Hi everyone!
I am trying to understand if I can apply for an endorsement. I have been reading Tech Nation guide for the past two weeks and prepared my hypothetical evidences. Any help/advice is highly appreciated.
First of all, I would like to understand if my case could be considered as Promise or Talent. I started doing ML nearly (but still less than) five years ago and previously worked few years as a researcher and software engineer. Do I fit under 5 years requirement if applying with ML career track?
Secondly, I would like to understand which of prepared evidences are valid. Here is the list:
Mandatory criteria
I led the build of MVP and later performed as Chief Data Scientist at AgriTech startup leading ML department. The core ML product helped the company to get various clients with different crops and growing facilities and scale to process larger greenhouse areas.
- CEO (whose latest achievement is AgriTech startup exit) reference letter describing my work
- Equity options
- Contract with substantial salary for my region in a startup
Previously I worked as a data scientist in a big four audit company where we have accomplished several big projects for industry leaders, I led two of them, one delivered completely on my own.
- Head of the department reference letter
- My direct technical lead reference letter (I know that it could be considered weak, but he is quite a big expert and currently works at another large company as a VP of technology)
Optional criteria 1
The startup I was working in was recognised as innovative by TechRound (https://techround.co.uk/), Futurology, appengine.ai and was included in the top-5 female-led ventures list in AgriFood Tech Israel. Can I use this information as evidence or if I am not able to provide financial information due to restrictions this criteria cannot be proven anyway?
- News/articles mentions
Optional criteria 2
I participated in building public site that started publishing openly university lectures on mathematical statistics which is the base for DS/ML field. The repository can be checked for existence but it has restrictions so that only the team of volunteers can contribute to it. I have the history of commits and I am the owner of this repository as I suggested the way to build the project and its structure. Is it valid for optional criteria 2?
- Public site + commits history
Does being a lecturer’s assistant in a free of charge school teaching computer science and ML count for this criteria if the payment for it is not substantial comparing to regular salary? Same for university courses?
- Contracts
Optional criteria 3
I have contributed substantially as a Solution Architect/ML team lead to the AgriTech startup core product, can I mention it separately apart from emphasising how my work helped the startup to grow?
- Documentation on product designs or architecture diagram
- Same documents about salary and shares from Mandatory criteria
- Reference letter from the founder
Thanks a lot in advance.