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Is it possible to jump into this with a background as a senior dev or is it too late? I don't know where to get started, would you just look like a junior or en

Is it possible to jump into this with a background as a senior dev or is it too late? I don't know where to get started, would you just look like a junior or entry level candidate by doing that?

lifestyleguru 12d ago
There are no jobs. For at least two years now most IT/AI hiring ads are fake.
- ihuman 12d ago
  Do you have a source for that? That's a big accusation
- irl_zebra 12d ago
  I have multiple Senior AI Engineer roles posted (really, senior / staff SWE who has reps and sets using AI for development, perhaps working with AI infra) right now. Right now it's a lot of getting Claude working well, model routing working well, and getting us off of commercial LLMs. Trying desperately to hire, but get a lot of "AI-pilled" non-developers in the same way I would open SWE roles ten years ago and get constant "Software Bootcamp" grads. These roles exist, in my anecdotal experience of having multiple of these roles open on my team lol. Perhaps this is just 1/100 ads, or 1/1000.
  - lifestyleguru 12d ago
    ...and the job of the hires will be figuring out where AI can be used?
  - luke5441 12d ago
    Sounds more like an ops position to me and less software engineer.
  - tetraodonpuffer 12d ago
    how do you interview for those? I think interviewing has not kept up with how things are, leetcode rounds seem to make even less sense nowadays and feel even more of a hazing ritual. Personally seeing an "AI engineer" job posting I would not even apply, despite having many years experience in general, and experimenting/running models on my own hardware and being responsible at work for several skills, mcp and so on, it just feels that that kind of job is looking for some ex-openai/anthropic/ai-lab kind of skillset, which is not something a lot of people have; if this is what you are looking for of course it is what it is. I think these days being "AI conversant" should be expected for senior/staff positions, it can also be listed a requirement, but not sure putting it as a job title, it feels more like having "IDE staff software engineer" which is not something anybody outside of jetbrains/vs.code would do.
  - logicallee 12d ago
    >getting us off of commercial LLM sounds fun, I had fun fine-tuning some open weights models for local use, and I run a free public inference engine here: https://stateofutopia.com/services/ai/ https://stateofutopia.com/services/ai/ it's fun. where are you planning to run your models?
cityoften 12d ago
Maybe - as with most ultra competitive industries you either know someone or have some extremely niche yet hyper productive knowledge others don’t have.
throwaway20222 12d ago
We hire “AI engineers,” and honestly the expectation most of the time is that they can demonstrate an actual interest and real work in or with AI. Mind you, we are not a frontier lab, but AI gaming company, and someone with senior dev knowledge is hugely valuable to the team if they actually have rolled up their sleeves and built with AI and push to improve our operations with AI. There isn’t an academic signal that would tell us you are really AI forward, and so much of the engineering job is super charged by having a real dev background for us. I can’t say if this will change of course, and I only speak for a small gaming startup.
- jdlshore 12d ago
  Given the backlash amongst gamers against AI, how does being an “AI gaming” company work?
  - rideontime 12d ago
    It only works if one measures their success in Twitter likes.
  - Founderarcstone 12d ago
    I look forward to this and the new technology that advances for Ai gaming.
  - ramesh31 12d ago
    >Given the backlash amongst gamers against AI, how does being an “AI gaming” company work? They are delusional or know nothing about how development works. I can promise you there's not a single major game studio left out there not leveraging AI in significant parts of their workflows at this point.
- lolakutty 12d ago
  Building with AI does not interest me. Someone please tell me where the fun in that is?
  - 12d ago
peezd 12d ago
Absolutely; I'd check out AI Engineering by Chip Huyen to get a fundamental understanding of the space and do a couple of side projects in the area to get familiar and be able to speak to the nuances of working with LLMs, and that will be enough to start working to transition and apply for relevant roles.
vanuatu 12d ago
I did by applying most eng roles at frontier companies don't require prior experience specifically with AI, there's a ton of regular engineering work required to train / serve models
ramesh31 12d ago
>Is it possible to jump into this with a background as a senior dev or is it too late? This stuff has only existed for 3 years. Everyone is faking it and no one really knows what's right or wrong yet. You're more than qualified.
dgellow 12d ago
It’s for sure not too late, why would it be? The industry is young and evolving. It’s not even clear what an AI job is exactly, the definition and job titles have been changing a lot

