Prompt Engineering: Why Your Tech Career Shouldn’t Rest on Vibes and Creative Writing

The No-BS Guide to Building ML Skills That Actually Matter: A Journey Beyond Prompt Engineering Hype

This meme made me laugh, but it also got me thinking about something serious we need to discuss in the AI/ML community.

Here’s the thing — prompt engineering is hot right now. Companies are throwing six-figure salaries at prompt engineers, and everyone’s jumping on the bandwagon. But let’s take a step back and think about this critically.

The Current Gold Rush

Remember those fascinating stories about the California Gold Rush, where countless hopeful prospectors rushed west with dreams of striking it rich? Well, history has a peculiar way of rhyming, and right now, we’re witnessing something remarkably similar in the tech industry — except instead of gold pans and pickaxes, people are armed with GPT tokens and chain-of-thought prompts.

This is easily similar to the early days of mobile app boom? When everyone and their grandmother was learning Swift because “apps are the future”? We’re seeing:

• Job postings with wildly inflated salaries
• Boot camps promising to make you a…