[cageface]

I agree it's a fascinating field. I've been doing nothing for the past few months but intensive study of the fundamentals. I've had to review a lot of math but I've really been enjoying it. It also seems reasonable to me to expect that demand for those skills will grow.

My impression of the current job market, however, is that it's tough for somebody without formal academic qualifications to crack.

[dataguy]

There I agree, without the academic qualifications, people will hardly listen to you talking about formal Hilbert spaces, Jaccard index, etc.