Is it possible to jump into this with a background as a senior dev or is it too late? I don't know where to get started, would you just look like a junior or entry level candidate by doing that?

lifestyleguru 12d ago

There are no jobs. For at least two years now most IT/AI hiring ads are fake.

ihuman 12d ago
Do you have a source for that? That's a big accusation
irl_zebra 12d ago
I have multiple Senior AI Engineer roles posted (really, senior / staff SWE who has reps and sets using AI for development, perhaps working with AI infra) right now. Right now it's a lot of getting Claude working well, model routing working well, and getting us off of commercial LLMs. Trying desperately to hire, but get a lot of "AI-pilled" non-developers in the same way I would open SWE roles ten years ago and get constant "Software Bootcamp" grads. These roles exist, in my anecdotal experience of having multiple of these roles open on my team lol. Perhaps this is just 1/100 ads, or 1/1000.
- lifestyleguru 12d ago
  ...and the job of the hires will be figuring out where AI can be used?
- luke5441 12d ago
  Sounds more like an ops position to me and less software engineer.
- tetraodonpuffer 12d ago
  how do you interview for those? I think interviewing has not kept up with how things are, leetcode rounds seem to make even less sense nowadays and feel even more of a hazing ritual. Personally seeing an "AI engineer" job posting I would not even apply, despite having many years experience in general, and experimenting/running models on my own hardware and being responsible at work for several skills, mcp and so on, it just feels that that kind of job is looking for some ex-openai/anthropic/ai-lab kind of skillset, which is not something a lot of people have; if this is what you are looking for of course it is what it is. I think these days being "AI conversant" should be expected for senior/staff positions, it can also be listed a requirement, but not sure putting it as a job title, it feels more like having "IDE staff software engineer" which is not something anybody outside of jetbrains/vs.code would do.
- logicallee 12d ago
  >getting us off of commercial LLM sounds fun, I had fun fine-tuning some open weights models for local use, and I run a free public inference engine here: https://stateofutopia.com/services/ai/ https://stateofutopia.com/services/ai/ it's fun. where are you planning to run your models?

cityoften 12d ago

Maybe - as with most ultra competitive industries you either know someone or have some extremely niche yet hyper productive knowledge others don’t have.

throwaway20222 12d ago

We hire “AI engineers,” and honestly the expectation most of the time is that they can demonstrate an actual interest and real work in or with AI. Mind you, we are not a frontier lab, but AI gaming company, and someone with senior dev knowledge is hugely valuable to the team if they actually have rolled up their sleeves and built with AI and push to improve our operations with AI. There isn’t an academic signal that would tell us you are really AI forward, and so much of the engineering job is super charged by having a real dev background for us. I can’t say if this will change of course, and I only speak for a small gaming startup.

jdlshore 12d ago
Given the backlash amongst gamers against AI, how does being an “AI gaming” company work?
- rideontime 12d ago
  It only works if one measures their success in Twitter likes.
- Founderarcstone 12d ago
  I look forward to this and the new technology that advances for Ai gaming.
- ramesh31 12d ago
  >Given the backlash amongst gamers against AI, how does being an “AI gaming” company work? They are delusional or know nothing about how development works. I can promise you there's not a single major game studio left out there not leveraging AI in significant parts of their workflows at this point.
lolakutty 12d ago
Building with AI does not interest me. Someone please tell me where the fun in that is?
- 12d ago

peezd 12d ago

Absolutely; I'd check out AI Engineering by Chip Huyen to get a fundamental understanding of the space and do a couple of side projects in the area to get familiar and be able to speak to the nuances of working with LLMs, and that will be enough to start working to transition and apply for relevant roles.

vanuatu 12d ago

I did by applying most eng roles at frontier companies don't require prior experience specifically with AI, there's a ton of regular engineering work required to train / serve models

ramesh31 12d ago

>Is it possible to jump into this with a background as a senior dev or is it too late? This stuff has only existed for 3 years. Everyone is faking it and no one really knows what's right or wrong yet. You're more than qualified.

dgellow 12d ago

It’s for sure not too late, why would it be? The industry is young and evolving. It’s not even clear what an AI job is exactly, the definition and job titles have been changing a lot