Know Your Worth / Software & AI
Software and AI pathways connect implementation with evidence about useful behavior, data permissions, reliability, and operating costs. Strong portfolios compare alternatives and show failure cases. AI-related roles especially need clear evaluation and human review, because fluent or impressive examples do not establish general accuracy, safety, or business value.
1–30 of 30 careers · 1,000 in the directory
All careersEmployee references are annual US median wages for the cited BLS occupation, which may cover several career paths. Freelance examples add $15,000 for benefits and $20,000 for business costs, then divide by 1,200 billable hours a year. Annual figures are rounded to the nearest $1,000 and hourly figures to the nearest dollar. Figures are before personal taxes, with no percentage fees. Open a guide to see the source or adjust the assumptions in the calculator.
BLS · May 2025 · Software Developers
Integrate evaluated AI capabilities into useful software workflows. Connect user needs, data permissions, failure handling, and cost controls while keeping model uncertainty visible instead of treating fluent output as verified application behavior.
View career → AI Application EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Database Architects
Document where AI-related datasets and evaluation materials came from and how they may be used. Reconcile lineage, permissions, transformations, and exceptions without claiming that metadata alone settles legal or privacy questions.
View career → AI Data Provenance SpecialistBLS · May 2025 · Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers
Design evidence that helps teams judge an AI system for its intended task. Compare representative examples, failure patterns, and uncertainty rather than reducing application suitability to an unexplained single score.
View career → AI Evaluation SpecialistBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
Help organizations document AI uses, responsibilities, and evidence requirements. Connect policies with practical review records while leaving legal interpretations and consequential deployment decisions to appropriately authorized business, technical, and legal owners.
View career → AI Governance AnalystBLS · May 2025 · Web and digital interface designers
Design interfaces that help users understand and appropriately review AI-assisted work. Connect task expectations, uncertainty, feedback, and recovery rather than presenting generated output as an unquestionable answer.
View career → AI Interaction DesignerBLS · May 2025 · Information Security Analysts
Conduct authorized, bounded evaluations of AI application weaknesses using approved methods and test material. Document reproducible findings and remediation questions without implying that a limited assessment proves complete robustness or safety.
View career → AI Red Team Evaluation SpecialistBLS · May 2025 · Computer and Information Research Scientists
Investigate risks and limitations of AI systems through reproducible, appropriately bounded studies. Connect evaluation evidence with specific questions while distinguishing research findings from a complete assurance of safe behavior or deployment suitability.
View career → AI Safety ResearcherBLS · May 2025 · Computer systems analysts
Help teams decide whether AI is appropriate for a specific business workflow. Compare simpler alternatives, evidence requirements, data permissions, and operating costs before proposing a bounded proof of concept.
View career → AI Solutions ConsultantBLS · May 2025 · Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers
Build repeatable checks for AI-assisted software and its surrounding workflows. Combine deterministic application tests with evaluated model behavior while documenting variability, data limits, and the risks that still need human review.
View career → AI Test EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Computer and Information Research Scientists
Investigate AI methods for a specific application through reproducible experiments and honest baselines. Connect research results with data quality, uncertainty, and practical constraints rather than promising that a novel method will outperform simpler alternatives.
View career → Applied AI Research ScientistBLS · May 2025 · Software Developers
Develop software that translates or optimizes programs for defined languages and targets. Use correctness tests, diagnostics, and performance evidence to balance useful transformations with predictable behavior and maintainable tooling.
View career → Compiler EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Computer and Information Research Scientists
Investigate computer-vision methods through reproducible software and carefully evaluated image evidence. Examine dataset limits, labeling choices, and model failures before connecting research results to a real-world product claim.
View career → Computer Vision Research EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
Coordinate annotation work around clear task definitions, authorized data, and quality evidence. Align reviewer training and disagreement handling without treating high agreement as proof that labels answer the intended product question.
