

#92 - Rise of the AI Engineer with Shawn Wang
Dec 6, 2023
Shawn Wang, the coined term 'AI Engineer,' talks about the evolution of software development, the rise of AI engineers, AGI, and his 'smol-developer' project that facilitates quick project bootstrapping using prompt engineering.
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Defining the AI Engineer Role
- AI Engineers specialize in building applications integrating foundation models rather than training the models themselves.
- This role emerges as a unique software engineering specialization dealing with the new AI API stack and product integration.
OpenAI Offers Basic AI Tools
- OpenAI's new tooling provides simple base functionality for AI app building but lacks sophistication and customization.
- More advanced users will require specialized AI engineering stacks and vendors to meet complex application needs.
AI Makes Coding Easier to Learn
- Learning to code has become easier with AI assistance as you can get help immediately instead of searching outdated resources.
- AI engineering shares most skills with traditional software engineering but requires learning a new fast-evolving stack.