How to become a Self-Driving Car Engineer in 2023 - What's AI Podcast Episode 8

What's AI Podcast by Louis-François Bouchard

An interview with Jérémy Cohen, founder and CEO of Think Autonomous. In this interview, we dive into the self-driving car industry and different ML-related roles. We talk about getting into the industry and trying to demystify some myths. We hope you enjoy this episode! Let me know your thoughts in the comments and if you'd like more episodes with Jérémy in the self-driving car industry! References: ►Visit Jeremy's platform, Think Autonomous: https://www.thinkautonomous.ai/private-emails-louis/ ►Jérémy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremycohen2626/ ►The mentioned Zoox mindmap: https://www.thinkautonomous.ai/blog/zoox-careers ►Jeremy's Self-Driving Car Course: https://courses.thinkautonomous.ai/self-driving-cars ►His Course Catalogue: https://courses.thinkautonomous.ai ►My Newsletter (A new AI application explained weekly to your emails!): https://www.louisbouchard.ai/newsletter/ ►Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatsai ►Support me through wearing Merch: https://whatsai.myshopify.com/ ►Join Our AI Discord: https://discord.gg/learnaitogether How to start in AI/ML - A Complete Guide: ►https://www.louisbouchard.ai/learnai/ Become a member of the YouTube community, support my work and get a cool Discord role : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUzGQrN-lyyc0BWTYoJM_Sg/join Chapters: 00:45 Who are you and what’s your background? 04:18 How can one become a self-driving car engineer? 14:08 What is a self-driving car engineer? 21:50 Would you recommend working in a specific self-driving engineering role at a big company or working at a startup doing several other tasks as well? 23:18 Could you explain what LiDAR is and how it works? 28:40 Do you think we are far from having self-driving cars on the road when there is heavy rain or snow? 30:45 What do you think about using LiDAR vs cameras on self-driving cars? 34:48 How many new state-of-the-art models are being used in the self-driving car industry? 39:33 Do you think aiming for a self-driving car engineer is aiming to be too specialized? 46:06 Do you think Transformers are replacing CNN’s? 48:45 Do you think a $200 000 salary for a computer vision engineer is a myth? 56:25 What do you think of the value of a certificate for an online course? 01:03:53 Is Silicon Valley the only place where you can work as a self-driving car engineer? 01:08:38 What education level and work experience is needed to get into the self/driving engineering field? 01:15:24 How can someone improve their skills? 01:17:59 Do you have a transformer course for computer vision engineers? 01:21:33 What are some things to avoid if trying to join self-driving engineering? 01:22:45 Any mistakes to avoid when joining the field of self-driving? 01:29:31 Is the driving part based on reinforcement learning or still a classical planning algorithm? 01:33:25 How do you see self-driving cars in 5 years? 01:38:17 Do you think the government, politics, permissions, etc. are gonna interfere? 01:41:45 Is it the government’s duty to ensure protection for people using self-driving cars or is it engineers' responsibility?