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It is the internship application season and I want to share advice on landing summer industry research internships in ML.
Coming from a person who had several great ML internships in tech
Coming from a person who had several great ML internships in tech
Start with identifying people whose work you admire and want to work with.
You should already have a rough list of people in mind based on your interests.
You should already have a rough list of people in mind based on your interests.
Reach out to that person.
Don't be shy!
Many folks in ML I cold-emailed were all friendly and got back to me at some point.
Here is my advice for writing an email:
Don't be shy!
Many folks in ML I cold-emailed were all friendly and got back to me at some point.
Here is my advice for writing an email:
Subject: PhD student with XYZ at ABC very interested in internship with you
Body: Hi ..., Hope all is well
[Brief intro about yourself]
[Saw your papers (paper A and B) and I liked them. I did work in that area as well (paper C). Would be awesome to work together]
Body: Hi ..., Hope all is well
[Brief intro about yourself]
[Saw your papers (paper A and B) and I liked them. I did work in that area as well (paper C). Would be awesome to work together]
Before sending that email, check if you have common connections with that person (ideally your advisor).
Ask a common connection abt that person and if you like what you hear, ask to introduce you.
Ask a common connection abt that person and if you like what you hear, ask to introduce you.
Also, if you met that person before, remind them in that email.
[We met at the XYZ conference. It was fun chatting with you during the workshop]
[We met at the XYZ conference. It was fun chatting with you during the workshop]
That person replied to you. Great!
Now schedule a video call to chat.
During that call, you will learn a rough idea of what they have in mind for potential internships.
Now schedule a video call to chat.
During that call, you will learn a rough idea of what they have in mind for potential internships.
Be open to those opportunities.
It may not be an exact thing you had in mind before you talking to them.
ML research internship projects usually have a concrete problem in mind but are very open-ended in the execution you take. This is your opportunity!
It may not be an exact thing you had in mind before you talking to them.
ML research internship projects usually have a concrete problem in mind but are very open-ended in the execution you take. This is your opportunity!
Cool, you both enjoyed the conversation and now the recruiter contacted you to move forward with the interviews.
Time to prepare!
Time to prepare!
For the coding part, brush your core algorithm/data structure knowledge. Lots of great articles online. Practice some easy/medium leetcode problems.
For the ML part, go over fundamental ML/DL/RL concepts. Bishop's ML book and Goodfellow’s DL book are my favorite guides.
The last part of your interview will likely be about your research and your vision of it.
You should be already well prepared for it, but it doesn't hurt to take a look back for retrospectives and think more abt things you wish you had time to do.
You should be already well prepared for it, but it doesn't hurt to take a look back for retrospectives and think more abt things you wish you had time to do.
Hopefully your interviews went well and you got an offer! It is not an easy and quick process, so you should give yourself a pat on the back! Congrats!
Bonus: We have several NLP internship openings at AWS AI. Feel free to reach out to me.
Good luck! Fin.
