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A new kind of AI job is emergingand it pays six-figure salaries and doesnt require a degree in computer engineering, or even advanced coding skills.

With the rise in generative artificial intelligence, a host of companies are now looking to hire prompt engineers who are tasked with training the emerging crop of AI tools to deliver more accurate and relevant responses to the questions real people are likely to pose.

Some of these jobs can even pay up to $335,000 a year.

READ MORE: The A to Z of Artificial Intelligence

Anna Bernstein, a 29-year-old prompt engineer at generative AI firm Copy.ai in New York, is one of the few people already working in this new field. Her role involves writing text-based prompts that she feeds into the back end of AI tools so they can do things such as generate a blog post or sales email with the proper tone and accurate information. She doesnt need to write any technical code to do this; instead, she types instructions to the AI model to help refine responses.

There arent many of us prompt engineers, and for a long time it really felt like it was just me, Bernstein says. She joined Copy.ai in September 2021, about a year before OpenAIs ChatGPT went viral for its uncanny ability to generate elegant writing and answer almost any question. At the time, the term prompt engineer didnt exist, and they were unsure whether it was even a role that could exist.

Bernstein, who studied English in college, was a copywriter and historical research assistant before becoming a prompt engineer. I had no tech background whatsoever, she says. But to have a humanities background in this field seems to me like a triumph, especially since part of the point of developing AI is to imitate human thought.

Prompt engineering is now considered one of the hottest tech jobs as companies look for ways to help train and adapt AI tools to get the most out of new large language models, which can provide results that are not always correct or appropriate.

Its part of a dramatic increase in demand for workers who understand and can work with AI tools. According to LinkedIn data shared with TIME, the number of posts referring to generative AI has increased 36-fold in comparison to last year, and the number of job postings containing GPT rose by 51% between 2021 and 2022. Some of these job postings are being targeted to anyone, even those without a background in computer science or tech.

Its too soon to tell how big prompt engineering will become, but a range of companies and industries are beginning to recruit for these positions. Anthropic, a Google-backed AI startup, is advertising salaries up to $335,000 for a Prompt Engineer and Librarian in San Francisco. Applicants must have a creative hacker spirit and love solving puzzles, the listing states. Automated document reviewer Klarity is offering as much as $230,000 for a machine learning engineer who can prompt and understand how to produce the best output from AI tools.

Outside of the tech world, Boston Childrens Hospital and consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton recently advertised for prompt engineering jobs, with the latter paying up to $212,000 for applicants with more than three years of experience implementing machine learning models. Actor Donald Glover is even looking to hire a prompt engineer and prompt animator at his new creative studio.

But despite the engineering moniker in the job title, Bernstein says she doesnt fully consider herself an engineer. When I first started, we tried to get the term prompt specialists going, she says. Then the term prompt engineer as a noun emerged.

Rob Lennon, an expert in prompt engineering, began teaching paid online courses through Kajabi in December designed to help the average person learn the skills needed for a job in the field. His two courses, which around 2,000 students have already taken, demonstrate how to format and structure prompts for different types of tasks and domains. People are clamoring for this knowledge, Lennon says. Its kind of like first movers advantage. The courses start at $150 and can cost up to $3,970 for custom training and course certification.

But on the other side, some experts believe that the prompt engineering hype will burn out once AI becomes more powerful and capable of generating its own prompts. Ethan Mollick, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School, cautions that those looking to become prompt engineers should consider that much is unknown about the future of the industry.

Its not clear that prompt engineering is going to matter long-term because AI programs are getting better at anticipating what users need and generating prompts, he says. We also dont know if theres a special skill involved for prompt engineering or if it just requires a lot of time spent with chatbots.

And the high salaries currently being offered may not last. These are jobs that probably only 500 people could do right now, so there are these insane salaries, Lennon says. But in six months, 50,000 people will be able to do that job. The value of this knowledge is greater today than it will be tomorrow.

Mollick notes that those interested in exploring this field should try experimenting with large language models like GPT+ and Bard to learn their own approach to developing prompts, rather than taking an online course. Thats because AI systems are changing so quickly and the prompts that work today may not work in the future. What I worry about is people thinking that there is a magical secret to prompting, he says.

Given the high interest in AI jobs, Karin Kimbrough, chief economist at LinkedIn, says employers may quickly find that they need to compete with one another to hire talent to fill these emerging open roles, particularly if they continue to focus on hiring applicants with specific degrees or past job titles. Given how late-breaking all of this is, its important to approach these newly developed roles with a skills-first mindset, by focusing on the actual skills required to do the job, she says.

