Self Driving Car Engineer

Udacity Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree - just EMail notification for now

Udacity Introduces the Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree

Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree

It just so happens that Udacity has a Self Driving Car Engineer "nano degree" program. Look into that. At the very least, the syllabus should be a help in deciding what to study.

Anybody completed the self driving engineer course?

I've been accepted on the self driving engineer course.

https://www.udacity.com/course/self-driving-car-engineer-nanodegree--nd013

Term 2 looks pretty good, not so much term 1 as I've already done lane departure algorithms and considerably beyond.

$2400 is not free and there is no exam at the end so anyone can just say they did it even if they just scratch the surface.

Has anybody completed it and if so, is it worth doing?

edit based on mikbob's reply, there are approximately 75 hours of assignments, so it sounds like quite a bit of work required to complete.

Is a PhD in image processing enough to get me into the computer vision field?

Hi all,

I got accepted to do a PhD in Electrical Engineering doing image processing in January (I already have a masters in EE in nanotech). My dream job would be to work on autonomous vehicles. The research project in question seems to cover a lot of the skills needed in computer vision (math/statistics, machine learning, gpu programming, algorithms, object/feature detection etc), but does not deal with hardware at all. Looking at job postings for AVs, it seems like I would be covered for ~80% of the requirements for some of the vision jobs, but would lack stuff like "3D scene understanding" and stereovision or some of the hardware stuff. Would doing this PhD + completing something like udacity's AV nanodegree (linked below) put me in a good position for this, or for the computer vision field in general? How about doing a 1-year post-doc in a computer vision lab in a CS department, that should be possible with an EE PhD right? It seems like image processing and computer vision are closely related, but I just want some advice on this.

On a side note, r/imageprocessing is dead, so do people in image processing go here or to r/dsp or r/dip?

AV nanodegree: https://www.udacity.com/course/self-driving-car-engineer-nanodegree--nd013#

I'd suggest checking out the syllabus to this nanodegree. https://www.udacity.com/course/self-driving-car-engineer-nanodegree--nd013

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On the other hand, if you are a mechanical engineer, it might be easier to be hired as a mechanical engineer. It might make sense to read about some of the various lidar companies and their products.

A lot of this heavily depends on the company you work for, but lets try to give some general tendencies for Dutch companies.

>Do companies in Amsterdam value experience, projects etc over degree ? For example I completed the SDC Udacity's nanodegree (https://www.udacity.com/course/self-driving-car-engineer-nanodegree--nd013), do people care about this kind of stuff ?

For mid-level or senior employees, hands-on experience trumps everything. For starter-functions, it's a little more complicated. General rule of thumb is that any company where HR does the first screening of a resume, formal qualifications outweigh experience, whereas when resumes go directly to a hiring manager, the balance shifts the other way. Although online courses generally count more towards proving interest in the field, than proving skills.

> I've heard that people leave their job at around 17 (or 5pm), is that true ?

The general expectation is to work 8 hours a day (lunch breaks don't count towards that, btw), and a lot of people start before 8:30, meaning it's not uncommon for offices to be largely empty after 17:00. But most companies are generally quite flexible if you prefer a somewhat different schedule.

>And do you have any habits at work that could surprise foreigners ?

I've worked with French colleagues before, and the difference I noticed (though I'm not sure how well this can be generalized) is a stronger tendency towards bureaucracy, and more deference towards managers. I guess this could be counted towards Dutch directness, though.

>Is there any "dress code" when you're at work ? I usually wear shorts and tee-shirt but in France people like to think that someone who dress well works well, is it the same in Amsterdam?

That heavily depends on the company. Especially in tech companies, there's a tendency towards very relaxed dress codes. Shorts are uncommon, but jeans, t shirts, and hoodies are not. In non-tech companies, or customer facing roles collared shirts, long pants (although often jeans) and an attempt at formal shoes are expected as a sort of minimum.

> Do people talk (if they talk) about things like the new serie they started to watch or is it just work

Sure, people chat about stuff other than work pretty much anywhere.

>When you finish your work of the day early, are you expected to stay untill the end of the day ?

