AI coach, AI Solution Engineer and “agent operator”: what new professions have already appeared in Ukrainian IT

And if at the beginning of the AI ​​boom everything came down to talk about «prompt engineers», now businesses need much more sophisticated specialists — those who know how to not just use ChatGPT, but build products, processes, and entire business functions around artificial intelligence.

The global market already confirms this with numbers. According to the World Economic Forum, by 2030, AI and automation will create about 170 million new jobs in the world, while displacing about 92 million others. PwC predicts that by 2030, artificial intelligence can add up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy. And LinkedIn calls AI Literacy one of the most important skills of the new decade.

The Ukrainian market is still smaller in scale — there are currently 330 vacancies with a request for AI on DOU, and 489 on Djinni. But the trends here look very similar. dev.ua talked to representatives of EPAM, Ciklum, Railsware, ZONE3000, Levi9 and EVO about what new professions are already appearing in companies, why they are difficult to close and how the very concept of an IT specialist is changing.

The «prompt engineer» is dead. In his place, people who are reshaping businesses have emerged

If in 2023 the hottest new title was Prompt Engineer, today many companies look at this role quite skeptically.

«A couple of years ago, there was a trend for prompt engineers. But, in my opinion, this is a very superficial statement of the question. Everyone should be able to formulate queries for AI — this is what is now called the basic minimum. Therefore, such vacancies never made sense for us,» says AI Director EPAM Vadym Vlasenko.

Instead, companies have started looking for much more complex profiles. EPAM, for example, names the following as the most sought-after roles:

• AI coaches who help teams adapt processes for AI-assisted development;
• Full-Stack AI Engineers who build AI solutions for products;
• AI specialists at the intersection of business and technology who create agents and automate company processes.

Interestingly, most of these EPAM specialists are trying to grow within the company, rather than looking for them in the market.

The new IT elite is being formed at the intersection of three professions

Ciklum says that the market is already transitioning to a new type of engineer.

«We are already seeing the emergence of new roles at the intersection of software engineering, data, and AI. The demand for AI/LLM and MLOps/AI Ops engineers is growing the most, as well as AI Product and AI Solution roles,» says Bogdan Pogasiy, Senior Director of Experience Engineering at Ciklum. But that’s not even more interesting. According to him, the usual roles of developers are transforming.

«Today, companies are increasingly looking not just for Backend or Frontend developers, but for specialists who can work with AI-assisted development workflows and integrate AI tools into the development process,» notes Bgdan. In fact, a backend engineer is gradually ceasing to be a person who only writes code. Now they are expected to be able to manage AI tools, automate some processes, and test hypotheses faster.

There are many vacancies. There are significantly fewer people.

At first glance, it seems that the AI ​​market is already crowded with candidates.

But dev.ua’s interlocutors describe the opposite problem.

There is huge interest in such vacancies, but there is still a shortage of specialists with real production experience.

The problem is simple: there are many courses and certificates, but there are significantly fewer people who have actually implemented AI in large products. Knowing from YouTube how RAG or agent systems work and maintaining them under load in production are different levels of expertise.

Because of this, ZONE3000 is in no hurry to create dozens of new titles. «Regardless of the role title, our priority is a strong engineer with a deep technical base,» explains the company’s IT Recruitment Director, Viktoriya Tomchynska.

A new profession that is hardly talked about: AI Security Engineer

While most companies focus on code generation and process automation, another direction is emerging in parallel — security.

Levi9 already sees a demand for AI Security Engineers. «We see a need for AI Security Engineers — specialists who have a deep understanding of the risks of using AI in different domains and know how to work with them. It is not enough to simply use AI agents — it is important to be able to use them optimally and understand how to mitigate possible risks,» explains Levi9 Data & ML Engineer Igor Kozlov.

The more companies trust AI with access to data, business processes, and internal systems, the more acute the issues of control and accountability become. Who is responsible for the agent’s decisions? How to verify its actions? Where is the line between automation and risk? It seems that one of the new IT directions in the coming years will be formed around these issues.

