Career development for aspiring AI/ML/Data Science Professionals in Bangladesh

In the last few days, some people asked me about how to develop a portfolio to apply for AL/ML/Data Science related roles in Bangladeshi companies. I will try to address this with respect to the current job market here. This post is not for the people who want to focus on research by the way.

I will be listing the portfolio items in descending order with respect to their perceived importance to the recruiters looking for Data Science and AI/ML experts. This is just from my experience, others might differ in this regard. Also, the list is not an exhaustive one by any means. There are other ways to prove yourself but I just want to focus on the ones I think most relevant in recent times and comparatively easier to get into.

1. Working experience in a company that focuses on projects related to Computer Vision, NLP, BI, Data Mining etc would be very helpful. If you are a fresher or you want to switch to this field from your current domain, try joining startups before applying to MNCs or well known companies in relevant positions. Search for vacancies in Bdjobs.com, LinkedIn job postings, Facebook groups and other sources with proper keywords.
2. Freelancing experience related to AI/ML/Data Science related projects is also great if you have a shareable portfolio from platforms like Upwork, Freelancer, Guru etc. I know few people personally who advanced their careers this way.
3. Exposure to software development processes and programming tools are vital. Remember, the companies are looking for people who can build well functioning, maintainable and scalable products. And most of the time you will have little supervision regarding organizing your work. So if you have experience in software development, that would boost your confidence and efficiency while developing products with a complex architecture.
4. Participation in Training and Industry workshops related to Data Science and Machine Learning is helpful. Such as- I saw few people recently attending Hi-Tech Park Foreign Training in Fujitsu Research Institute at Tokyo, Japan which is a very good start. Programs like this will certainly help you get attention from recruiters.
5. Achieving shareable certificates from platforms like Coursera and Udemy are also very good. But be very picky while choosing the courses. Have a look on the participation counts, credibility of mentors and customer ratings.
6. Participating in community driven AI/Data Science competitions in places like Kaggle, ImageNet Challenge, Topcoder, Hackerrank etc is a fantastic way to develop skills that are directly transferable to industry work.
7. Contributing to well-known open source projects related to Computer Vision, NLP, Sentiment analysis, Data processing tools etc on Github is also a fantastic way to excel but this will need considerable effort.

In the context of Bangladesh, items 1 to 5 will be most preferable to recruiters. If you are looking for opportunities abroad the items 4 to 7 will get relatively more weights I think. If you are just starting out, try options 2 to 5 and apply to startups/small companies for relevant roles. After acquiring few years of experience you might be able to switch to well established companies relatively easily.

Data Science and Machine Learning professionals have a great potential in Bangladesh according to what I see in recent trends. People are increasingly participating in online business transactions and social media platforms. Publicly available data sources are becoming more and more enriched. So, local e-commerce businesses run by Startups, MNCs or big companies will have to adapt to smart technologies sooner or later to be relevant in the upcoming severe competition. All might have to adapt to 'Data first' approach while developing products and services. There will be a huge need of trained professionals in this field within a foreseeable future and I would like to see Bangladeshi experts leading that surge rather than some foreign talents.