Getting a Job in AI: Career Opportunism and the Titles That Come With It

When I was first offered the title of Senior AI Specialist, I could picture the eye rolls. I firmly believe in "you do the job before you get the title" vibes, and I haven't done much related to AI (yet!). So why am I suddenly the specialist?

I remember it was the same when the market instituted titles like 'Growth Marketer', 'Product Marketer', 'Lifecycle Marketer'... Some of us were in the industry, doing a job (many as 'digital marketers'), and as the demand for these new titles grew, we adopted them.

At the start of Web 2.0 (and then mobile), many of today's job titles didn't exist; we made them up, defining the roles through our work and, in the process, shaping new and existing disciplines.

As technology advances, businesses demand new, more, faster—and someone, somewhere, steps up to meet that demand. New roles emerge, and some individuals step in to give them meaning.

I've seen this before; I've been here before. Here I am again.

I've only spent about 1,000 hours toiling with AI—initially for fun but most recently for work. So, I'm just getting started.

I was offered the job because I put an off-the-shelf LLM into a product. I accepted the title because I'm willing to figure out what being a good AI specialist should mean.

Like in the early days of mobile, when we had to read and write rules as we went along, I'm now part of the people doing the same with AI. It makes sense; I'm good at making something out of very little. I've been here before. I've done this before.

I want to elaborate on this more in the future. It is critical to enjoy what and how you are learning. Pushing through knowledge and skill gaps often requires stretching beyond your comfort zone.

Enjoying the learning—unlearning and relearning—process in and of itself will give you an advantage over people who aren't enjoying it. Play to your strengths, and align your learning efforts with your passion.

The AI Specialist title is an opportunity to define the role for myself and others who will follow. It's about approaching new problems, setting standards, creating best practices, and contributing to a field still in its infancy.

I'm making this role about figuring things out, understanding what AI can do for businesses today, and laying the groundwork for how we will use it tomorrow.

It's less about having the answers and more about asking new questions. It's not about knowing the rules but being willing to figure them out.

It's not even about finding solutions; it's about running towards the newest problems.

Thanks for reading.

I wrote this article using Grammarly, made the image for the article with Midjourney and created this website using v0.dev. I also used ChatGPT throughout the process. That's what this blog is all about.