I don't have a PhD. A lot of people have opinions about that.

When I was starting out, I was told — repeatedly — that you can't be a "real" ML engineer without a doctorate. That I'd hit a ceiling. That I'd never be taken seriously.

250+ AI systems later, here's what I actually needed:

Strong Python skills. Enough math to understand what the models are doing (not enough to derive everything from scratch). The ability to read papers and extract what's useful. And most importantly — the discipline to build, deploy, break things, fix them, and ship.

The industry has shifted dramatically. Companies want people who can turn research into products, not people who can publish papers about papers.

If you're sitting there thinking "I need a PhD before I can start" — no. You need a GitHub repository with working code and the willingness to learn in public.

The barrier was never the degree. It was the belief that you needed one.