Some may find it suspicious that tech companies are willing to dole out this kind of cash at a time of massive layoffs across the industry. But tech entrepreneurs who champion the power of artificial intelligence believe prompt engineering has the chance to take off and shape the future of automation. The hottest new programming language is English, Andrej Karpathy, Teslas former chief of AI, wrote on Twitter.

Even so, not everyone agrees that prompt engineering will catch on at the six-figure salary levels with few educational requirements currently being offered. The trend has also raised questions about why people with a humanities background are compensated at the same rate as those with a tech background, Bernstein says. Her response: Why not? If theyre contributing as much to the product.

More Must-Reads From TIME

Write to Nik Popli at nik.popli@time.com.

Excerpt from:

How to Get a Six-Figure Job as an AI Prompt Engineer - TIME

North Country Community Colleges Malone campus recently installed a new sign. The college will soon offer coding classes through a partnership with UpNCoding, a software engineering education company based in Tupper Lake.(Trevor Buchanan/Malone Telegram)

SARANAC LAKE North Country Community College is partnering with Tupper Lake firm UpNCoding to prepare students for careers in the growing software engineering industry, according to a joint press release issued Monday.

According to the release, UpNCoding is both a company and a course that focuses on preparing the next generation of software engineers through education and training. Together, NCCC and UpNCoding will offer a 12-week course, beginning this May, that is designed to provide students with career opportunities across multiple industries with companies of various sizes.

When students complete the course, they will be prepared for modern software interview processes and will be educated in potential entry-level positions from full-stack engineer to machine learning engineer. UpNCoding has been creating a partner network where students would be able to interview for open positions immediately after completion of the course, the release stated.

The course is part of a larger effort by NCCC to identify and meet needs for skilled workers in the North Country, according to Joseph Keegan, president of the school.

Its the kind of jobs that would also permit folks who want stay and make good pay, and work remotely, Keegan told the Telegram on Tuesday. Theres no shortage of jobs.

The course introduces software engineering principles through instruction-led projects and industry standard tools that students will interact with in their future technology careers.

The course will be held at the Saranac Lake campus but students would not need to physically attend those classes, which will meet three times per week for three-hour sessions. The sessions will be available in a HyFlex format with in-person, synchronous online instruction in addition to recorded sessions to allow for flexible learning. All sessions will be taught by one to two industry-experienced instructors.

According to columbia.edu, HyFlex combines the terms hybrid and flexible. Hybrid learning refers to learning that integrates complementary face-to-face (synchronous) and online learning (asynchronous) experiences in service of intended learning objectives.

The emphasis there is on the variability and flexibility of teaching modalities, Keegan explained. You can teach live, people can connect from the campuses, or they can connect remotely from wherever they are.

Dan Preice, CEO of UpNCoding and one of the course instructors, said his firm is excited to be partnering with NCCC, and is excited to bring its teaching method to the school. He said talks about the course have been under way for roughly a year with the college.

While other institutions focus on a front-end app development, UpNCoding is providing a more well-rounded, full-stack education that better addresses the growing needs of the software engineering industry, Preice said in the press release.

North Country Community College will host the course while UpNCoding will provide instruction and the curriculum.

We are excited about our joint initiative with UpNCoding, Sarah Maroun, North Countrys vice president of academic affairs, said in the release. This technical curriculum will provide direct-to-work training with a 12-week program, and we are excited that additional courses are being prepared in topics such as security, devops, microprocessor firmware and artificial intelligence/machine learning to better address the needs of the industry and region.

Preice said his company is committed to meeting those needs.

We saw this was an area that needed more training and expertise and infrastructure, Preice told the Telegram on Tuesday. Thats why we got into it. We saw the need in the north country to bring more technology-based jobs and education. After talking to North Country they were in the same boat, they were looking for something similar.

We formed this direct-to-workforce program that hits the needs of technology in the area, technology in the industry, and helps bring job potential to the area.

To further align the needs of the community, NCCC and UpNCoding are developing a second phase of their relationship with a joint venture to provide software contracting services as a means to introduce resume-building workplace experience to students, the release said.

The course will start on May 22 and continue through Aug. 7 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays with in-person, live broadcasting, and recording available.

For more information visit http://www.nccc.edu/coding or call 518-891-2915 ext. 1203.

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NCCC to offer software engineering course | News, Sports, Jobs - The Adirondack Daily Enterprise

Russell A. Cothren

Dr. Ed Pohl

The second dean candidate for the Graduate School and International Education, Ed Pohl, will hold an open forum from 3:15 - 4 p.m. today, April 17, in the E.J. Ball Courtroom in the Law School.

During the open forum, Pohl will present his vision for the future of the Graduate School and International Education, which will be followed by a question-and-answer session.

