

In fact, it’s not so important what difficulties life presents to you. Or even you present yourself. It is important how you overcome them and what lessons you learn from these situations.

"What does not kill us makes you stronger." Do you know this wise phrase? So, I think this is complete nonsense! I have a friend who, in the wake of the crisis of 2008, lost the job of the director of a rather large car dealership in St. Petersburg. What did he do? Right! Like a real man, he went looking for a job. Director's job. And when the director did not find the job for six months? He continued to look for the director’s work, but in other areas, because working as a car sales manager or someone other than the director was not comme il faut for him. As a result, he did not find anything for the year. And then scored on the job search at all. The summary hangs on HH - who needs it, he will call.

And he sat without work for four years, and his wife all the time making money. A year later, she was promoted, and they had more money. But he was still at home, drinking beer, watching TV, playing computer games. Of course, not only that. He cooked, washed, cleaned, went shopping. He turned into a frowning hog. Did it all make it stronger? I do not think so.

I, too, could continue to drink beer and blame employers for not opening vacancies in my village. Or blame myself for being such a fool and did not even bother to look at vacancies before taking on Python. But there was no point in this. I needed a plan B ...

In the end, I collected my thoughts and engaged in what was worth starting at the very beginning - with an analysis of demand. I analyzed the IT job market in my city and came to the conclusion that I have next to me:

• 5 vacancies of java developers
• 2 SAP developer jobs
• 2 vacancies of C # developers for MS Navision
• 2 vacancies of some developers for microcontrollers and hardware.

The choice was small:

1. SAP is most prevalent in Germany. Complex structure, ABAP. This, of course, is not 1C, but then it will be difficult to get off. And if you move to another country, the prospects for finding a good job fall sharply.
2. C # under MS Navision is specific too.
3. Microcontrollers have disappeared by themselves, because there still had to learn electronics.

As a result, in terms of prospects, salary, prevalence and the possibility of remote work, Java won. In fact, it was Java that chose me, not me.

And what happened next - many already know. I wrote about this in another article: "How to become a Java developer in 1.5 years . "

Therefore, do not repeat my mistakes. A few days of thoughtful analysis can save you a lot of time.

I write in my telegram channel @LiveAndWorkInGermany about how I changed my life at 40 and moved with my wife and three children to Germany. I write about how it was, what is good and what is bad in Germany, about plans for the future. Short and to the point. Interesting? - Join us.