‘AI is already eating its own’: Prompt engineering is quickly going extinct

Just two years ago, prompt engineering was hailed as a hot new job in tech. Now, it has all but disappeared.

At the beginning of the corporate AI boom, some companies sought out large language model (LLM) translators—prompt engineers who specialized in crafting the most effective questions to ask internal AIs, ensuring optimal and efficient outputs. Today, strong AI prompting is simply an expected skill, not a stand-alone role. Some companies are even using AI to generate the best prompts for their own AI systems.

The decline of prompt engineering serves as a cautionary tale for the AI job market. The flashy, niche roles that emerged with ChatGPT’s rise may prove to be short-lived. While AI is reshaping roles across industries, it may not be creating entirely new ones.

“AI is already eating its own,” says Malcolm Frank, CEO of TalentGenius. “Prompt engineering has become something that’s embedded in almost every role, and people know how to do it. Also, now AI can help you write the perfect prompts that you need. It’s turned from a job into a task very, very quickly.”

AI jobs are just jobs now

Part of the prompt engineer’s appeal was its low barrier to entry. The role required little technical expertise, making it an accessible path for those eager to join a booming market. But because the position was so generalized, it was also easily replaced.

Frank compares prompt engineering to roles like “Excel wizard” and “PowerPoint expert”—all valuable skills, but not ones companies typically hire for individually. And prompt engineers may not be the only roles fading away. Frank envisions a world where AI agents—already taking shape—replace many lower-level tasks. “It’s almost like Pac-Man just moving along and eating different tasks and different skills,” he says.

AI has the potential to displace thousands of workers. Its advocates have long argued that it will create as many jobs as it destroys. Prompt engineering once seemed to support that claim—a brand-new job title born from AI. But that optimism may be misplaced. Rather than inventing entirely new roles, AI is largely reshaping existing ones.

Tim Tully wasn’t surprised to see prompt engineering decline. As a partner at venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, he’s witnessed the AI boom firsthand, especially through the firm’s investment in Anthropic. He also works closely with software developers—a profession already transformed by tools like Cursor. His view is clear: The real impact of AI lies not in boutique job creation, but in widespread productivity gains.

“I wouldn’t say that [there are] new jobs, necessarily; it’s more so that it’s changing how people work,” Tully says. “You’re using AI all the time now, whether you like it or not, and it’s accelerating what you do.” 

Did prompt engineers ever exist?

It remains unclear whether companies were ever truly hiring for individually titled prompt engineers. They certainly aren’t now, says Allison Shrivastava, an economist with the Indeed Hiring Lab.

“It looks to me like prompt engineering is more being combined with, say, a machine learning engineering title or an automation architect title,” Shrivastava tells Fast Company. “It’s probably a part of more job titles, but I’m not necessarily seeing it as a job title in and of itself.” 

But that’s always been the case—even in 2023, when LinkedIn was filled with self-described prompt engineers. Asked whether there was any change over time in the number of prompt engineer job postings, Shrivastava notes that it was never a large enough title to track mathematically.

Which raises a larger question: Did prompt engineering roles ever truly exist?

All experts interviewed for this piece were skeptical. The market itself was real enough: The North American prompt engineering market was valued at $75.5 million in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 32.8%. But whether that translated into formally titled roles is another matter.

“I think the discussion online of [prompt engineering] was probably much bigger than the head count,” says Aline Lerner, CEO of Interviewing.io. “It was such an appealing thing, precisely because it was this on-ramp for nontechnical people into this sexy, lucrative field.” 

Where are the AI jobs, then?

Lerner has observed a clear trend. While Interviewing.io has never offered mock interviews specifically for prompt engineering, it has offered them for machine learning engineering. The distinction is important: Prompt engineers focus on crafting questions for LLMs, while machine learning engineers build the models themselves. And while demand for the former has declined, demand for the latter is surging.

“Demand for mock interviews for machine learning engineers was flat for a while, and then in the last two months, it has hockey-sticked up and grown more than three times,” Lerner says. “The future is working on the LLM itself and continuing to make it better and better, rather than needing somebody to interpret it.”

Those easy-access AI jobs may no longer exist. Machine learning engineering roles demand deep technical expertise—skills that take years to develop, unlike the relatively shallow learning curve for prompt engineering. Even basic coding skills are no longer sufficient. Indeed’s Shrivastava notes that while demand for developers is declining, engineering roles more broadly are on the rise.

For those without a coding background, becoming a founder is often the most lucrative—though risky—route. Management consulting has also seen a boom. As of February, consulting roles made up 12.4% of AI job titles on Indeed.

“As time goes on, we might see [AI] in more variety of sectors overall,” Shrivastava says. “They need someone tasked with really implementing that technology into that company.”

View the full article