What does your typical day look like at Instrumental?
Machine Learning is full stack at Instrumental meaning that the Machine Learning team handles both research and productization of features. That means that depending on the project during my typical day I may be doing research for some new ML model or feature, developing ML features once the project hits productization, or helping with maintenance to make sure it brings value to the customer.
I would also say that my typical day includes communicating with various stakeholders depending on the use case – during early research it’s very helpful to get customer feedback, during productization it’s important to communicate with other engineering teams to make sure everything works correctly for the pipeline from Station to the Cloud.
Why did you choose Instrumental?
ML is core at Instrumental and that means that the ML team participates in developing products, models, and workflows used by customers. It also means that ML solutions have to be very scalable and robust to make sure that it adheres to the production requirements.
Tell us one thing that people may not know about you.
I always liked hiking in the Bay Area and with the start of the COVID lockdown that became my primary hobby. I really enjoy the weather and nature here and like to explore new hiking spots.
Since joining Instrumental, what has been your favorite memory working here?
During one of the on-sites, we had a pizza competition. Vivek (SRE manager) brought his pizza oven and everyone brought their toppings. Anyone could make any pizza they wanted and it was a very enjoyable yet competitive experience since I got to taste a lot of different pizzas and found there is no taste that is loved by everyone.
What is your favorite Instrumental Slack channel and why?
We have #we-love-puns channel where we share messages with puns. We have an unofficial competition there and it always gives me a good chuckle to read through messages there.
What do you like most about your job?
I like working with an incredible team who are awesome at what they do. The team is very helpful and at the same time very talented and smart. I enjoy solving problems together and understanding how we can change the manufacturing industry.
I also like to see how our product completely changes the process for our customers and how things that would take hours now take minutes. It’s awesome to see how the product you built helps people to optimize their processes.
