It depends on the prerequisites of an IT firm. Few companies require a Bachelor’s Degree of either 3-4 years. In contrast, some tech giants like Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc., don’t mandate any degree as they primarily focus on an aspirant’s skill set and talent.
Consequently, it usually takes 3-4 years to become a Machine Learning Engineer after the 12th standard as most firms require a Bachelor’s Degree in either Computer Science or Information Technology. Nevertheless, an aspirant can instantly become a Machine Learning Engineer at a beginner’s level by cracking the jobs in tech giants like Apple, Google, or Microsoft. But the aspirant must have tremendous expertise in programming languages, data structures and algorithms, a few ML algorithms, or implement any ML-related projects.