Reply to: State of the Market

[sadkingbilly]

Speaking to agent later about an outside gig...... wish me luck peeps. If this happens I can wave bye bye to appraisals again.

luck peeps

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Speaking to agent later about an outside gig...... wish me luck peeps. If this happens I can wave bye bye to appraisals again.

[rocktronAMP]

"""
AI Prompt Engineer, Technically Sharp & Systems-Minded You'll design and optimize prompts, architect LLM-powered systems and deploy scalable GenAI workflows that connect people and intelligent systems in new, high-impact ways. THE ROLE Prompting & Reasoning Systems Design, test and optimize prompts for leading frontier models (GPT-4/5, Claude 3.x, Gemini 2.x, Mistral Large, LLaMA 3, Cohere Command R+, DeepSeek). Apply advanced prompting strategies: Chain-of-Thought, ReAct, Tree-of-Thoughts, Graph-of-Thoughts, Program-of-Thoughts, self-reflection loops, debate prompting and multi-agent orchestration (AutoGen/CrewAI). Build agentic workflows with ..
"""

Don't know if I've ever seen a longer list of technical skills on a job ad.

The contract rate for this job in the USD 454,545 per day as in https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuc...t-300-million/

[sadkingbilly]

I used to own an Austin Maestro so I might see if my experience will be of use with the new Ajax vehicle.

[TheDude]

I am getting more approaches from recruiters and am seeing more positions on job boards.

The bad news is contract rates are at an all time low and I am considering perm roles.

I am 53 and waiting (hoping) for rates to increase is probably a big risk so I am considering perm roles.

The good news is that the perm roles for which I have interviews are at salaries which match some of my best contract rates although I suspect there will be a lot of competition.

[TheDude]

There is quite a lot of defense spending going on right now so if you can get security clearance you might actually have a better chance than most since those kind of projects often involve more than just software.

I used to own an Austin Maestro so I might see if my experience will be of use with the new Ajax vehicle.

[willendure]

This is not a real job unless the company is run by a bunch of clowns. Almost certainly a recruiter on a fishing expedition

You might be right. I was thinking the "non-technicals" had no clue what is needed so asked a developer top make a list of skills needed, and some complete geek just dumped this massive list of everything they have tried. Also can't see a recruiter knowing enough about AI to even come up with this list.

I can sort of believe it because AI tech stacks are very fragmented currently, its still an experimental and fast moving area and people just cobble together whatever they think is going to work.

I'm tempted to list ALL of those skills on my CV and then apply!

[fargaman]

"""
AI Prompt Engineer, Technically Sharp & Systems-Minded .....

Don't know if I've ever seen a longer list of technical skills on a job ad.

This is not a real job unless the company is run by a bunch of clowns. Almost certainly a recruiter on a fishing expedition

[willendure]

