Beginning

Hi, I’m Debarchan Mitra. I’ve always believed in pursuing a career that excites you—it's the best way to avoid those dreaded Monday blues. This belief led me to study finance at one of India’s prestigious B-Schools. I figured I’d build a career out of it, even if I wasn’t sure how. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't picture myself hustling in Mumbai, working at a top asset management firm or investment bank, managing other people's money.

I still loved coding, though. In 2014, I found myself working in an IT firm in Bangalore as a Business Analyst. Like any B-School graduate, I started making career plans, but they didn't sound any different from my batchmates' and friends' plans.

Around this time, Machine Learning was making waves and had become the talk of corporate India. Out of sheer curiosity, I decided to start learning about it—not to make a career out of it since I already had other plans. But as I dipped my toes in, I got more and more drawn to it. Terms like Machine Learning, AI, and Deep Learning sounded intimidating and technical, like something only people with PhDs could understand. However, as I kept learning, I realized this was far from the truth. With some effort, I could grasp the concepts and pick up the necessary coding skills.

And thus began my learning journey. Somewhere down the line, I realized maybe this was something I could pursue full-time and build a career around (I know, not the typical career an MBA grad hopes for). Granted, I had to study a lot and constantly upskill myself. I had to finish courses, read several books, and prepare for interviews. Fast forward to 2024, and I’m now a full-time machine learning developer at a prestigious firm, which I find quite fulfilling. With so many learning resources available online for free, I know this is something I can keep pursuing for the foreseeable future.

So far, my story is nothing out of the ordinary. Many people pivot their careers away from their original plans. So why write a blog post about it? Two reasons:

Reason one:

I came across a book by renowned ML practitioner Jeremy Howard, Deep Learning for Coders with fastai and PyTorch, where he advocates for writing a blog and journaling your learnings. He refers to an article by Rachel Thomas, co-founder of fast.ai, which lists the benefits of blogging:

• Helps you learn: Organizing knowledge helps synthesize ideas. One test of understanding something is whether you can explain it to someone else. A blog post is a great way to do that.

• Saves time: Any time you answer a question multiple times through email, turn it into a blog post. It makes it easier to share the next time someone asks.

Rachel's most important point is this:

"You are best positioned to help people one step behind you. The material is still fresh in your mind. Many experts have forgotten what it was like to be a beginner and why the topic is hard to understand when you first hear it. Your background, style, and knowledge level will give a different twist to what you’re writing about."

Reason two:

Whenever I meet my batchmates and other friends, they seem intrigued by my career choice. They’re interested in learning this field themselves, given how rapidly it has evolved, especially in GenAI. There’s often an occasional fear voiced, like, "Arey yaar, is field ko thoda bahut samajhna chahiye. Kya pata kal hamari job mein bhi yeh aa jaye!" I keep reassuring them that getting started and learning about it might be daunting but is very much doable. However, it feels like they keep dragging their feet primarily because they don't know where to start. Perhaps they think it requires formal 2-year education, which they can’t afford in terms of time or money.

So, on a fine weekend, I decided to chronicle my learning journey in a series of blog posts, MBA wala in Tech. In these posts, I’ll review and recommend the books, online courses, articles, and other resources that have helped me in my journey or that I am currently exploring. More often than not, I’ll document and share the projects I’m working on as I upskill myself on Python libraries or other technologies.

My hope is that through these posts, people looking to gain some basic understanding of the greatest frontier in technology—perhaps since the discovery of electricity—can do so by following my recommended resources. I believe my posts can serve as a guide for people in a similar situation to where I was seven years ago. Please keep in mind, these are the resources I’ve followed or am following. You need not stick to them strictly. I urge you to explore resources that suit your learning style, pace, and needs. My posts are merely meant to open up your mind to possibilities.

With that goal in mind, I conclude my introductory post. I’m excited to share my journey with you and sincerely hope it provides some value in guiding and shaping your own learning journey. See you soon!