u/OddCommunication8787

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some career guidance from people who are already working in AI research or research engineering or preparing for it.

I recently graduated with a B.Tech in CSE from a Tier-1 college. The downside is that my CGPA is only 6.91, so I know it is very less and (I wasted my 4 precious years, nevertheless) that closes some doors, and I'm trying to figure out the best path forward.

Starting this mid July, I'll be working as a freelance AI trainer/AI-related contractor, earning around ₹25–30k per month. It's a start, but my long-term goal is to become an AI Research Engineer (not focused on Computer Vision). I'm much more interested in LLMs, NLP, AI systems, training/inference, and foundation models.

Over the past one year (since I started my ML journey in my 3rd year, 6th Sem) , I've learned and built basic to intermediate projects in:

• Machine Learning
• Deep Learning
• PyTorch (Image classification, ANNs)
• NLP
• Generative AI
• LLM basics (fine-tuning, RAG, LoRA, QLoRA, etc.)

I know that learning these topics is only the beginning. What I'm struggling with is understanding what comes next, I mean now what I should do now?.

My long-term dream is to work at places like DeepMind, Microsoft Research, or any such AI labs. I know that's a very long journey, and I'm not expecting to jump there directly. Right now, I just want to understand the realistic path.

Some questions I have are:

1. As a fresher, what kind of research labs or companies or internships should I target first?
2. Is it really required to have masters degree to get into research role? If yes please provide guidance for that too.
3. What does a strong Research Engineer portfolio actually look like?
4. Should I spend more time building original projects, reproducing or read research papers(Or what type of research papers should I read), contributing to open source, or writing technical blogs?
5. How important are publications if I'm aiming for Research Engineer roles rather than Research Scientist roles?
6. If you were starting from my position today, what would you focus on over the next 2–3 years or what would be roadmap or next step?
7. How much time it could take to get my first research internship?

I'm not looking for shortcuts. I'm completely okay with spending several years building the right skills. I just don't want to spend those years working on things that don't actually move me toward research engineering (Currently the freelance company I'm working has prompt engineering tasks which sucks!).

I'd really appreciate hearing from people who have worked in AI research labs or have gone through a similar journey. Even if your advice is "you're focusing on the wrong things," I'd genuinely like to hear it.

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some career guidance from people who are already working in AI research or research engineering or preparing for it.

I recently graduated with a B.Tech in CSE from a Tier-1 college. The downside is that my CGPA is only 6.91, so I know it is very less and (I wasted my 4 precious years, nevertheless) that closes some doors, and I'm trying to figure out the best path forward.

Starting this mid July, I'll be working as a freelance AI trainer/AI-related contractor, earning around ₹25–30k per month. It's a start, but my long-term goal is to become an AI Research Engineer (not focused on Computer Vision). I'm much more interested in LLMs, NLP, AI systems, training/inference, and foundation models.

Over the past one year (since I started my ML journey in my 3rd year, 6th Sem) , I've learned and built basic to intermediate projects in:

• Machine Learning
• Deep Learning
• PyTorch (Image classification, ANNs)
• NLP
• Generative AI
• LLM basics (fine-tuning, RAG, LoRA, QLoRA, etc.)

I know that learning these topics is only the beginning. What I'm struggling with is understanding what comes next, I mean now what I should do now?.

My long-term dream is to work at places like DeepMind, Microsoft Research, or any such AI labs. I know that's a very long journey, and I'm not expecting to jump there directly. Right now, I just want to understand the realistic path.

Some questions I have are:

1. As a fresher, what kind of research labs or companies or internships should I target first?
2. Is it really required to have masters degree to get into research role? If yes please provide guidance for that too.
3. What does a strong Research Engineer portfolio actually look like?
4. Should I spend more time building original projects, reproducing or read research papers(Or what type of research papers should I read), contributing to open source, or writing technical blogs?
5. How important are publications if I'm aiming for Research Engineer roles rather than Research Scientist roles?
6. If you were starting from my position today, what would you focus on over the next 2–3 years or what would be roadmap or next step?
7. How much time it could take to get my first research internship?

I'm not looking for shortcuts. I'm completely okay with spending several years building the right skills. I just don't want to spend those years working on things that don't actually move me toward research engineering (Currently the freelance company I'm working has prompt engineering tasks which sucks!).

I'd really appreciate hearing from people who have worked in AI research labs or have gone through a similar journey. Even if your advice is "you're focusing on the wrong things," I'd genuinely like to hear it.

Thanks!

This is my first post in this community. I am a beginner in the world of politics and geopolitics. I always thought to gain great understandings in this fields but never tried my by own to explore it.

I want to know best genuine resources to learn politics. Not just surface level but deep like not just knowing about what a particular party is doing and all stuff.

I want to study the crux of politics such that knowing all the frameworks I could easily categorise any party based on their ideology and current workings and eventually trace everything to predict what would be their upcoming motive after gaining the power.

