Archana Iyer
Featuring Archana Iyer for the Saturday Shoutout Initiative by Pyladies, Chennai. Read on to hear her experience of being an Artificial Intelligence Engineer, about working in tech and the growth of women in tech.
1. What technical domain are you interested in and how did your journey start?
My journey has taken me quite far and wide in terms of technical domain expertise, I started my undergrad in electrical engineering and then pursued a Research position at Saama technologies, Chennai, where I worked on applied DL and NLP to the Pharma field. Thereafter which I was in awe of the way DL could change the Pharma industry. It made me wonder if I could actually apply to research in solar energy systems, so I went to start a Masters at the National University of Singapore. In my master's, I worked on edge computing applications for Solar Panels. Its been a month since I submitted my thesis and I started working on edge applications for the automotive industry at continental.
2. Can you share about your experience of working as an Artificial Intelligence Engineer?
The field of Machine Learning and Deep Learning is so fast-paced, that I think Artificial Intelligence engineers wear several hats. We don't only need to be quick with the implementation of new models, but we also need to have the skills to deploy it to a working system. I think a day in AI Engineer might seem closer to a Software Engineer, but the scale of our work is enormous.
3. According to you, how is Artificial Intelligence changing the world?
Our interconnected world produces a lot of data. Either through your everyday feed of social media or even recording of data through smart devices. It is necessary to encapsulate this data and make sense out of it. That is where AI comes in. As AI starts working its way through every segment of our lives, being advocates of the technology in the days ahead, we need to create sensible models and respect the privacy of data.
4. What would you suggest to anyone who is new to Artificial Intelligence? What skills do they need to have?
Artificial Intelligence stems from the Software Engineering field. So its learnings are similar to software engineering; ability to understand the logic in codes and above all a passion to learn. Personally, I love using Python for programming and I think the ease of it makes it a good language for Artificial Intelligence development. A lot in DL can be learned from practice. So my pro tip is to open up Kaggle and hack away into a new project. You might learn something along the way!
5. What do you like about working in tech?
One of the most interesting things about working for technology is knowing the endless problems you can solve. Take something as fundamental as my code, every day it throws a new problem at me, and every day I learn something new to correct it. On a bigger scale, that happens too, the space to create solutions for global challenges.
6. How do you feel women are growing in tech? Anyone you looked up to?
I think women in technology, often have a range of experiences of discrimination they can speak out. Ranging from working harder to prove you are better than your male counterparts to Creating a space to just be heard, I think we have seen it all. But on the positive side, we are slowly increasing in numbers and companies are putting efforts to recognize and uplift these efforts. I do believe we will reach equality in the tech space, the journey is long and difficult. We are fortunate enough to have a lot of communities like Women Who Code invest in women leadership. We need women as not only software engineers in the industry but also as leaders. This is to pave the way for the next women in tech! As part of being the leadership fellow for Women Who Code, I get to practice leadership skills. This wonderful organization has continued to foster my skills and also given me a safe space to feel like I belong in tech. There are so many amazing women at Women Who Code who make this happen, Joey Rosenberg, The Chief Leadership Officer at WWCode, Shanna Gregory Global Leadership Manager, and Brianna Augenreich who co-leads the python/cloud tracks along with me. In my journey as a fellow, they inspire me to become better.
