Ashish Pal
Blog

Writing on AI Systems & ML Careers

Practical notes on AI system design, agentic AI, MLOps, learning roadmaps, and career transition into AI/ML. Also on Medium, Substack, and LinkedIn.

System Design

RAG vs Long Context: Picking the Right Pattern

10 Jul 2026 • 8 min read

When retrieval beats a bigger context window — and when it doesn't. A practical comparison of latency, cost, freshness, and accuracy trade-offs.

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Career

How to Crack the AI/ML Interview in 2026

07 Jul 2026 • 9 min read

The four pillars of modern AI/ML interviews — fundamentals, system design, coding, and behavioral — with a six-week prep plan.

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LLM

When to Fine-tune vs Prompt-engineer

30 Jun 2026 • 7 min read

A decision framework covering data needs, latency, cost, and maintenance — and when each approach actually pays off in production.

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System Design

AI System Design Basics for Working Professionals

23 Jun 2026 • 8 min read

Data flow, model serving, latency constraints, and monitoring patterns for production AI — the decisions that show up in real projects.

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Career

Career Transition Playbook: Analyst to ML Engineer

23 Jun 2026 • 7 min read

Positioning, portfolio strategy, and interview prep to convert an analytics background into an ML engineering offer.

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Roadmap

Roadmap Learning vs Random Tutorial Hopping

23 Jun 2026 • 6 min read

A phase-by-phase framework to build your AI/ML learning path — foundations, projects, and interview-oriented execution.

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