Good lord, AI engineers get paid a median salary of $243,500, while non-AI engineers only get paid a median of $166,750, how can it be so much more? Is it because AI jobs are more concentrated in big tech?
The knowledge is harder to come by, and the field is (relatively) new. You need a fusion of data engineering, math, software engineering, and data analysis. Plus the ability to read and implement esoteric papers hot off the press, or in some cases innovate a new technique/module/architecture that hasn't been done before.
Oh, and you need to be able to do all the above _quickly_.
What's nice about it versus SWE is that you can totally ship hot garbage, doesn't have to be optimal at all, just "fast enough" and cheap enough.
