How to get into the ML field as a fresh grad/career path to do so? /u/x_Vulcan_x CSCQ protests reddit

I am a 21 year old fresh grad from university with a computer science degree and minor in mathematics. I do want to preface further context of my question with me just saying I am under no delusions of getting a true Machine Learning job right out of college, I guess I am more looking at the best career path to take in order to get to that point, I should also add that my end goal is Deep Learning Engineer though I know that is even more difficult to get into than general Machine Learning is.

Most suggestions I have seen recommend becoming either a data analyst or software engineer first, I do enjoy Math and statistics etc, but my real passion is programming so I’d like to go the software engineer route to ML if possible. For that I guess my main question is should I just be looking for an entry level job of any kind in software engineering or should I look for python specifically, and if python software engineer does it matter what kind? should I be going for cloud computing, front end, back end, web dev etc. Or should I be going for a different language/role entirely?

essentially I have worked on ML projects and done a lot of academic work to know I enjoy the field and want to get into it eventually, but I know that junior Machine Learning roles don’t truly exist and one must work their way up through other positions first, especially for Deep Learning roles, and I am hoping for any help/insight into the best path or way to go about doing that as a fresh CompSci Grad.

I also just want to end this with a thank you in advance for any help or advice people might give on this, I know its a broad question and a fairly involved one as well so any help is greatly appreciated.

I am a 21 year old fresh grad from university with a computer science degree and minor in mathematics. I do want to preface further context of my question with me just saying I am under no delusions of getting a true Machine Learning job right out of college, I guess I am more looking at the best career path to take in order to get to that point, I should also add that my end goal is Deep Learning Engineer though I know that is even more difficult to get into than general Machine Learning is.

Most suggestions I have seen recommend becoming either a data analyst or software engineer first, I do enjoy Math and statistics etc, but my real passion is programming so I’d like to go the software engineer route to ML if possible. For that I guess my main question is should I just be looking for an entry level job of any kind in software engineering or should I look for python specifically, and if python software engineer does it matter what kind? should I be going for cloud computing, front end, back end, web dev etc. Or should I be going for a different language/role entirely?

essentially I have worked on ML projects and done a lot of academic work to know I enjoy the field and want to get into it eventually, but I know that junior Machine Learning roles don’t truly exist and one must work their way up through other positions first, especially for Deep Learning roles, and I am hoping for any help/insight into the best path or way to go about doing that as a fresh CompSci Grad.

I also just want to end this with a thank you in advance for any help or advice people might give on this, I know its a broad question and a fairly involved one as well so any help is greatly appreciated.