🛠️How to Go from Software Engineer to AI Developer - What it means for YOU (Insider's View)🤖
Tags: beginners, python, ai, career
Published: 2024-03-09 14:20:26

I recently saw a lot of headlines that said Jensen Huang proclaims: 'Don't Teach Your Kids Programming.'  

As we are hurtling toward an AI-dominant technocratic world, that was really shocking so I dug in a little more. What Jensen Huang actually said was:

**"It is our job to create computing technology such that  NOBODY has to program."**

Let's unpack this because it is so easy to read only the headlines and panic without actually thinking about what this means for YOU, the software developer, for TODAY (because you need to work to buy food to eat TODAY). 



<img width="100%" style="width:100%" src="https://media.giphy.com/media/yoJC2K6rCzwNY2EngA/giphy.gif">


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##Software Development is a Completely Oversaturated Market##


I am the founder of an open source AI start-up called LLMWare. 
Every single day, without fail, I get at least 1 if not 3, emails or LinkedIn messages asking me if I need Software Developers. Name the region, price point, skill set. 

Starting as low as $5, in every country imaginable, I have been pitched some general software development service.

What have I not been pitched yet? Credible AI Developers. 

Don't get me wrong -- almost everyone says they are experts in AI. But when I have interviewed some of these "experts," it was clear to me that they truly didn't know much about AI at all. 

(By the way, prompt engineering does not make you an AI expert. Long prompts have already been discredited because they produce inconsistent results so please don't waste time with "AI agents" that rely on the longest prompts of life.)

But then I meet and talk to people everyday who want to build private Chatbots to incorporate into their companies to work with sensitive data. I hear all the time how clients can't find expert people to do real AI work. They are right - true AI experts are really hard to find.


<img width="100%" style="width:100%" src="https://media.giphy.com/media/e5RffKbpWzmuZEFPUM/giphy.gif">


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##There is a Huge Mismatch in Supply of Software vs. AI Developers##

So on the one hand, we have this mismatch of massive numbers of software developers who are looking for work (as is evidenced by the countless agencies who are driving down the price - supply and demand in action). Then on the other hand, I am talking to people who are asking for crazy amounts of money for even front-end developers IF they have some knowledge of AI!

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##You are Only a Hop, Skip and a Jump away from Changing Your Career##


And the craziest part of this from my perspective is that the journey from being a general Software Developer to an AI Developer is not that hard! It's not like you need to learn a special language or some other skill set. You just need PYTHON to get started!

Moreover, there are so many resources out there to help you get started for FREE! We ourselves have put out a series of 7 videos to really teach you Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) so that you can learn the fundamental steps in a no BS way. Here is the first of these 7 videos to get started:


{% youtube uW3fElxcri4 %} 


And an article in dev.to with more details: 

{% embed https://dev.to/llmware/become-a-rag-professional-in-2024-go-from-beginner-to-expert-41mg %}

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And as with all things in life, these tools are going to help you change the trajectory of your life if you put in the work. Or, you can watch helplessly as your teammates and colleagues leap out of the gates with all this AI knowledge.


##You are 100% Capable of Becoming an AI Developer##


Even more mind-blowing: If you are smart and dedicated enough to be currently making a living as a software developer, I guarantee that you are smart and dedicated enough to learn a few more skills to become an AI developer.

Does this mean that you are going to start making millions of dollars a year to train models for OpenAI? Nope. BUT, I promise you that if you get started and truly grapple with this, based on the fact that you already know how to code, you can start to pivot your career to something that is much more relevant and in demand (meaning more $$$) in the near future.

So back to Jensen Huang's recent quote. Do you want to be a part of the movement that makes it possible for people to interact with AI without coding? 

If YES, please get started. Ask questions. Experiment on your own time. Make the investment. 

I am seriously rooting for you. 

<img width="100%" style="width:100%" src="https://media.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExamZqMDN0NnpjODZyYWNqbndnY3htaHJmeWdkNTd1NTdsdXQ2dG9ldCZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/3oEduLl7trWHEWdO5a/giphy.gif">

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