As Senior Vice-President of Machine Learning and Quants at Anchorblock Technology - one of the handful of startups in Bangladesh working with blockchain and machine learning, 24-year-old RUET Mechatronics Engineering graduate Yeahia Sarker spends his days directing AI research projects.
After returning home in the evening, he relaxes by either coding or reading. Some days, he works from home.
To a curious mind, a few questions arise - how is a university graduate working in such a senior role and enjoying such flexibility at an age when his peers struggle with finding entry-level positions? How did he end up working in a field miles apart from his major? What did he do differently?
Answering these questions with The Financial Express, Yeahia shared his story.
A childhood love for Iron Man
Yeahia's journey started in Grade 6 when he received his first PC. Fuelled by his innate deep curiosity and passion for programming, he developed his first game in Grade 9 when good code editors were hard to find.
His love for technology made him a huge fan of Iron Man. This is what inspired him to choose his college major.
"I wanted to learn about hardware development and how to make automation at scale," he states.
Transition to software development
During the early years of his university life, Yeahia came across a research paper on Generative Adversarial Network (GAN), which was about generative machine learning.
"It was basically filled with synthetic images of people who did not exist. The images were just algorithmic mazes - an AI phenomenon," he says.
His natural curiosity piqued, Yeahia began to dive deep into AI and Machine Learning. Alongside, he did a few competitions, particularly the Mars Rover competition, where he found himself exploring hardware more from a software perspective.
He spent more time learning about software development and realised that AI was the future. Thus, he shifted his career focus from hardware development to software engineering.
Finding purpose in research
Now that he was sure of his career focus, Yeahia spent his senior years building software for various companies. Simultaneously, he developed an interest in research, particularly high-level Machine Learning.
Interestingly, despite his shifts in interest, Yeahia always had a vision for himself. He had begun building his resume from the first year and would set targets to achieve certain accomplishments by a certain time.
When the time would come for further skill development, he would scour the websites of prestigious foreign universities like Harvard to look for any internship opportunities.
"I mailed them and told them I did not need any reward except to just learn. And, maybe a recommendation letter," he cheekily smiles.
It worked. His resume boasts of doing virtual research internships at Harvard and Stanford.
Meeting Anchorblock through Airwrk
Airwrk is a startup that is creating a marketplace to connect Bangladeshi technical talents with companies abroad.
During his final year, Yeahia came across an Airwrk job post looking for a Machine Learning Researcher to which he applied. He breezed through the rigorous assessment rounds of Airwrk where the success rate is around 5 per cent.
Airwrk recommended him as a potential candidate for the ML role to Anchorblock, its client. There, Yeahia had to go through twice as many rounds of assessments. His level of knowledge and expertise impressed Anchorblock so much that they decided he would add more value in a leadership role than as a mere employee. They even offered him equity alongside work flexibility.
Excited by the prospect of autonomy and working on challenging projects with more to learn, Yeahia accepted the offer from Anchorblock.
Future ambitions
Yeahia's current job is a dream job most of us would aspire to have. But for Yeahia, this role is merely a step toward his ambition.
"At my core, I'm a researcher. My mission is to do impactful research in an established company and develop core algorithms that could be used in any industry," he says.
Words of wisdom
Yeahia is the living embodiment of Steve Jobs' quote, "And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle."
As such, he recommends students pursue whatever topic intrigues them and put in consistent effort to achieve mastery.
"Of course, there will be some sacrifices, but those don't necessarily have to be too heavy as long as you're disciplined," he says.
Spend a few hours a day on skill development for a few months. Also, free yourself of any time limit when learning something new.
Now, the best way to learn is through the effective application of projects. For this, Yeahia cautions against doing personal projects right after learning since those will need to be revised to industry standards. Rather, students should explore open-source projects on Github or software like Apache or Telegram to work with and inspire their pet projects.
Yeahia recommends learning system design for software engineering enthusiasts since this is a crucial concept that forms the framework for any software development.
Since people initially get overwhelmed by the theories and heavy maths, Yeahia recommends doing one or two side projects first.
"Get a grasp of the theory first and then proceed to the maths. Also, Machine Learning has a lot of sub-fields, where the maths is easier. Don't get discouraged. Keep exploring," he advises.
After skilling up, Yeahia also encourages STEM aspirants to get in touch with Airwrk for placements at international companies where they can work on high-end jobs with better pay from the comfort of their homes - just like him.
Yeahia also emphasises the importance of communication skills. "Companies will promote a somewhat intelligent engineer who can communicate better over a genius engineer whom nobody understands. Proficiency in MS Powerpoint and MS Excel is underrated," he states.
Fortunately, this skill can be learned. Make use of every opportunity of public speaking: doing more presentations, competitions, or even club activities.
Not every one of us can be a Yeahia, but his inspirational story contains gems of advice that can be applied to each of our lives, and we can shine in our way.
