Review Request: AI / Machine Learning Engineer (Exceptional Promise)

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Hi all!

I’m a Machine Learning Engineer with 4+ years of experience, looking to apply for Exceptional Promise. I would appreciate your kind feedback on my application and whether I stand a chance

I have a Bachelors of Computer Science (Honours) with a Specialisation in Data Science from an Australian university.

Recommendation Letters

  1. From American CTO of a social media (within top 10 most popular social medias in US with more than 100M monthly users): I worked here as a Senior ML Engineer for 3+ years
  2. Reference letter from Senior Research Scientist of an Open Source Web company (within top 10 most visited websites worldwide): I worked here as an ML researcher for a short 4 month internship but the referee has known me since 2021. Referee is based in UK
  3. From Director of Data Science and AI at a top Australian University (within top 40 globally)-- my ML research supervisor for my Honours research. I have one research publication in a top AI conference from this. For those not familiar, an Honours is a 1 year postgrad research degree (sort of like a Master’s but 1 year!).

Mandatory Criteria 1: Growth of social media as a Senior ML Engineer

  • Recommendation Letter from Lead of Machine Learning of the Social Media company, which goes deep into my technical contributions and impact
  • Screenshots of internal dashboard showing how a few projects I led for building new social media recommendation algorithms have impacted new user growth, engagement metrics, etc.
  • screenshots of positive comments I have received from coworkers and leadership, showing the impact of my contributions
  • Screenshots of internal Github repo contribution graph
  • I can also share some screenshots of architecture diagrams for some projects I led if that would help

Mandatory Criteria 2: Command High Salary

  • Screenshots of contracts, salary increments from social media company, showing I earn 5-6x the national average for ML Engineers in my country, and 1.5x national average for ML Engineers in the UK

Optional Criteria: Academic contributions through research

  • 2 first-author AI/ML papers published in top tier peer reviewed AI conferences
    • 1 is linked to my work with the Open Source Web Company, where I worked on a ML project to measure content safety, and published some open source datasets
    • 1 is my Machine Translation research, linked to my Honours research at top university
  • Evidence of conference participation: presentations at peer reviewed conference for the 2 papers above^
  • Will share links/screenshots to conference agenda
  • Google Scholar profile with citation counts etc.

Optional Criteria: Open Source Contributions

  • Screenshots of Open Source Machine Learning repo linked to my work with Open Source Web Company
  • Screenshots of Open Source Machine Learning datasets linked to my work with Open Source Web Company (has over 5k+ downloads)
  • Interview: Featured in company blog where I was interviewed about my Machine Learning internship with Open Source Web Company
  • Blogging: Public technical article I authored on my work, published on the Open Source Web Company’s page. 3.5k+ page views in total

Besides everything mentioned, I have previous research publications in civic technology (open source), and 2 years working part time at a global tech consulting firm (while studying), but I’m not counting these as they exceed the 5 year window

Please let me know how I can improve anything for my application
cc @Francisca_Chiedu @pahuja @May @alexnk and anyone else!
Thank you for all your help and feedback in advance!!

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Tagging @Francisca_Chiedu @pahuja @Akash_Joshi @May @alexnk

Thank you for the reviews you’ve done to help others through this forum, it has been a huge help to read through and learn from them. I would greatly appreciate any of your kind advice on my chances!

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Your application shows good technical contributions, but needs stronger evidence of external recognition for Mandatory Criteria 1. Tech Nation requires proof you’re recognized beyond your employer - internal dashboards and colleague feedback alone don’t demonstrate national/international acknowledgment. Can you share third-party validation like conference talks, media coverage, or industry awards related to your social media work?

The high salary evidence meets the threshold but requires clearer context. You must explicitly show how this remuneration reflects exceptional talent in digital tech, not just company pay scales. Consider adding a comparison to UK tech salaries from official sources.

Your open-source work has good traction, but the 5k+ downloads need supporting metrics. Include repository stars, contributor numbers, or community testimonials to demonstrate wider sector impact per Tech Nation’s “significant technical contributions” criteria.

1 Like
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Thank you @Akash_Joshi for your helpful feedback!

Thanks for the pointers on evidence for my open source work and salary evidence. I’ll be sure to do so.

needs stronger evidence of external recognition for Mandatory Criteria 1

I can also share media coverage about new features that were added to the social media platform, and I could connect this to the recommendation letter from the Lead of Machine Learning, validating that I was the key ML Engineer responsible for recommendations for those product features.

The media coverage articles themselves don’t mention impact, just generally “X Social Media introduces new feature Y”, but I can connect this to internal metrics showing how my work helped with the success of the feature for example increasing user adoption of the feature, or improved platform engagement. Would this work?

Also, what do you think of testimonials from users? Any guidelines on how to show testimonials in evidence?