Happy to chat and provide recommendations. I only have a masters, and worked as an ML Engineer in the industry for about 5 years now. It was tough to get a job, but really good portfolio of training and deploying models can really help you stand out. I have teammates with PhDs in Bioengineering and non CS PhDs, and they excel in the industry. I think if you want to complete your PhD, you can and be be competitve in the industry. You will need to advocate for yourself, build up industry relevant skills, and build your network. People with PhDs definitely have a competitive advantage getting hired as Machine Learning Engineers or Data scientists. Research Scientists can be more competitive. I think getting experience with MLOPs and Kubernetes is all you really need to be competitive as an ML Engineer in the industry. I recommend reading this book: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/machine-learning-interv... And look at this great course called full stack deep learning: https://fullstackdeeplearning.com/course/2022/

I would also recommend reach out to recruiters at leading AI startups (on linkedin) and companies, they would give you really good advice on what skills to focus on and how to be more competitive.