Welcome to Gratitude Driven, a weekly newsletter where I share practical ideas and insights across personal growth, professional development, and the world of AI and data science.

This week I wanted to share some of the most common mistakes I see people make on their path to becoming an AI Engineer — to hopefully save you time and get you on the right track!

Blog version here!

When we want to advance in technical careers, we tend to spend the majority of our time heads down studying technical things: More DSA, another technical paper, or a deeper understanding of transformers. Makes sense, right? That's the job we're being hired to do.

Except it isn't. Not really.

The job (especially as you become more senior) is really about influence, negotiation, and building connection between people. The skill that determines your career trajectory more than any other isn't technical. It's communication.

This starts before you even have the job. To get hired, communication skills matter far more than you probably expect.

Nowhere is this clearer than in networking.

I know, I know. Networking is scary and feels performative. But it remains the highest-leverage activity for any job seeker. Studies consistently show that somewhere between 70-85% of jobs are filled through networking, not applications.

I recently experienced this from the other side. I just hired a new producer, and he was a referral from a colleague. The high praise from someone I've worked with absolutely counted when I was deciding between a field of strong candidates.

But he didn't get the job only because of the referral. Another advantage was that he was easy to talk to. We have similar communication and work styles, and I could picture collaborating with him.

Once you have the job, communication skills become even more important. In just the past few weeks, I've needed to deescalate concerns about ownership across teams, seek out and actually absorb feedback about areas I could improve, and take a more active, visible role in planning and leading as the senior ML person on a critical project.

That last one has been the biggest shift. I need to speak up more in meetings, be persuasive, and clearly guide engineering on what we need and why, not just do the technical work myself.

In fact, my recent promotion happened almost entirely due to communication. For several years, I advocated for a project I believed in. I persuaded another team to take it on and worked with them to see it through. But I didn't do any of the technical implementation myself—it was all influence.

None of this comes naturally to me. My default is to listen more than I speak, and to avoid crowds or confrontation. If you'd told early-career me that my promotion would come from persuasion rather than technical work, I wouldn't have believed you.

But I'm learning. And luckily, this is learnable. Most folks like people who are similar to them, who show genuine interest in what they care about, and who make them feel good about themselves. It isn't about being a suck-up, but about asking genuinely curious questions that move conversations forward, having awareness of your body language, and importantly, mustering up the courage to introduce yourself to someone new.

All of this matters more than ever now that I'm managing a team and trying to grow my network to bring more perspectives to my audience. Here's what's helping:

If you're in a technical field, your instinct is probably to keep investing in technical skills. And yes, you need to be competent. But past a certain point, what differentiates you isn't whether you can build the thing—it's whether you can get buy-in for building it, align a team around it, and communicate its value.

The most successful people I know aren't necessarily the most technically brilliant. They're the ones who can translate brilliance into influence.

That's the skill worth developing.

Like I shared in last week’s newsletter, I’m launching a learning community in a couple of months!

This will be a place where you can ask questions and get feedback from me in a group setting for an affordable rate. I’m still working out the exact details, but it’ll definitely include a-sync and live support, learning resources, accountability, and networking.

I’m sharing this because I’m excited, but also to give you a heads up: Once the community launches, my rates for one-on-one coaching will go up significantly. So, if you want to meet to discuss your career individually, I’d highly recommend booking now!

Here’s the link.

Thank you all for your support. I’m really looking forward to this and I hope it will be helpful. <3

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