Most office jobs don't have a particularly strong idea of 'work of the day'. I mean, there's not a daily bucket of work that renews every midnight. If you finish what you'd planned to do on any given day, the general expectation is you start working on what you had scheduled for tomorrow.

What is something to consider, is that in a lot of jobs your colleagues or even your manager might not have a strong idea of what exactly you're doing. In those cases, Dutch people tend to assume that making long hours is the same as working hard, and having more value. The flip-side is that in those cases, they're also generally not standing by your desk timing exactly when you come in or when you leave.

How much c++ do I need to be able to do Udacity's Sensor Fusion and Self Driving Car courses.

Literally how good will I have to be at c++ to do udacity's Sensor Fusion and Self Driving Car course? Please define intermediate to me. What specific things in c++ do I have to know.

Any advice for a data analyst looking to cross over to deep learning/AI?

I did my bachelors in mathematical statistics. I've been working in analytcs/data analysis for a number of years so am comfortable with relevant programming (SQL, python, R). I've also taken a number of classes and certifications in data science/big data/ML/AI - though in terms of ML I've had limited experience using this in practice (just done a bunch of random projects for different courses). I have familiarity with fundamental ML concepts but that's about it.

I'm currently doing the coursera deep learning specialization, and I'm now starting to think about how I can build a path to actually getting working with it at some point. Udacity offers a 9 month self driving car engineer program which seems timely with everything that's going on, and also a direct practical application of everything. I also find computer vision extremely interesting, so autonomous driving seems like a good setting for me.

What other things could I be doing? I have time, and I find it interesting so I'm just going to chip away until either I qualify for something or the field has grown enough that they'll take me out of desparation :) Trying to methodically add to my educational background with the goal of being able to go to an interview and have a shot at getting hired. Any advice is appreciated!

Edit:Funny side note - realized a couple of years ago I asked what a good entry level job was for someone looking to transition into the ML field (but lacking full qualifications) and the the response was pretty much start as a data analyst. So that's what I did, and it worked out well so far. Hoping this sub can keep guiding me in the right direction lol

There are absolutely no UDACITY courses here, if someone has access to that site please upload any of the following if you can:

-https://www.udacity.com/course/ai-artificial-intelligence-nanodegree--nd898

-https://www.udacity.com/course/ai-programming-python-nanodegree--nd089

-https://www.udacity.com/course/robotics-software-engineer--nd209

-https://www.udacity.com/course/deep-learning-nanodegree--nd101

-https://www.udacity.com/course/flying-car-nanodegree--nd787

-https://www.udacity.com/course/computer-vision-nanodegree--nd891

-https://www.udacity.com/course/self-driving-car-engineer-nanodegree--nd013

-https://www.udacity.com/course/machine-learning-engineer-nanodegree--nd009t

-https://www.udacity.com/course/business-analyst-nanodegree--nd008

I am interested in autonomous cars. And so, my answer will be specific to autonomous cars.

I had built a 1/10th sized autonomous car (toy) from here (http://f1tenth.org/). You can try to do so too. The project itself will not only involve programming to make sure your car runs on a particular path but it will also involve real world applications. You will get to work on Nvidia's Tegra ARM platform, LIDAR, cameras, ROS.

Another similar place to learn about self driving cars is Udacity's nanodegree or their introductory course.

• https://selfdrivingcars.mit.edu/
• https://www.udacity.com/course/self-driving-car-engineer-nanodegree--nd013
• https://www.coursera.org/courses?query=self-driving%20car

If would be in your shoe & having basic C++ knowledge or even C. I would start udacity's Sensor Fusion and Self Driving Car course & whatever comes in my way. I will learn it. Because C++ is not getting lengthy day by day. If your goal is udacity's Sensor Fusion and Self Driving Car you should focus on that rather than mastering C++.
I have spent 5 yrs in the industry & used C++ at a great extent but still, i am not considering my self as an expert.

The end product is more valuable than the technology you have used to build it.

Beginner course here... https://www.udacity.com/course/intro-to-self-driving-cars--nd113

Advanced one... https://www.udacity.com/course/self-driving-car-engineer-nanodegree--nd013