How to Become an AI Engineer After a Career Break - Revathy Ramalingam

In this episode Revathy Ramalingam, Senior Software Engineer and AI Engineer at a healthcare startup, shares her inspiring personal journey from over nine years in telecom software architecture to successfully transitioning back into the industry after a seven-year career break. We explore the evolution of the AI engineer role, the practical application of RAG pipelines, and the strategic use of AI tools to rebuild a technical career.You'll learn about:- AI Career Mapping: Using LLMs to design an upskilling roadmap.- Vibe Coding: Leveraging AI tools for rapid prototyping.- RAG Implementation: Building retrieval systems with LangChain.- Interview Strategy: Proving technical skills after a career gap.- Learning in Public: Building a network through community projects.TIMECODES:00:00 Why Move to AI? Using ChatGPT to Plan a Career Pivot11:00 Learning in Public: The Power of Community Support15:35 Telecom Capstone: Predicting Network Slices with ML22:15 "Vibe Coding" & Building Prototypes with AI Dev Tools28:00 The Interview Process: Navigating a 7-Year Career Break33:45 Practical Interview Tasks: Building a PDF Q&A Assistant39:40 Career Advice: Clear Plans, AI Mentors, and Hard Work44:30 Closing Thoughts: Scaling the Learning LadderThis talk is for developers and career-changers looking for a blueprint to enter the AI engineering space. It is ideal for those interested in RAG, healthcare tech, and practical career resets.Connect with Revathy- Github - https://github.com/RevathyRamalingam- Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/revathy-ramalingam/ Connect with DataTalks.Club:- Join the community - https://datatalks.club/slack.html- Subscribe to our Google calendar to have all our events in your calendar - https://calendar.google.com/calendar/r?cid=ZjhxaWRqbnEwamhzY3A4ODA5azFlZ2hzNjBAZ3JvdXAuY2FsZW5kYXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQ- Check other upcoming events - https://lu.ma/dtc-events- GitHub: https://github.com/DataTalksClub- LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/datatalks-club/ - Twitter - https://twitter.com/DataTalksClub - Website - https://datatalks.club/