The forum is open to the public, and the campus community can attend in person or virtually using Zoom and the information provided below:

A recording willbe available within 24 hours following the presentation at this link for those who are unable to attend in person.

U of A faculty and staff can provide their feedback on the second dean candidate by completing an evaluation form. Faculty and staff must sign in with their university credentials to access the form.

Pohl currently serves as department head of the Department of Industrial Engineering at the U of A. He also holds the Twenty-First Century Professorship in Engineering and is a professor of industrial engineering. Prior to his role as department head, Pohl was director of the Master of Science in Operations Management degree program. Before joining the U of A faculty, Pohl spent 21 years in the United States Air Force, where he served in a variety of engineering, operations analysis and academic positions during his career before retiring as a lieutenant colonel.

As a scholar, Pohl has led research in risk, reliability, engineering optimization, healthcare logistics, and supply chain risk analysis, decision making and quality. He is a fellow of the American Society for Engineering Management, the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers and the Society of Reliability Engineers. Pohl is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Society for Quality. He is a diplomate in the Society of Health Systems. He is also a member of the International Council on Systems Engineering, the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, and the Association for Health Care Resource & Materials Management.

Pohl received his Ph.D. in systems and industrial engineering from the University of Arizona. He holds an M.S. in systems engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology, an M.S. in reliability engineering from the University of Arizona, an M.S. in engineering management from the University of Dayton and a B.S. in electrical engineering from Boston University.

For more information on Pohl, view his curriculum vitae.

About the University of Arkansas: As Arkansas' flagship institution, the U of A provides an internationally competitive education in more than 200 academic programs. Founded in 1871, the U of A contributes more than $2.2 billion to Arkansas' economy through the teaching of new knowledge and skills, entrepreneurship and job development, discovery through research and creative activity while also providing training for professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the U of A among the few U.S. colleges and universities with the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the U of A among the top public universities in the nation. See how the U of A works to build a better world at Arkansas Research News.

Excerpt from:

Forum for Second GSIE Dean Candidate to be Held Today, April 17 - University of Arkansas Newswire

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Jean Paul Allain, department head and Huck Chair Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Penn State, was named this years recipient of the Institutes of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society (NPSS)s Fusion Technology Award, presented by the Fusion Technology Committee. He will be presented with the award during the Symposium on Fusion Engineering, held July 9-13 in Oxford, England.

The award is given to recognize outstanding contributions to research and development in the field of fusion technology, according to the IEEE-NPSS website.

Fusion technology harnesses energy produced via fusion nuclear reactions, which require a plasma, the fourth state of matter, to enable subatomic particles to reconstitute themselves. Allains contributions to the field of fusion technology include discoveries related to the interactions of fusion plasma and low-energy ions with material surfaces as well as the role surface chemistry plays in plasma-material interactions.

One of the most significant design challenges for materials performance exposed to extreme environments for example, heat, pressure and radiation is maintaining structural integrity while preventing or minimizing long-term damage, Allain said. In a fusion nuclear reactor, the expected operational environment is inherently extreme. The plasma-material interface is a critical region for design. Controlling the architecture in advanced materials to tailor properties beyond structure and composition has provided a new paradigm in modern materials design.

Allains contributions to the science and technology of surface chemistry in fusion have culminated in more than 50 peer-reviewed articles on the subject out of more than 160 total peer-reviewed articles authored by Allain. He has contributed to the engineering design and integration of plasma-material interface diagnostic systems in several fusion and high-intensity plasma systems.

Materials and their interactions with intense plasmas has been recognized as one of the key challenges to achieve practical nuclear fusion energy, said IEEE NPSS Fusion Technology Committee Chairperson Martin Nieto-Perez, who is also an associate teaching professor in the Penn State Ken and Mary Alice Lindquist Department of Nuclear Engineering. Dr. Allain, during his prolific career, has made important contributions to both the development of materials and a better understanding of how they interact with the plasma edge in nuclear fusion devices. It is a very well-deserved award.

Allain said hes honored both to receive this award and to be able to contribute to the progress of the field at such a critical time.

This decade is one of the most exciting times for nuclear fusion energy, with over $4 billion of private investment in nuclear fusion startups, the achievement of nuclear fusion ignition demonstrated at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and President Bidens announcement of hisBold Decadal Vision in 2022to support fusion technology development towards a fusion pilot plant in the 2030s, Allain said. Realizing carbon-free nuclearfusion energyremains one of the outstanding grand challenges of our time a seemingly limitless energy source using deuterium extracted from seawater as fuel and producing little to no radioactive waste.

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Nuclear engineering department head receives Fusion Technology ... - Pennsylvania State University