The 18-month Career Is Here

By Katie Parrott / Working Overtime

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Length7m

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Was this newsletter forwarded to you?Sign upto get it in your inbox.If anyone is a prompt engineer,Michael Tayloris. He wrote anessential bookon it. He writesan Every columnabout it. He's buildingAsk Rally, an AI startup that creates synthetic market research by modeling your target audiences—and he says prompt engineering is “most of the work.”He also thinks he has about five years before the job disappears.If the headlines are to be believed, five years may be too generous. Less than two years ago, theWall Street Journalwrote aboutprompt engineering rolespaying up to $200,000. By this spring, the same publication declared the job"already obsolete."This is the whiplash of careers in the AI economy: entire disciplines rising and falling and getting folded into the knowledge worker skill stack faster than you can update your LinkedIn profile. Speaking as someone who recentlyswan-dived into a new jobas an "AI operations lead," I'd be lying if I said it doesn't freak me out. If it's prompt engineering today, will it be AI operations tomorrow?The answer is: Maybe. And I’m learning to be OK with that. The path started crumbling long before AI—think pandemic pivots, the freelance boom, the rise ofportfolio careers. What AI does is accelerate the shift so dramatically that ignoring it becomes impossible. And when the ground moves this fast, moving with it might be where the opportunity is.The brief, wondrous life of a bridge jobMike's five-year plan makes more sense when you understand what prompt engineering really is: a bridge job...Become apaid subscriber to Everyto unlock this piece and learn about:The accelerating obsolescence of bridge jobsThree principles for navigating new career pathsHow skills don't die, but become baseline knowledgeUpgrade to paidClick hereto read the full postWant the full text of all articles in RSS?Become a subscriber, orlearn more.

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