AI Engineer Shortage Impact

Companies are writing one job ad for three different jobs and calling it an AI data engineer.

I read a lot of these, because clients ask me to sanity-check the ad before it goes up.

The pattern lately: one role, and the requirements want a data engineer, an ML engineer, and somebody who can hold an architecture conversation with the CTO. All of that sits under one salary band.

The ad often just stays open. When somebody does accept it, they cover their strongest area and the rest stays vague, so six months in nobody has decided how the platform should be shaped and nobody is accountable for the model that got half-built.

Split the ad instead. Hire the engineer, because that’s the role you can actually fill this quarter. Buy the architecture direction part-time, since it’s a decision-making load rather than a full week of work.

The dedicated ML hire can wait until there’s enough model work to justify a full-time role. Give the experiments a named owner in the meantime. People push back on that one, usually because a board deck already promised it.

How many jobs are in your current data job ad?