DEV Community: Sameer Arora

Why a father and techie decided to mentor and train others

Sameer Arora — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 06:48:42 +0000

I am a tech guy with 13 years of experience. My primary programming language is Java. I worked with product and service based companies. I have 2 kids and my elder son is a college going teanger.

When I look back into my journey, I could see the hardship, sweat, sleepless nights working for client deliverables etc. One day, my son expressed interest in learning programming. I was surprisingly happy that even after seeing me and my life he is thinking of getting into this tech space. I suggested he do the same as millions of others do, google, watch videos and learn.

After a few weeks, I asked him about the progress. In case he has any questions or doubts that I can address. He said he watched a few YouTube videos and read a few blogs as well. He acted like it was very easy and he understood everything on the first try.

When I cross questioned him on the basic concepts, he was clueless. Then I decided to spend 1 hour everyday teaching him actual programming. Soon after 2 months, he was not only creating programs but started solving my job problems with his algorithm.

I was a proud dad. Then I realized having information in hand in the form of videos and blogs won’t solve 100% of the problem. I also took many references from online resources. But what made a difference in my son's case was having me as a mentor and trainer.

Then I thought of other people having the same situation. Jumping from one online resource to another and by the end saying I know everything, it is very easy. So, I decided to jump in and help. I came up with 2 trainings (links mentioned above). Interested people feel free to subscribe. It is completely online live training.

Programmatically identify which camera clicks better photos

Sameer Arora — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 05:41:11 +0000

Credit: Ritesh Bhagwat

Let's say we have 3 cameras. Canon, Nikon and Sony and we take picture of Sunset on a beach. All three cameras have slightly different software processing so the output of all three cameras will be somewhat different.

Now the question is which is the best picture? So the 'truth' here is finding out which is the best picture. Well, it depends on personal taste. If someone likes high contrast then a certain image is best image, if someone likes more vibrant colors another picture is the best picture.

The key word here is 'Subjective'. Best picture is totally subjective and dependent on the person's taste. Many of you may disagree with me but I feel on a more broader 'Spiritual' level truth is also Subjective.

Probability is the best tool to study subjectivity. There are three types of Probability.

Theoretical Probability.
Empirical Probability (Loosely referred as Frequentist Probability)
Subjective Probability (Loosely referred as Bayesian Probability)

To study Subjectivity , Bayesian approach to probability is very powerful.

As we say truth is subjective if you show the picture to a dog, the dog will laugh at you as he sees the world only in black and white. The perception of colors in absent in a dog so his truth is different than our truth!

Have you ever wondered how YouTube, Netflix shows you video/movie recommendations?

Sameer Arora — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 06:43:17 +0000

Credit: Pradip Nichte

One of the techniques used to build a recommendations system is called collaborative filtering.

The idea behind collaborative filtering is that if User A and User B have watched some movies in common, they have similar preferences, and User A is more likely to watch films seen by user B than any random user preferences.

But how do we find similar users for a given user?

We can represent users and movies using a matrix (or spreadsheet).
Each row represents each user, and each column represents each movie.

Each cell in the matrix is 1 or 0, which tells us whether the user has watched a movie or not.

One way to calculate the similarity between two users (rows) is using dot product or cosine similarity.

Let's pick user A; once we compare the user A row with every row, we can find the most similar row; let's call it User X.

Then pick a movie from User X which A has not watched yet and Show it to user A.

Can we improve the above technique?

Instead of finding one similar user, we can see the top 5 similar users and show one movie from each user or recommending a film seen by all five similar users and not watched by User A.
Represent each cell in the matrix by rating (1 to 5) given by the user for that movie instead of 1 or 0.
Since the system will be having millions of users and 1000s of movies, the matrix will become huge, we can use matrix factorization techniques to represent users and movies efficiently.

40 technology experts ready to help you practice on projects

Sameer Arora — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 14:01:27 +0000

You must have seen experts writing blogs and posts to share their experience and knowledge. How much of it has helped you to learn and be successful in life. If it did not workout for you then certainly you need more from them.

Also, it is next to impossible to put one’s experience in a blog or article or video. It is a scattered knowledge available in abundance, which generally leads to confusion.

Serious learning needs continuous support. And if that support is hard to find then we may end up taking a lot more time to achieve our goals. What is the alternative? As technology people, we should solve real world problems. So, how to solve our problem for ourselves. Let me help you find the right people for your varied technology learning requirements.

Data Science:

Nishkam Shivam: With a rich data science industry experience, he is a certified Azure Data Scientist. Industry experience in working for the fortune#1 company of the world in solving their problems - impacting multi billion dollars decisions. And as a trainer have teaching/mentoring experience with premiere institutes of the country like -IIT madras, IIT Palakkad,IIIT Bangalore etc I can help Data Science aspirants to start their journey and build projects in many different application areas.

Aayushi: With masters in Data Analytics, and extensive experience in mentoring, training & coaching, she has published 8 research papers in different reputed publications such as SCOPUS, IEEE, Springer, etc. She is utilizing her data science skills to solve problems in the HR space and Insurance Tech domain. She have built chatbots (NLP), predictive modeling using machine learning, recommendation system using LSH forest, MVP of financial assistants using RASA, and many more. She also using PowerBI extensively for all her reporting purposes. People interested in learning Data Science from beginner to advance level can certainly leverage my knowledge and experience. Feel free to reach out for your Data Analytics, Data Science, NLP, related learning requirements.

