Vicki Boykis on how to learn ML in 2026: self-taught path and working with agents
vboykis · x · 2026-10-29
ML engineer Vicki Boykis published the transcript of a long interview with Yacine on how to learn ML in 2026.
- Self-taught with an economics degree: started in trade consulting doing Excel, got into data science after seeing a coworker automate analysis with R/SAS; built recommender systems at Tumblr, ML platform at Duo Security, LLMs at Mozilla.ai, now founding ML engineer at e-commerce startup Malachyte
- Her method: whenever she saw someone one step ahead in the ML career pipeline, she taught herself what they did
- She also describes working closely with agents — never letting them complete a loop without her
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