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It’s an especially ruthless time to be a tech pro looking for a job. The industry, once considered a beacon of the future and a certainty for high pay, has been hamstrung by hundreds of thousands of layoffs over the past year—over 215,000 in 2023 alone. The picture hasn’t been so grim since the dot-com era.
But there’s one way tech workers can have a leg up on their competition when landing their next gig: By focusing on what Roger Lee, veteran startup founder who tracks tech layoffs on Layoffs.fyi., calls the “A.I. premium.” While some people have pointed fingers at the increased impact of artificial intelligence—which many skeptics have said will replace human jobs entirely—as one of the many factors behind tech layoffs, the rise of A.I. is also minting new tech jobs and opportunities. Workers with A.I. know-how might just be the ones replacing old jobs rather than A.I. itself—and they’ll be pretty well paid for it.
Consider that a software engineer who specializes in A.I. or machine learning can expect a 12% higher salary than an engineer who doesn’t, Lee said in an interview with CNN last week, referencing data from his software company Comprehensive.io, which gathers information from job posts and compensation details at 3,000 tech firms. Comprehensive’s data showed that the average salary for A.I.-specializing engineers has grown 4% since the start of 2023 alone—salary rates for senior software engineers without an A.I. focus haven’t budged.
New roles, such as a “prompt engineer” who helps implement ChatGPT-like tools, can fetch eye-popping salaries upwards of $300,000. That’s just today; as the tech gets more advanced, those skilled in it could stand to make even more. And the scope of A.I. jobs extend beyond tech— industries like health care, finance, and law will be on the prowl for these workers.
Even if Silicon Valley juggernauts are laying people off left and right, workers with a firm grasp of A.I. remain in high demand across sectors. LinkedIn data showed that, as of March, U.S. job postings that mention ChatGPT have grown 79% year-over-year, and many of those postings come with huge salaries and don’t require much in the way of experience.
But many workers are still on the A.I. learning curve, evident of America’s vast skills gap between what companies need and what most workers are currently apt to deliver. A.I. and big data are among the top skills that the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Future of Jobs report predicts will grow over the next five years. All the more reason any worker looking to stay afloat in tech should get the hang of A.I. now, before it becomes more and more advanced.
A.I. knowledge is a major plus now, but could be a must-have soon
For workers who hope to one day be leaders themselves, “you need to force yourself” to master A.I., Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, told Fortune in May. “If you’re an older person, and you don’t really have experience, get some of the young guys to help you.”
That should be good news to Gen Z, who are likelier than their older counterparts to be a bit better appointed when it comes to new tech. Indeed, Tangen said the new iterations of A.I. have “turned the value of seniority upside down a bit—it’s really unbelievably powerful.”
But the learning curve is not as intense as it seems. Inside-out knowledge of the whole breadth of today’s A.I. isn’t necessary, Dan Wang, a Columbia Business School professor, told CNN, but workers should be well aware of the kinds of implementations that are relevant in their field and could make them more productive in their jobs. “That’s where the kind of a battleground for talent is really shifting,” Wang said. “Talent [differentiation] comes from creative and effective ways to integrate A.I. into daily tasks.”
That makes upskilling and reskilling top priorities for any company trying to remain agile—and avoid layoffs, even if their workers don’t currently have a firm grasp on the latest tech.
“In many ways, technology and A.I. are moving faster than real life,” Andy Bird, CEO of Pearson, the world’s largest education company, told Fortune in May. “We’re struggling to catch up, and the impact that has on us both as individuals and as companies is the need to continually re-skill and upskill.”
