[WORKING] AI is changing software development faster than ever before. It's fluctuating the tech job market just as quickly.

• AI is opening new career tracks for software developers who want to shift to different roles.
• Developers at an AI roundtable said that the tech job market is fluctuating rapidly with gen AI.
• This article is part of "CXO AI Playbook" — straight talk from business leaders on how they're testing and using AI.

A few years ago, Kesha Williams was prepared to step away from her tech career — but then the AI boom brought her back.

"I've been in tech for 30 years, and before gen AI, I was ready to retire," she said. "I think I'll stay around just to see where this goes." Williams is the head of enterprise architecture and engineering at Slalom.

Williams and six other developers from companies including Amazon, Meta, Anaconda, and more joined Business Insider's virtual roundtable in November to discuss how AI is changing the software development landscape.

While hiring and recruitment in many tech jobs are dropping with the increased adoption of AI coding tools, developers say AI is also opening new career opportunities.

Rise of the AI engineer

Panelists said that the emergence of jobs focused on building AI models and features is a recent development in the industry.

"One of the biggest things I've noticed in the last two to three years is the rise of a job title called 'AI engineer,' which did not exist before, and it's kind of in between a machine-learning engineer and a traditional software engineer," Shruti Kapoor, a lead member of technical staff at Slack, said. "I'm starting to see more and more companies where 'AI engineer' is one of the top-paying jobs available for software engineers."

Salary trends from Levels.fyi, an online platform that allows tech workers to compare their compensation packages, found that in the past two years, entry-level AI engineers can earn 8% more than their non-AI engineer counterparts, and senior engineers can earn nearly 11% more.

Neeraj Verma, the head of applied AI at Nice, said at the roundtable that AI has enabled software engineers at his company to transition internally to AI roles. He said that over 20% of the developers at Nice have moved to AI-related positions in the past two years, with about 100 of those individuals considered experts in prompt engineering.

Verma said the company's developers are not just being supported by AI; they are actively involved in using the technology to build other AI features.

He added that many senior-level developers with strong coding abilities at the company have shown interest in moving to AI to apply their skill sets in new ways. Nice created training programs to help these employees learn the technology and make internal career shifts.

AI-specialized jobs encompass machine-learning engineers, prompt engineers, and AI researchers, among other roles. Although the skills that would be useful for each of these jobs can differ, Kapoor said that an AI engineering role does not necessarily require a specific tech background. Workers with prior experience in sectors like accounting and product management, for instance, have been able to pivot into the AI space.

Adapting to change

Just as AI is changing the software development process, developers say that the professional opportunities in AI could also be in constant flux.

"Software development will change in five years much more rapidly than anything we've seen before," Igor Ostrovsky, the cofounder of Augment, said at the roundtable. "How you architect, develop, test, and maintain software — that will all change, and how exactly you interact with AI will also evolve."

Researchers are already questioning the long-term potential of prompt engineering jobs, which skyrocketed in demand in 2023. They say that generative AI models could soon be trained to optimize their own prompts.

"I think prompt engineering is more of a sign that some developers have the desire to learn and are eager to figure out how to interact with artificial intelligence, but it won't necessarily be how you interact with AI in three years or five years," Ostrovsky said.

The pace of technological development means that software developers' ability to learn, adapt, and solve problems creatively will be more important than ever to stay ahead of the curve.