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ML Engineer Roadmap

Bridge the gap between data science experiments and production systems. Build, train, deploy, and monitor ML models that serve millions of users.

8-12 months6-12 LPA → 35-70 LPA expected9 steps • 31 free resources
1

Python & Software Engineering

3-4 weeks

ML Engineering is engineering first. Master Python, OOP, clean code practices, testing, and version control before touching any ML library.

By the end, you'll be able to

  • Write production-quality Python with proper structure and testing
  • Use Git, virtual environments, and package management professionally
  • Build CLI tools and APIs with clean architecture
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Mini-project

Build a Python package with proper structure, tests, CI, and publish it to PyPI. Even a simple utility — the process matters more than the package.

2

Mathematics for ML

3-4 weeks

You need math to understand what your models are actually doing. Focus on linear algebra, calculus (gradients), probability, and statistics.

By the end, you'll be able to

  • Understand matrix operations and how they relate to ML
  • Compute gradients and understand backpropagation mathematically
  • Apply probability and Bayes theorem to ML problems
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Mini-project

Implement linear regression and logistic regression from scratch using only NumPy. No scikit-learn. Understand every line.

3

Classical Machine Learning

4-5 weeks

Master the fundamentals: regression, classification, clustering, ensemble methods, and the full pipeline from data prep to model evaluation.

By the end, you'll be able to

  • Implement and tune all major ML algorithms confidently
  • Build end-to-end ML pipelines with proper train/test splits
  • Diagnose model issues: overfitting, data leakage, class imbalance
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Mini-project

Build a credit scoring model: feature engineering, model comparison, hyperparameter tuning, and a detailed evaluation report.

4

Deep Learning

5-6 weeks

Neural networks, CNNs, RNNs, transformers. Learn PyTorch (industry standard for research and production), training techniques, and GPU computing.

By the end, you'll be able to

  • Build and train CNNs, RNNs, and transformer models in PyTorch
  • Understand attention mechanisms and the transformer architecture
  • Train models on GPUs and handle common training issues
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Mini-project

Fine-tune a pre-trained model (ResNet or BERT) on a custom dataset. Deploy it as an API endpoint.

5

NLP & Computer Vision

3-4 weeks

Specialize in at least one domain. Learn text preprocessing, embeddings, transformers for NLP, or image processing and object detection for CV.

By the end, you'll be able to

  • Build NLP pipelines: tokenization, embeddings, classification, generation
  • Apply transfer learning with pre-trained models (BERT, GPT, ViT)
  • Handle real-world unstructured data: text, images, audio
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Mini-project

Build a sentiment analysis system for Indian product reviews. Handle Hindi-English code-mixed text. Deploy as a REST API.

6

MLOps & Model Deployment

3-4 weeks

Production ML is not Jupyter notebooks. Learn Docker, model serving (FastAPI, TorchServe), experiment tracking (MLflow), and monitoring.

By the end, you'll be able to

  • Containerize and deploy ML models with Docker and FastAPI
  • Track experiments, models, and metrics with MLflow
  • Set up model monitoring and detect data/model drift
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Mini-project

Deploy a model with FastAPI + Docker, add MLflow tracking, and set up a basic monitoring dashboard.

7

Data Engineering Basics

2-3 weeks

ML Engineers need to build data pipelines. Learn ETL, data warehousing basics, Spark/PySpark for big data, and how to work with data engineers.

By the end, you'll be able to

  • Build data pipelines with Python and SQL
  • Process large datasets with PySpark
  • Understand data warehousing and how ML fits into data architecture
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Mini-project

Build a pipeline that ingests data from an API, transforms it with PySpark, and stores it in a database for ML training.

8

System Design for ML

2-3 weeks

Learn to design ML systems: recommendation engines, search ranking, fraud detection. Understand latency, throughput, and how to scale ML in production.

By the end, you'll be able to

  • Design end-to-end ML systems for common use cases
  • Make trade-off decisions: accuracy vs latency, batch vs real-time
  • Discuss ML system design in interviews confidently
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Mini-project

Design and partially implement a recommendation system: data pipeline, feature store, model training, A/B testing framework.

9

Interview Prep

3-4 weeks

ML Engineer interviews: coding (LeetCode medium), ML theory, system design, and a take-home ML project. Prepare across all four areas.

By the end, you'll be able to

  • Solve medium LeetCode problems and ML-specific coding questions
  • Explain model internals: gradient descent, regularization, transformers
  • Design ML systems on a whiteboard
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Mini-project

Solve 50 LeetCode problems, study 10 ML system design cases, practice explaining your projects, and apply to 20+ ML roles.

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Pick the path that fits you

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