There is no expectation that you have published, you would be evaluated based on your academic record but also your industry experience. I can’t tell you how things work in the case of Industry PhD, but I can definitely tell you that since now a lot of academic fields have connections to AI and could really use people with strong engineering skills, there is a good chance you could find such a position.
To clarify the link I posted above, was for a job opening not in our group but in the group of Jörg Conradt, I think he would be happy if you send him a mail. I'm at a physics institute, so it is hard to hire non-physicists. I'm trying to be semi-anonymous here so I would prefer to not share my mail, but I can reach out to you if you give me a way to contact you.
