[Stasis5001]

Any good references on the art part, or is it just an intuition you develop over time? In my experience, all the ML education will teach you a ton of theory and basics but none of the practical details you're referring to.

[jimfleming]

It takes time and a lot of hands-on experience. Many ML teams tend to work on one or just a few tightly coupled project for years. By contrast, we’ve worked on a lot of unique projects with real-world constraints so it gives us a different perspective. An important part has been developing a rigorous process; sort of a framework for applying the “art”. As you mention, this often isn’t covered in ML or data science education, which tends to focus on (important) fundamentals.