The Dark Side of Being an AI Engineer - 8 reasons NOT to become an AI Engineer

[@i2c_jason]

I'll share a personal anecdote that is troubling... I'm working on a generative AI startup that will significantly change the whole engineering / design workflow in new product development. The upside is so massive if it works out that I'm completely captured by it and struggling to focus on anything else. The thing I'm working on does not pay the bills yet, and we're not seeking investors because I know I'll fail at pitch-decking for various reasons. So I have to completely self-fund and work on it incrementally each day while I pay the bills doing new product development stuff (prototyping, etc) at my engineering firm. It's so captivating that I have to peel myself away or I risk complete financial ruin due to no billable time. Meanwhile, I know there are thousands of others probably working on the same idea in larger teams than mine. It's turning into the most financially risky, most mentally toxic thing I've ever attempted. If it fails to deploy, at least I'll have an in-house tool for greater productivity. Even if it does deploy, there will be scaling nightmares. Sill, I can't ignore it and wish I could just shut my creative brain off sometimes.

[@codingcrashcourses8533]

Good luck on that, any chance you share a prototype or go into detail? :)

[@micbab-vg2mu]

A hard truth about AI development: data quality is everything! In my experience, 80% of a generative AI project’s success depends on good data. I always create my own high-quality knowledge base-some things need a human touch. With my medical background and coding skills, I build AI projects for fun to learn and test and plan to monetize this hobby by 2026, once the tech is ready to scale. Even the best AI models are useless with poor data-it’s just fancy garbage. The real challenge for AI Engineers begins when messy client data shows up!

[@ajay0909]

I want to add one thing, getting a ML/AI engineer role is too difficult. The companies are looking for skills in ML, data science, data analyst and data engineering as well as operations. This is making it too difficult to land a job in ML

[@farhanafridi8694]

what do you think are the Actual Job responsibilities of a modern-age AI Engineer?

[@codingcrashcourses8533]

Well I am in a senior position and think besides the technical skills you have to understand the business field you work in. I talk a lot to non-technical people, architects, clients and I think of myself of the technical guy to talk to, if something is possible or not if it scales well etc. than being the "coder".