Prompt engineering jobs in finance: an overhyped niche?

Last year, there were many signs that 'prompt engineering' as a job title would become a new norm. Top financial firms were paying salaries of over $300k for them, but as AI has become more and more intuitive, the need for companies to hire prompt engineers is diminishing.

Deepali Vyas, head of AI and data science for recruitment firm Kornferry, says she's "mixed" on the subject. Prompt engineers were previously "front and center to ensure people actually knew how to use GPTs in general." These days, people are much more educated on the subject.

Vyas says she expects big firms to maybe "hire one or two prompt engineers" but doesn't expect it to become a function in its own right like software engineering. Hiring in investment banks reflects that. 

Sreekanth Kopi, for example, joined Morgan Stanley this week as a prompt engineer. Only one other person at the bank, Brandon Sobel, has the job title, but he joined on a contract basis last month.

JPMorgan has no employees with a prompt engineering title, but five job openings mention the skill. One machine learning engineering lead in London requires experience with prompt engineering, while an India based applied AI lead position says prompt engineering, and "the development of prompt based models" are the role's key focus. A machine learning VP role in New Jersey paying up to $260k requires a portfolio that includes "examples of utilizing OpenAI APIs for prompt engineering."

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citi each have no employees with a prompt engineer title, nor job openings that mention prompt engineering. 

This may be because prompt engineering jobs these days are, essentially, data science jobs. Vyas says "most data scientists in AI will have prompt engineering as part of their skillset." Gopi's last three roles prior to joining Morgan Stanley were all data science positions. 

Prompt engineering roles do still seem to have a place at AI startups and scale-ups. ScaleAI, which raised $1bn at a $14bn valuation in May, employs around 140 prompt engineers. OpenAI employs around 45. However, these roles are likely much more focused around the training of the models themselves rather than their application.

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