[phillypham]

It's not too uncommon. I started off working with Angular and Java. But I studied math.

It depends on what type of role you want. If you'd be happy building the application layer and doing prompt engineering, just build applications that call LLM APIs.

If you want a research position at the top labs, the interviews really are actually passable by people without PhDs. They are really focused on having strong fundamentals. I've seen people make this leap but it can be years of preparation. Like actually reading textbooks, implementing low-level details like backprop, re-implementing papers, and doing non-trivial personal projects. Essentially, you're self-studying a Masters degree. Blog about it. Post about it here. I've found people to make this transition just generally love learning.