View career → Data Annotation Operations ManagerBLS · May 2025 · Software Developers
Build tools and workflows that help developers complete everyday tasks reliably. Evaluate setup friction, documentation, and user feedback while avoiding a new abstraction that adds maintenance without solving a demonstrated problem.
View career → Developer Experience EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Software Developers
Design services that coordinate across machines and failures. Make consistency, retry, ordering, and recovery assumptions explicit so a successful happy-path demonstration does not conceal data loss or duplicate business actions.
View career → Distributed Systems EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Data Scientists
Develop and evaluate generative-model applications against specific user tasks. Account for data rights, output quality, latency, and operating costs while avoiding claims that one demonstration establishes reliable behavior in every situation.
View career → Generative AI EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Database Architects
Model and connect structured knowledge so teams can inspect relationships and provenance. Manage identifiers, schema decisions, and conflicting claims rather than assuming a linked graph makes every source reliable or current.
View career → Knowledge Graph EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Data Scientists
Develop software that analyzes or processes language for defined tasks and audiences. Evaluate language variation, data permissions, and failure cases while avoiding assumptions that aggregate performance transfers equally across every user group.
View career → Language Technology EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Network and Computer Systems Administrators
Develop operational workflows for deploying and monitoring evaluated models. Connect software releases with model versions, data assumptions, and rollback evidence while recognizing that changing real-world inputs can invalidate earlier evaluation results.
View career → Machine Learning Operations EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Software Developers
Create shared infrastructure that helps teams develop, deploy, and evaluate models consistently. Connect reproducibility, access, resource controls, and user experience while preserving clear ownership of models and operational decisions.
View career → Machine Learning Platform EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Data Scientists
Improve model-serving efficiency within defined evaluation and hardware constraints. Compare latency, memory, cost, and quality so an optimization does not silently compromise the application's important behaviors or supported input range.
View career → Model Optimization EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Data Scientists
Develop recommendations for a defined product context using authorized behavioral or content evidence. Evaluate usefulness, coverage, privacy, and feedback effects while avoiding unsupported claims that offline gains guarantee business improvements.
View career → Recommendation Systems EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Computer and Information Research Scientists
Study decision-making methods in benign simulated environments. Evaluate reward assumptions, stability, and generalization while distinguishing a research experiment from permission to control physical equipment or consequential real-world systems.
View career → Reinforcement Learning ResearcherBLS · May 2025 · Information Security Analysts
Evaluate how AI applications affect users and organizational responsibilities. Compare evidence about fairness, transparency, privacy, and oversight while keeping limitations visible and avoiding claims that one checklist settles every ethical or legal question.
View career → Responsible AI SpecialistBLS · May 2025 · Database Architects
Build systems that locate relevant information from authorized collections. Connect indexing, permissions, freshness, and evaluation evidence so useful retrieval is not confused with proof that returned material is accurate or complete.
View career → Retrieval Systems EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Software Developers
Improve how search results match a user's intent within a defined collection. Connect ranking changes with evaluation examples, user evidence, and operational constraints rather than optimizing one metric without checking practical effects.
View career → Search Relevance EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Software Developers
Develop software agents for clearly bounded administrative tasks with explicit permissions and review points. Plan failure handling, logging, and reversibility so automation does not quietly exceed the user's intended authority.
View career → Software Agent Workflow DeveloperBLS · May 2025 · Software Developers
Investigate software latency and resource use through repeatable measurements. Connect bottlenecks to representative workloads and correctness requirements rather than assuming that a favorable microbenchmark guarantees a better user experience.
View career → Software Performance EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Data Scientists
Develop and evaluate speech-to-text systems for specified recording conditions and audiences. Account for consent, acoustic variation, language coverage, and error patterns rather than treating an aggregate score as complete user suitability.
View career → Speech Recognition EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Database Architects
Create and evaluate artificial datasets for clearly defined testing or research uses. Document generation assumptions, privacy limits, and statistical differences rather than claiming that synthetic records automatically remove sensitive information or match reality.
View career → Synthetic Data Engineer