Road To Machine Learning Mastery: Interview With Kaggle GM Vladimir Iglovikov

"I did not have lines in the resume that showed my ML expertise. I did not have a Data Science industry experience or relevant papers. For this week's ML practitioner's series, Analytics India Magazine got in touch with Vladimir Iglovikov, an ex-Spetsnaz, theoretical physicist and also a Kaggle GrandMaster. In this exclusive interview, he shares valuable information from his journey in the world of data science. After a brief stint in Russian special forces, Iglovikov enrolled for the Master's programme in theoretical Physics at the St.Petersburg State University whose distinguished alumni include President Vladimir Putin. In September 2010, Iglovikov moved to California to pursue a PhD in Physics from UC Davis and on completion of the degree, he moved to Silicon Valley in the summer of 2015. Currently, Iglovikov works as Sr. Software Engineer at Lyft, a ride-sharing company that operates in the United States and Canada. His work is centered around building robust machine learning models for autonomous vehicles at Lyft, Level5. Post PhD, Iglovikov had two options in hand. One was to pursue postdoc, and the other was to get into the industry as a software engineer. His career took a new turn when one of his friends introduced him to the world of data science. "I attended a lecture where the presenter talked about Data Science as the 4th paradigm of scientific discovery.