4 people who pivoted into AI jobs — and how they did it

• AI has become a hiring buzzword, and four employees explained how they added it to their job titles.
• An AI engineer said showcasing side projects was pivotal to transitioning from software engineering.
• Two non-technical Microsoft employees said having a humanities background was a strength.

AI is the buzziest word on the job market — and many workers want to know how to pivot into it.

As many technical workers upskill to stay on the cutting edge, others are moving into AI-focused roles from entirely different industries.

Many companies are pouring an eye-watering amount of money into AI, cutting some roles while adding new positions tied to the technology.

Against that backdrop, moving into AI could be a way for workers to future-proof their careers as the employment market reshuffles. AI engineers, consultants, strategists, and researchers rank among the top five fastest-growing roles in the US, according to LinkedIn's Jobs On the Rise 2026 report.

There's no single path into AI, and Business Insider spoke with four workers who took very different ones. Read on to learn how they pivoted their careers.

Natasha Crampton, Microsoft chief responsible AI officer

Natasha Crampton got her start as an attorney and is now Microsoft's first chief responsible AI officer.

Her job includes working side-by-side with engineering, sales, and research teams to ensure they uphold principles as they build AI systems. It also includes external work, such as helping establish new laws and standards in the space,

Crampton studied information systems in addition to law, and said she always had an interest in the intersection of technology, law, and society. During the strictly legal phase of her career, she said she always worked on technological issues, such as helping Microsoft draft contracts.

She said people looking to move into tech from other fields should start by using the technology themselves. She added that many technical skills are learnable, so coming from a different background shouldn't limit someone's ability to help shape it. She said, "a huge amount of the value" lies at the intersection of technical knowledge and insights from the social sciences.

Georgian Tutuianu, Hubspot AI engineer

Georgian Tutuianu has had several transitions in engineering, from structural to traditional to software to AI at HubSpot.

Tutuianu said that his ability to get technically in the weeds was an asset during the interview process, and showed he had experience with AI.

He also highlighted that his résumé has a section dedicated to personal projects. Tutuianu said he included one AI project, but it was enough. He said it came up naturally in the interview because he was asked about a time he used or built an AI agent.

"It was a juicy project where I could talk about it, and that was good enough," Tutuianu said.

Tutuianu said he also had to do a take-home coding assignment and review it with the hiring manager afterward, but there was no algorithmic component to the interview.

"Instead of the typical software engineering way that these interviews go, which is 'go solve this algorithm in front of me,'" Tutuianu said. "It's more of 'can you build the things that we care about? Show me."

Jai Raj Choudhary, StackAI engineer

Jai Raj Choudhary transitioned from a data-focused role to an AI engineer at AI agent startup StackAI.

The 24-year-old said he got his job by reaching out to StackAI's cofounder multiple times on LinkedIn. Choudhary said he had used the company's platform as a student, so he messaged the cofounder and started posting about StackAI, offering advice to the company.

He said he thinks he got offers from StackAI was because he understood data quality, the edge cases for the clients, the matrix, and the failure modes of the AI model or any LLM systems that were being used.

He said moving to San Francisco, where 9-9-6 culture existed, helped open his opportunities in the space.

"It's not like a 9-to-5 cushy job," Choudhary said. "We work 9-to-9, six days a week. You wake up, you think about the problem that a client had, and you sleep thinking about what is not fixed yet."

Also, taking a job at a startup that helped him grow and devoting himself to continuous learning made a big difference. Choudhary said he spent hours studying every day.

Brit Morenus, Microsoft senior AI gamification program manager

Brit Morenus, a 37-year-old senior AI gamification program manager, studied English, communications, and marketing in college. She started at Microsoft about 13 years ago as an executive assistant, and for the first five and a half years at the company, she was a contract worker.

She later moved into a role focused on gamification — using game mechanics to teach and market Microsoft's products.

She spent about a year getting certifications that taught her about game mechanics, and in that position, she became a full-time employee. Six years later, she had the opportunity to start gamifying learning about AI, and spent three months learning about it.

Her advice to others who want to transition is to resist letting fear keep you from stepping outside your comfort zone. She also said that with AI roles, you need to learn how it works, not just use it. Morenus added that she doesn't regret her English degree because it's now more important than ever to understand how to apply the English language to AI.

"A lot of it is more English language than it even is AI," Morenus said.

Did you pivot into an AI role? We want to hear from you. Contact the reporter via email at aaltchek@insider.com, or via secure-messaging platform Signal at aalt.19.