I am bored to get insights from youtube videos or reels because everyone there has it’s own bias while explaining it.

So if they are some resources that teaches everything from scratch (not preparing for any exams I just want knowledge) whether it’s a book or a website would really like to know

I’m a 4th year B.Tech computer science student from a tier-1 college and since the placement sessions is coming to an end I just want to vent it out here, so please take 5-7 minutes to read this out, this will gonna help to new students joining colleges this year.

Academically I was always a topper kid, secure 90.80% in 10th SSC board and 90.67% in 12th HSC board maharashtra, also got 99.24% percentile in JEE MAINS-2022 with CRL rank:- 7004. I used to always study a subject to the core no matter whether these type of things matter to exams as I was just a curious nerd. But things changed after I joined my college back in 2022 november.

Since I got top university and has a really good placements (median 13 lpa) especially in Tech branch I was also hoping to beg a good offer. When the result of 1st semester got out I was shocked and surprised that I just score mere 5 sgpa I was shattered wondering how big mess I made and since than my downfall started the cgpa couldn’t improve that much to break the cutoff barrier for placements, and I was always got rejected on the basis of cgpa even though I had the skills which they required.

I ain’t blaming my college neither the system but it was only me the culprit that made bad choices and ended up here, I gave myself too freedom (since I was very far from my hometown) and also started bad habits right from 1st year, because I had too! I was too nerdy back than and cannot make friendships that had fun, so to break into such fun loving type of friendships I joined my friends that had bad habits (like smoking) and eventually it did work the friendship grew we have had so much fun that the word ‘cpga’ didn’t mattered us all back than. ‘Bhai yeh to memories hai’, ‘ek bar se kuch nhi hoga’ these lines made me do those things and my personality got changed from being a studious and nerdy to ‘awara types’.

In the end of 3rd year things got really worse I couldn’t get any internships and I cutoff my tie from those friendships wanted to work on myself because 4th year would be really depressing and exhausting so I started preparing AI/ML (not because of rat race, and current booming but I really like math and physics so I was relating concepts of ML to physics) I gave myself everything in 2025 for 6-7 studying daily for 9-10 hours did math, python, sql, ML, Deep learning, NLP, transformers, Generative-AI not just surface level I worked hard on understanding the actual concepts and theories of AI, backpropagation, math that fuels current AI. Completed studying 2-3 books based on ML made projects but since my cgpa was low I wasn’t getting shortlisted for any ML based roles in on campus placements. I always thought my all hard work on it is going in vain, because all it matters was just cgpa! students from my college were getting placed with offers above 20 lpa in ML roles and they did not even know python they just worked on their cgpa and got the best placements.

The seniors of mine (not from my college) but from my home town got good placements even from tier-2 college and are well settled and I feel shame to ask help from them. My cousin brother (who is also from a tier-2 institute and same age as of mine) placed in blackrock as SDE, I really envy them like how! (I know it’s not good but be in my place for a minute) imagine a person who had best academic record before btech far better than any of the person you know personally but one mistake snatched all the dreams whereas the people you knew who were a below average ended up in a very better situation and job, I am bound to feel jealous.

I tried Off-campus opportunities too, but the current job market is so disrupted that I once was applying 5-6 company daily altogether 600 companies I had applied (ofcourse I was applying for ML roles with exp. of freshers mostly to upto 1-2 years) neither from 600 applications I got turn in, nor a single OA link. There was just one interview call that I got through a referral for data science but was offering 5 lpa with immediate joining, I know I should have taken it but back than my friends were getting placed for 10-20 lpa without any knowledge and here I was getting just 5 lpa so I always felt jealous and I missed that opportunity, and now I regret it “I should have really took that job”.

In 2026 till February end I lost all hopes of mine getting placed, I cried at night complaining to God on why he did this to me I was a good student, I know I made bad choices and this is totally on me! but I wanted a single chance (I quit my bad habits too) I was begging to god for one single chance, currently it’s been 2 months I don’t feel like studying at all crying at night, regretting my decisions, hurting myself totally lost! Also too late to prepare my M.Tech entrance exams GATE it requires 1 complete year but I just have 6-7 months from now, so couldn’t even do masters.

So this is it, I have not written this to gain sympathy and all I just wanted to vent it out somewhere and I did feels good now.

To all the folks joining college this year focus on getting a good cgpa, make friends, do not have feelings like FOMO, you are not missing out anything just work on yourself have fun, work on your health and communication and be miles away from bad habits and the persons who offer you such things in the name of ‘bhai kich nhi hoga’ and all, be aware of those.

Thank you If you have read this post it really feels good now, but I won’t stop and regret anywore work on myself daily will start studying and be on the track and once I get a job I would immediately make a post out on it.

Edit:- you are welcome if you have any advice for me on what I should do, should I take a drop and prepare masters abroad or should I keep looking for off campus opportunities.