Trust Engineers

SoftServe co-founder Taras Kytsmey believes that due to the rapid spread of artificial intelligence in the IT market, a new profession will appear — " trust engineers «. According to Kytsmey, the main problem of AI systems is not the generation of answers or code, but checking their reliability. «When a chatbot gives an answer, we are not always sure whether we can trust it. The same goes for the code that AI generates,» he said during a forum at Lviv Polytechnic.

That is why, in his opinion, companies will need separate specialists responsible for verifying the operation of AI systems. «In the near future, a new class of specialists will appear — trust engineers. They will be responsible for the quality, verification and reliability of artificial intelligence systems,» predicts the SoftServe co-founder.

Kitsmey also stated that AI is actually blurring the line between science and engineering.

According to the entrepreneur, the modern IT industry increasingly requires a scientific approach to working with complex AI systems.

In fact, a new profession is almost every engineer

Railsware is convinced that the main change is not due to the emergence of new job titles. The requirements for people themselves are changing.

«Almost every role — both technical and non-technical — comes with the expectation that the specialist knows how to effectively work with AI tools and integrate them into their workflows,» says Daryna Kuzmyk, Talent & Culture Lead, Railsware.

That is, the market is gradually moving not towards the emergence of a separate AI caste, but towards a situation where AI becomes the new basic literacy.

The engineer of the future will not write code, but manage agents

Today, not everyone is willing to risk trying to predict what IT will be like in a few years. «We wouldn’t undertake to make accurate forecasts for 2–3 years ahead, because technologies and the market are changing too quickly now. It’s more or less realistic to predict only the next six months,» says Viktoriya Tomchynska from ZONE3000.

A similar opinion was expressed by the co-founder of SoftServe/ According to Kitsmey, the IT industry is currently experiencing «turbulent times,» and the classic software development model is rapidly changing under the influence of AI. «Artificial intelligence will independently manage most stages of product development. Some roles will lose relevance, while others will become critically important,» he said .

However, certain outlines of the future are already visible.

EPAM believes that AI literacy will very quickly become a basic requirement for the market.

But he warns against going to the other extreme: the idea that AI will completely replace engineers seems like a dangerous illusion. Without fundamental technical knowledge, a person simply cannot assess the quality of what the model generates for them.

Ciklum describes the future specialist as an AI-augmented engineer — a person who combines engineering expertise, business understanding, and the ability to work with AI systems.

«While earlier the efficiency of an engineer was often measured by the amount of code written, now the focus will be on the speed of hypothesis testing, the ability to adapt to changes, and the ability to produce results in conditions of uncertainty,» says Bohdan Pogasiy.

And he adds another important thought: the new generation of engineers will actually become operators of AI systems — people who formulate tasks, manage agents, and are responsible for the final result.

EVO also sees a shift in emphasis. According to Olena Oleksienko, the market is increasingly moving from the «hire potential» model to the «hire result» model. Therefore, real cases, pet projects and portfolios often weigh more than diplomas. And among the skills, those that are not tied to a specific stack are especially becoming more valuable: analytical thinking, adaptability, communication, the ability to work with data and make decisions under uncertainty.

Daryna Kuzmik from Railsware formulates the main conclusion as briefly as possible: the competitive advantage will be not just a strong engineering base and not just AI fluency, but their combination.

SoftServe co-founder Taras Kytsmey predicts the emergence of a new IT profession due to the AI ​​boom — «trust engineers»

On the topic

SoftServe co-founder Taras Kytsmey predicts the emergence of a new IT profession due to the AI ​​boom — «trust engineers»

«The phrase 'live forever, learn forever' has never been more relevant to the IT industry than it is now.» What will remain valuable for a programmer when the code is generated by a machine

On the topic

«The phrase 'live forever, learn forever' has never been more relevant to the IT industry than it is now.» What will remain valuable for a programmer when the code is generated by a machine

Read the country’s main IT news in our Telegram

On the topic

Read the country’s main IT news in our Telegram