"""
AI Prompt Engineer, Technically Sharp & Systems-Minded You'll design and optimize prompts, architect LLM-powered systems and deploy scalable GenAI workflows that connect people and intelligent systems in new, high-impact ways. THE ROLE Prompting & Reasoning Systems Design, test and optimize prompts for leading frontier models (GPT-4/5, Claude 3.x, Gemini 2.x, Mistral Large, LLaMA 3, Cohere Command R+, DeepSeek). Apply advanced prompting strategies: Chain-of-Thought, ReAct, Tree-of-Thoughts, Graph-of-Thoughts, Program-of-Thoughts, self-reflection loops, debate prompting and multi-agent orchestration (AutoGen/CrewAI). Build agentic workflows with tool calling, memory systems, retrieval pipelines and structured reasoning. GenAI Application Engineering Integrate LLMs into applications using LangChain, LlamaIndex, Haystack, AutoGen and OpenAI's Assistant API patterns. Build high-performance RAG pipelines using: hybrid search, reranking, embedding optimization, chunking strategies and evaluation harnesses. Develop APIs, microservices and serverless workflows for scalable deployment. ML/LLM Engineering Work with AI+ML pipelines through Azure ML, AWS SageMaker, Vertex AI, Databricks, or Modal/Fly.io for lightweight LLM deployment. Utilize vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, Milvus, ChromaDB, pgVector) and embedding stores. Use AI-powered dev tools (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Codeium, Aider, Windsurf) to accelerate iteration. Implement LLMOps/PromptOps using: Weights & Biases, MLflow, LangSmith, LangFuse, PromptLayer, Humanloop, Helicone, Arize Phoenix Benchmark and evaluate LLM systems using Ragas, DeepEval and structured evaluation suites. Deployment & Infrastructure Containerize and deploy workloads with Docker, Kubernetes, KNative and managed inference endpoints. Optimize model performance with quantization, distillation, caching, batching and routing strategies. EXPERIENCE Strong Python skills, with experience using Transformers, LangChain, LlamaIndex and the broader GenAI ecosystem. Deep understanding of LLM behavior, prompt optimization, embeddings, retrieval and data preparation workflows. Experience with vector DBs (FAISS, Pinecone, Milvus, Weaviate, ChromaDB). Hands-on knowledge of Linux, Bash/Powershell, containers and cloud environments. Strong communication skills, creativity and a systems-thinking mindset. Curiosity, adaptability and a drive to stay ahead of rapid advancements in GenAI. BENEFICIAL Experience with PromptOps & LLM Observability tools (PromptLayer, LangFuse, Humanloop, Helicone, LangSmith). Understanding of Responsible AI, model safety, bias mitigation, evaluation frameworks and governance. Background in Computer Science, AI/ML, Engineering, or related fields. Experience deploying or fine-tuning open-source LLMs. TECH STACK LLMs: GPT-4/5, Claude 3.x, Gemini 2.x, Mistral Large, LLaMA 3, Cohere Command R+, DeepSeek Frameworks: LangChain, LlamaIndex, Haystack, AutoGen, CrewAI Tools: GitHub Copilot, Cursor, LangSmith, LangFuse,
"""

Don't know if I've ever seen a longer list of technical skills on a job ad.

[willendure]

Does anyone on this thread do "Embedded Software", Firmware, Electronics or the like? how is the market, relatively?

There is quite a lot of defense spending going on right now so if you can get security clearance you might actually have a better chance than most since those kind of projects often involve more than just software.

[Dorkeaux]

I've been voluntarily benched for a couple of years. Before that I was picking up ad-hoc work from previous clients. 10-15 yrs ago I was getting on average a call per day. Ignoring these not updating my CV for so long the phone has slowly gone silent (except for the damn spam!).

Does anyone on this thread do "Embedded Software", Firmware, Electronics or the like? how is the market, relatively?

Which are the best sites for contract searches and/or upload CV to get back on the radar?

Tbh, I'm dreading interviews again and this probably has a lot to do with it.

My cousin contracts in this market, but in Ottawa.
Fascinating work, but very insular as far as I understand.
He's never out of work, but there are only a few dozen that do it in that market. Mainly the defense industry.
They get their work through word of mouth.

Avonleigh listed the job boards, but calling up your old colleagues and clients and rebuilding your network is what I would do.

[avonleigh]

I've been voluntarily benched for a couple of years. Before that I was picking up ad-hoc work from previous clients. 10-15 yrs ago I was getting on average a call per day. Ignoring these not updating my CV for so long the phone has slowly gone silent (except for the damn spam!).

Does anyone on this thread do "Embedded Software", Firmware, Electronics or the like? how is the market, relatively?

Which are the best sites for contract searches and/or upload CV to get back on the radar?

Tbh, I'm dreading interviews again and this probably has a lot to do with it.

I don't do any of those area's. But best websites are jobserve, jobsite and linkedin IMO. There are others like cvlibrary, cwjobs etc

[Contreras]

I've been voluntarily benched for a couple of years. Before that I was picking up ad-hoc work from previous clients. 10-15 yrs ago I was getting on average a call per day. Ignoring these not updating my CV for so long the phone has slowly gone silent (except for the damn spam!).

Does anyone on this thread do "Embedded Software", Firmware, Electronics or the like? how is the market, relatively?

Which are the best sites for contract searches and/or upload CV to get back on the radar?

Tbh, I'm dreading interviews again and this probably has a lot to do with it.

[Dion13]

Hi everyone, I’m brand new to the forum! I got the news today that my contract won’t be extended (after 22 months), so after 19/12 I’ll be cont(r)actless

I share the same worries as you.. the market is very quiet and I don’t feel very confident about what will happen after January...

[jamesbrown]