You need to build an AI feature. You post a job for an "AI Developer." Your inbox floods with applications from Machine Learning Engineers.

Are they the same? No.

And hiring the wrong one is a classic startup mistake. This mistake can burn through your budget. It can set your timeline back by months.

When you’re looking to hire AI Developer in India, you're tapping into a high-potential market. But, this market is also very young. It is full of eager job-seekers who'll claim they're right for Artificial Intelligence roles - even when they're trained in ML. 

This guide will make the distinction crystal clear.

AI Developer: The Integrator

An AI Developer’s mission is to build smart features, fast. They're experts at integrating pre-existing AI models like the ones from OpenAI, Google, or Microsoft into existing apps.

A business will hire AI developer if they want them to use APIs and SDKs to:

●       Build chatbots in weeks using GPT-4 APIs

●       Add image recognition to their app with Google Vision SDKs

●       Automate workflows via pre-trained models

The ML Engineer: The Architect

An ML Engineer’s mission is to architect custom models from the ground up. They can take a firm's proprietary dataset and use it to deliver tailored solutions like:

●       Create fraud detection for unique transaction patterns

●       Design drug discovery models for biotech startups

●       Optimize supply chains with proprietary data

The Skillset Showdown

Here’s a quick look at how their skillsets and toolkits typically differ.

Hire For Your Use Case

Should you find an ML or Artificial Intelligence developer for hire? Depends. What's the problem your startup is trying to solve? Let's run through a few common startup scenarios:

Scenario A: "We need a custom fraud detection system for our fintech app"

→ You need an ML Engineer

Building a system that can understand the nuances of your users' transaction patterns? A generic model can't do that. This is a classic ML Engineer task. 

ML engineers will build, train, and fine-tune a fraud detection system based on your own data. This custom solution will offer long-term security.

Scenario B: "We want to add a smart chatbot to our site"

→ You need to hire AI Developer

This is the perfect job for an AI Developer. There’s no need to build a large language model from scratch. That would take years and millions.

An AI Developer can use OpenAI's GPT API or Google's Dialogflow to have a powerful, intelligent chatbot up and running in days.

Scenario C: "We need to analyze customer feedback at scale"

→ It could be either

This scenario shows why knowing the difference is so important.

Hire AI Developer if: You need to perform:

●     Standard sentiment analysis (positive, negative, neutral) and extract common topics

●     AI developers can use off-the-shelf NLP services from AWS, Google, or AzurE

●     They can use those tools to get these tasks done quickly and cost-effectively

Go with an ML Engineer if: Your product serves a niche industry with its own jargon:

●       A generic sentiment tool won't understand that in your industry, the word "complex" might be a compliment, not a complaint

●       An ML Engineer can build a custom model trained on your specific customer language

●       This model will pull out far more accurate and nuanced insights

Or, you can start with AI Developer, then add ML engineer:

●       Phase 1: Use Google NLP for sentiment scoring (live in 72 hours)

●       Phase 2: Train custom model when jargon emerges

So, are you looking for Artificial Intelligence developer for hire? Scout for these qualities:

●       Strong product intuition

●       API cost and latency obsession

●       Full-stack fluency

●       Prompt engineering skills

When hiring ML engineers in India, look for:

●       Deep data skepticism

●       Intuitive understanding of math

●       Production-grade MLOps experience

●       Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and MLflow

●       A love for rigorously testing ML models' real world impacts

Conclusion

Hire AI developer in India when you need speed, like for adding ChatGPT to your app in > 7 days. Hire ML engineers when your project is long and complex like detecting heart defects from stethoscope audio.