This as-told-to essay originates from an in-depth conversation with Daryl Roberts, a 30-year-old professional who now serves as the lead artificial intelligence and machine learning engineer at Obney.ai—an AI-focused consulting company operating near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His identity and credentials have been thoroughly verified. The account you are about to read has been carefully edited to ensure accuracy, concision, and clarity of expression while preserving the authenticity of his voice.
Roberts recalls that his life took a dramatic turn during his first year of college. When his grandmother passed away, the loss created not only emotional upheaval but also significant financial difficulty for his family. His parents were already struggling with health issues, and the modest income his grandmother contributed had helped keep the household afloat. Faced with the realization that his family needed support, Roberts began to feel that remaining in college, focusing solely on his own academic aspirations, was a selfish choice. Compelled by both necessity and duty, he withdrew from school and enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve—a decision driven by the dual purpose of securing healthcare benefits and earning a small but steady paycheck to help his family manage. Simultaneously, he sought out a civilian job that could provide him with more substantial income during his off-duty periods.
Though he had virtually no experience with automotive repair—he had never even changed a vehicle’s oil—Roberts boldly applied for a diesel mechanic position at a local industrial-equipment dealership. In the interview with his prospective employer, he displayed humility mixed with self-confidence, openly acknowledging his inexperience but emphasizing his capacity for rapid learning. “I’ve never done this before,” he remembers saying, “but I’m a quick learner, and if I can’t figure it out, you can simply fire me.” The hiring manager, impressed by his straightforward honesty and determination, accepted the challenge. Thus began Roberts’s unexpected entry into the world of heavy machinery.
He worked for roughly three years as a diesel mechanic, repairing and maintaining heavy industrial equipment like forklifts, manlifts, and skid steers. His mechanical aptitude, combined with a strong work ethic, propelled him upward through the company ranks. Over time, he transitioned from hands-on technician roles into management positions—first serving as a service administrator, then as a dispatcher, and eventually rising to the level of operations manager. By most external measures, he had achieved professional success. Yet an inner dissatisfaction persisted. Despite climbing the organizational ladder, Roberts found himself feeling unfulfilled, questioning whether this was how he wanted to define his career and his life.
During this period of reflection, the growing explosion of interest in artificial intelligence caught his attention. Tools like ChatGPT were becoming mainstream, and this shift rekindled the interest in robotics and machine learning that he had harbored since childhood. With his family’s financial situation finally stabilized, Roberts decided the time had come to pursue something more intellectually challenging and personally meaningful. He recognized, however, that returning to a traditional four-year university program did not align with his circumstances or goals. Instead, he looked for a more streamlined, immersive educational path that could equip him with practical, industry-ready skills.
One afternoon, while scrolling through Facebook, Roberts stumbled across an advertisement for an AI boot camp called Fullstack Academy, which was being offered in collaboration with Louisiana State University. Seeing it as an opportunity to reinvent himself, he decided to enroll. The program lasted six months and was delivered entirely online. Twice a week, for two hours each session, students learned directly from instructors and received career guidance from professional coaches. As part of the inaugural class, Roberts also benefited from substantial tuition reductions—including a military discount—which brought his total cost to approximately $10,000.
The boot camp’s curriculum was both rigorous and comprehensive, beginning with foundational statistics and progressing through increasingly advanced concepts: traditional data science, machine learning theories, and the study of neural networks. A few months into the program, bolstered by emotional and financial support from his fiancée, Roberts made the daring decision to leave his job entirely so he could dedicate himself full-time to mastering these new skills.
Driven by a thirst for deeper knowledge, he supplemented his boot camp experience by enrolling in roughly 50 additional courses on Udemy, an online learning platform well-known for its affordability. These self-paced lessons allowed him to explore specialized topics that the main program did not cover, such as reinforcement learning, transformer architectures, and other cutting-edge innovations in the field. Many of these courses were discounted to as little as ten dollars each, enabling him to dramatically expand his technical toolkit without breaking the bank.
As the boot camp drew to a close, Roberts began actively applying for professional positions in AI. In a creative twist, he designed and deployed a small AI-powered bot that automatically submitted applications to available roles on LinkedIn. Despite this innovative approach, his early job hunt yielded only rejection letters. The repeated setbacks left him worrying that he might have made a serious miscalculation in changing careers.
But while formal job offers were elusive, his personal projects were opening unexpected doors. He had been devoting time to building AI models for fun and sharing his progress publicly on LinkedIn. One of these passion projects caught the eye of a company owner whose business utilized AI to analyze the movements and punch techniques of boxers. The entrepreneur reached out to explore the possibility of hiring Roberts for freelance work. Although the partnership ultimately did not materialize, the encounter proved profoundly eye-opening. It revealed to Roberts that he did not necessarily need a traditional full-time role to engage professionally with AI. Instead, freelancing and contract work could offer both flexibility and valuable experience.
Encouraged by this realization, Roberts began to view LinkedIn not merely as a job board but as a networking and collaboration platform. Before long, a contact he had made through the site helped him secure his first paid AI project: analyzing and tracking the behavioral patterns of chickens on a farm. The unusual nature of the assignment didn’t deter him; in fact, he embraced the challenge. From there, he expanded into related areas like 2D-to-3D modeling. Soon, his workload multiplied with a variety of AI and data analysis projects, each one pushing him to learn faster and think more creatively. He was acquiring hands-on experience at a remarkable pace while building an increasingly versatile portfolio.
Armed with this growing body of work, Roberts eventually returned to his initial goal of finding a full-time position. He began attending technology conferences to network with professionals across the AI and cybersecurity sectors. At one such event, he met a cybersecurity vendor who was contemplating launching his own AI consulting firm. The two quickly developed a rapport, and the entrepreneur promised to contact Roberts if his plans moved forward. Half a year later, true to his word, the vendor reached out to invite Roberts to meet with him and a co-founder. During that meeting, they explained their vision: a consultancy designed to assist small and medium-sized businesses in integrating AI tools to improve operations and decision-making. Because Roberts had already gained substantial freelancing experience, he contributed valuable insights during their planning discussions. That meeting marked a turning point—shortly thereafter, he officially joined forces with them to help build the new venture, Obney.ai.
One year later, Roberts reflects on the enormous progress they have made. As head of AI at the growing firm, he now leads a team that includes interns holding advanced degrees—some with master’s or even doctoral credentials in artificial intelligence. The irony is not lost on him; he often marvels at the fact that he now mentors individuals who possess formal qualifications he himself once aspired to earn. For Roberts, this reality underscores how far deliberate effort and continuous self-education can take someone, even outside of traditional academic paths.
Looking back, Roberts describes the boot camp as an invaluable launching pad. The certificate he earned—bearing Louisiana State University’s endorsement—serves as tangible proof of his formal training. Yet he readily acknowledges that this initial education only accounted for about half of his professional growth. The other half came from parallel learning experiences: his Udemy courses, his independent experiments, and his habit of reading academic research papers to stay abreast of emerging methods. He emphasizes that artificial intelligence is evolving at an extraordinary rate, and success in the field demands relentless curiosity and consistent, hands-on practice. Anyone approaching it with minimal effort, he cautions, will find it difficult to achieve meaningful progress. For Roberts, the journey from diesel mechanic to AI engineer stands as living evidence that with persistence, self-discipline, and a willingness to keep learning, personal reinvention is not just possible—it can be transformative.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-a-former-diesel-mechanic-got-job-ai-engineer-startup-2025-11
