Tier-3 ISE final year(2026 batch) with ongoing ML research (EMSE/Q1/NeurIPS/A* target), trying to understand real impact in India [D]

I went through a bunch of older posts here about research vs dev roles, but most of them were either very general or not really in a similar situation, so posting this. I’m a final year ISE student from a tier-3 college. Over the past 1.5–2 years I’ve been focusing quite a bit on ML research instead of just the usual DSA + dev route. Current situation: 1 paper in EMSE 1 in JAIR 1 under production still but hopefully going to a Q1 journal 1 I’m trying for NeurIPS main track (I know this one’s a long shot) ->