What Is an AI Engineer?

The role of an AI engineer is distinct from traditional software engineers or data scientists, as it focuses on productizing AI advances and making them consumable through REST APIs. Key characteristics of an AI engineer include being well-versed in heterogeneous development environments, having a product-centric mindset, and thinking in terms of APIs. Prompt engineering has become part of this API mindset, with AI engineers needing to be aware of the specifics of prompt engineering per LLM. The role of the AI engineer is becoming increasingly important as it helps bridge the gap between AI/ML research, data engineering, data science and practical business applications.