Source – forbes.com

Machine learning is exploding, with smart algorithms being used everywhere from email to smartphone apps to marketing campaigns. Translation: if you’re looking for an in-demand career, setting yourself up with the skills to work with smart machines/artificial intelligence is a good move.

With input from Florian Douetteau, CEO of Dataiku, here are some things you can start doing today to position yourself for a future career in machine learning.

1. Understand what machine learning is.

This may sound obvious, says Douetteau, but it’s important. “Having experience and understanding of what machine learning is, understanding the basic maths behind it, understanding the alternative technology, and having experience — hands-on experience — with the technology is key.”

2. Be curious.

Machine learning and AI are modern things that will only continue to evolve in the future, so having a healthy sense of curiosity and love of learning is essential to keep learning new technologies and what goes with them.

“Machine learning, as a demand, evolved quite rapidly in the last few years with new techniques, new technology, new languages, new frameworks, new things to learn, which made it very important for people to be eager to learn,” says Douetteau. “Meaning, get online, read about new frameworks, read new articles, take advantage of online courses and Coursera, and so forth. Trait number one if you want to be successful as someone working in machine learning is to be curious.”

3. Translate business problems into mathematical terms.

Machine learning is a field practically designed for logical minds. As a career, it blends technology, math, and business analysis into one job. According to Douetteau, “You need to be able to focus on technology a lot, and to have this intellectual curiosity, but you must also have this openness toward business problems and be able to articulate a business problem into a mathematical machine learning problem, and bring value at the end.”