AI Engineer Skill

Machine Learning Development

Model Development Lifecycle

1. Problem Definition: Business objective framing
2. Data Collection: Gathering relevant datasets
3. Data Preprocessing: Cleaning, transformation, feature engineering
4. Model Selection: Algorithm choice and evaluation
5. Training: Model fitting and hyperparameter tuning
6. Evaluation: Metrics validation and testing
7. Deployment: Production integration
8. Monitoring: Performance tracking and drift detection

Deep Learning Frameworks

• TensorFlow/Keras: Production-ready deep learning
• PyTorch: Research-friendly dynamic graphs
• JAX: Functional programming and auto-diff
• FastAI: High-level deep learning API

Classical Machine Learning

• Scikit-learn: Traditional ML algorithms
• XGBoost/LightGBM: Gradient boosting frameworks
• Pandas/NumPy: Data manipulation and computation

MLOps and Model Deployment

Model Serving Options

• REST APIs: Flask, FastAPI, Django
• gRPC: High-performance RPC
• Serverless: AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions
• Containerized: Docker, Kubernetes
• Edge Deployment: ONNX, TensorFlow Lite

Model Versioning

• MLflow: Experiment tracking and model registry
• DVC: Data version control
• Git LFS: Large file storage
• Weights & Biases: Experiment tracking

Monitoring and Observability

• Prometheus/Grafana: Metrics collection and visualization
• ELK Stack: Logging and search
• Model Drift Detection: Data and concept drift monitoring
• A/B Testing: Model performance comparison

Data Engineering for AI

Data Pipeline Architecture

• Batch Processing: Airflow, Luigi, Prefect
• Stream Processing: Kafka, Apache Flink
• ETL/ELT: Data transformation patterns
• Data Lakes: Storage strategies for unstructured data

Feature Engineering

• Feature Stores: Feast, Hopsworks
• Real-time Features: Streaming feature computation
• Feature Monitoring: Data quality and validation

Model Optimization

Performance Optimization

• Quantization: Reducing model precision (INT8, FP16)
• Pruning: Removing unnecessary model parameters
• Knowledge Distillation: Teacher-student model training
• Model Compression: Size reduction techniques

Inference Optimization

• Batch Inference: Processing multiple requests
• Model Caching: Reducing repeated computations
• Hardware Acceleration: GPUs, TPUs, specialized chips

AI Ethics and Responsible AI

Fairness and Bias

• Bias Detection: Identifying systematic biases
• Fairness Metrics: Demographic parity, equal opportunity
• Bias Mitigation: Algorithmic and data-based approaches

Explainability and Interpretability

• SHAP Values: Feature importance explanation
• LIME: Local interpretable model explanations
• Attention Visualization: Understanding model focus

Privacy and Security

• Federated Learning: Privacy-preserving training
• Differential Privacy: Adding noise for privacy
• Model Security: Adversarial attack prevention

AI Framework Integration

Cloud AI Services

• AWS SageMaker: End-to-end ML platform
• Google Cloud AI: Vertex AI, AutoML
• Azure ML: Microsoft's ML platform
• IBM Watson: Enterprise AI services

AutoML Platforms

• Google AutoML: Automated model training
• H2O.ai: AutoML and machine learning platform
• DataRobot: Enterprise AI platform

Code Examples

Model Deployment with FastAPI

from fastapi import FastAPI
import joblib
import numpy as np
from pydantic import BaseModel

app = FastAPI()

class PredictionRequest(BaseModel):
    features: list[float]

# Load model
model = joblib.load("model.pkl")

@app.post("/predict")
async def predict(request: PredictionRequest):
    features = np.array(request.features).reshape(1, -1)
    prediction = model.predict(features)
    return {"prediction": prediction[0]}

@app.get("/health")
async def health():
    return {"status": "healthy"}

MLflow Experiment Tracking

import mlflow
import mlflow.sklearn
from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestClassifier
from sklearn.metrics import accuracy_score

with mlflow.start_run():
    # Train model
    model = RandomForestClassifier(n_estimators=100)
    model.fit(X_train, y_train)
    
    # Make predictions
    predictions = model.predict(X_test)
    accuracy = accuracy_score(y_test, predictions)
    
    # Log metrics and model
    mlflow.log_metric("accuracy", accuracy)
    mlflow.log_param("n_estimators", 100)
    mlflow.sklearn.log_model(model, "model")

Feature Engineering Pipeline

from sklearn.compose import ColumnTransformer
from sklearn.preprocessing import StandardScaler, OneHotEncoder
from sklearn.pipeline import Pipeline

numeric_features = ["age", "income"]
categorical_features = ["gender", "city"]

preprocessor = ColumnTransformer(
    transformers=[
        ("num", StandardScaler(), numeric_features),
        ("cat", OneHotEncoder(), categorical_features)
    ]
)

model_pipeline = Pipeline([
    ("preprocessor", preprocessor),
    ("classifier", RandomForestClassifier())
])

Best Practices

Model Development

1. Reproducibility: Seed setting, environment management
2. Experiment Tracking: Document all experiments
3. Data Validation: Quality checks and monitoring
4. Cross-validation: Robust performance evaluation

Production Deployment

1. Model Versioning: Track all model iterations
2. A/B Testing: Gradual rollout and comparison
3. Monitoring: Track performance and data drift
4. Rollback Strategy: Quick reversion capabilities

Security and Compliance

1. Data Privacy: GDPR, CCPA compliance
2. Model Security: Protect against adversarial attacks
3. Access Control: Proper authentication and authorization
4. Audit Trails: Complete logging of model operations

When working on AI projects, always consider:

• Ethical implications and bias
• Data privacy and security
• Model interpretability requirements
• Production monitoring needs
• Regulatory compliance
• Scalability and performance requirements