PyTorch Philippines · Inaugural Meetup · June 2026

My Non-Linear Path to AI

Jude Teves
Lead Data Scientist & AI Engineer
Asian Development Bank
linkedin.com/in/judeteves
1 / 11
AI was always the destination.
I just didn't take the highway.
— a 20-minute story
2 / 11
Jude
Jude Teves
Lead DS · AI Engineer
Asian Development Bank
AI & Big Data Lab

Builder. Professor.
Mentor. Traveler.
CS kid who wanted to build things
AI has been the north star since day one
Built AI solutions for the Asia Pacific region
Taught and upskilled the same region — and still do
Into travel and sports. Restlessly curious.
Community builder. Mentors startup founders.
3 / 11
Beyond the resume
day one @ ADB
AIBD crew
research mode
Jan 2026
Paris
Yushan summit
Austria
dark arts
g'day mate
kulis
ski mode
Spartan
Mt. Titlis
wine country
Swiss Alps
archived

The actual path

time → foundational ↔ applied · dashed lines = ongoing parallel tracks
Jude Teves — My Non-Linear Path to AI Career timeline with primary zigzag path and two concurrent parallel tracks for teaching and government engagement. foundational applied balance professor @ DLSU govt engagement CS and Engineering @ DLSU embedded systems · signal processing robotics SE intern @ Samsung mobile dev startups / SE SE work · biz exposure SE @ Navitaire mobile dev MS Data Science @ AIM DS, AI & business DS consultancy forecasting · dashboards MLE @ ADB DS · deep learning · research · PM DE @ AIA pipelines · cloud · some DS DS @ TransUnion foundational ML + stats Lead DS + AI Eng @ ADB
primary path
startups / SE
professor @ DLSU
govt engagement
7 / 11

The cycle is turning again

Then — MLE days
Fine-tune everything
PyTorch was the craft
Specialization was the edge
→
Now
API-call everything
Prompt engineering is the craft
Accessibility became the norm
→
Fine-tune when it matters
Hardware will be back
Judgment is the edge
When everyone can call an API, customization becomes the edge again.
You're building that skill at exactly the right time.
8 / 11
What the path taught me
1
The detours were the point.
Every adjacent role gave me something a straight path wouldn't have.
2
Teaching and doing in parallel is a cheat code.
When you have to explain it and do it, you actually understand it.
3
Know your north star. Be loose about the route.
The destination stayed fixed. Everything else was negotiable.
9 / 11
PyTorch Philippines · Community Launch
This community didn't exist
when I was starting out.
I would have found my way faster if it had.
The Philippines needs practitioners who can bridge theory and practice — who understand the data, the systems, the people, and the context. That's exactly what this room is building toward.
10 / 11
Ask me
anything.
linkedin.com/in/judeteves
11 / 11