Pradip Nichte: He comes with an M.Tech, Data Science degree and 6 years of experience in machine learning, NLP, MLOps, and web application development. Utilizing my big data experience he has deployed ML models in production and managed them. He can certainly help you with getting started and dig deep into Data Science while working on practical projects. He can also help with end-to-end model deployments, re-training the model, and managing models in the production environment. In case you are preparing for a Data Science interview, he can help you to prepare for it by conducting mock interviews. You can also discuss your Data Science projects if you are stuck or in general, you need career advice, he would be happy to help.

Karuna Lakhani

Sampuran Rattan
Lila Srinivas

If you are an also interested to mentor others, you can click this link to signup.

My secret to nail data science interview after 25 failures

Sameer Arora — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 06:55:17 +0000

It was hard and every interview was like an eye opener. You can say, I was the one who was learning from failure. But was it enough to get one success.

I was not sure, because learning was coming in pieces and I was not sure whether my answers are correct or in the right direction. Many times, I lose the point of the questions. It was more like a stressful journey.

Later, my friend suggested me to get help from an experienced data-scientist. Being an experienced data scientist, he/she would know the drill and can certainly become a deal breaker for me.

I started looking for a Data Scientist who is generous enough to help me. After approaching more than 50 people, I was surprised not receiving even one reply. I was shattered.
One day, completely despair I saw one post on the Instagram. A data scientist was helping people like me to prepare for interview not like providing the cheat sheet or question answers, but 1:1. I checked the details and talked to him. He understood my situation and suggested me mock interviews to stimulate the real interview environment and help me where I am wrong or potentially missing the point.

We had 4 mock interviews. Every interview was more like a progressive discussion than a stressful, drilling interview. It helped me understand the interviewer perspective, fine tune my approach and understand the technical depth and even understand the hidden agenda of the questions.

My friend was right. It became a deal breaker for me. I went for my next interview very positively. It was a long interview for 2 hours. Next morning I saw an email from recruiter congratulating me for interview success and asking for availability for final HR round.

The same mentor is extending his help to more people. In case you would like know more about him, click the below link.

https://www.mentorif.com/event/58396148744?utm_source=Dev&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=dev-ds-pradip&utm_id=dev-ds-pradip

So, you are the one who learn by doing mistakes in Interview? How to avoid it...

Sameer Arora — Tue, 24 Aug 2021 05:00:49 +0000

Let's not stretch the problem much and make it more scary. Rather let's talk about the potential solutions to avoid such mistakes.

Furnish your resume and projects according to job requirements. This is not a secret, but we always avoid it or use the same resume for all the job applications.
Understand the profile and it's roles and responsibilities. Whether it align with your purpose. It should allow you to learn and grow. If it is not clear ask for an exploratory call with your hiring manager to clarify these very important points.
Know the process and nitty-gritty before you get into it. Specially understand the interviewer background. Research on LinkedIN etc. This will give you a better understanding of person you going to face.
The above step would also give you a better understanding of your manager in your upcoming company.
Prepare for each interview round in advance. This is very tricky and crucial. It can make or break a deal. All the above steps and hard work is waste if you are not prepared for interview.

We think we know all the answers of questions. But have we validated it with someone. Are we understanding the question rightly and sticking to point while answering. In case our resume is getting rejected multiple times then what is wrong with resume. What projects we should talk in interview and how to manage that interview stress.

For instance, you are preparing for Data Science interview for first time. You never want to miss that opportunity to nail the interview in your dream company. How about taking help from an experienced Data Scientist to prepare for your interview, to manage your portfolio projects and validate your answers. He/She can simulate the environment where one try to trap you with the tricky questions. It can be a deal breaker. Expert data scientist have experience of taking 100 of interviews and can share hidden agenda and tips with you.

How you can find that expert and ask for help? MentorIF creating a community of experts who are helping learns with all their career, skills and job related requirements.

https://www.mentorif.com/event/58396148744?utm_source=Dev&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=dev-ds-pradip&utm_id=dev-ds-pradip

So, You Want to build your career in cloud (Here is not so obvious way to learn from a senior solution architect in AWS)

Sameer Arora — Sat, 21 Aug 2021 05:25:05 +0000

Aspirants who want to build their career in the cloud should know what cloud providers have in offering for various businesses and tech requirements.

Start your cloud journey by learning AWS cloud services by non-other than a senior solution architect in AWS cloud. Open up doors for different cloud-focused careers.

Click the below link for more details and/or share with people who need this.

https://www.mentorif.com/event/73933132064

Free Python/Django Web Application Development Training

Sameer Arora — Fri, 20 Aug 2021 06:36:11 +0000

https://www.mentorif.com/event/26387610898

Free Python/Django Web Application Development Training

Sameer Arora — Thu, 19 Aug 2021 09:54:22 +0000

Click here to signup...

https://www.mentorif.com/event/26387610898

DEV Community: Sameer Arora

Why a father and techie decided to mentor and train others

Programmatically identify which camera clicks better photos

Have you ever wondered how YouTube, Netflix shows you video/movie recommendations?

40 technology experts ready to help you practice on projects

Data Science:

Computer Vision/Deep Learning:

Robotics:

AWS Cloud:

Java:

Python:

PHP:

React/Javascript:

Node.js/Javascript:

Cloud Infrastructure Architect:

Testing:

MongoDB

My secret to nail data science interview after 25 failures

So, you are the one who learn by doing mistakes in Interview? How to avoid it...

So, You Want to build your career in cloud (Here is not so obvious way to learn from a senior solution architect in AWS)

Free Python/Django Web Application Development Training

Free Python/Django Web Application Development Training