Jobs now requiring AI Development?
Posted by Greendetour@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 30 comments
Anyone else seeing or being interviewed where as a sysadmin/IT manager they also want you to be a full on AI developer—not just vibe coding, but building your own AI server using LLMs and such? I’ve been doing a little job hunting lately and I now see this as a “must have”. It kind of reminds me of the late 90s/early 00s where full on database engineering (like Oracle) was being lumped into the daily systems and network responsibilities before companies realized it was its own department or person for complex/large environments. My most recent experience was a job wanting me to own all help desk, servers, apps, cloud infrastructure and network, as well as full internal AI development to automate 40-60% of everyone’s job, along with data analytics. I’m hoping this isn’t the future requirement.
dat510geek@reddit
I actually saw this coming and negotiated a higher salary. And while im upskilling myself and others, building myself to be future proofed, I have plenty of Weight in saying, "well if you want me to do more AI dev, then x, x, x and x projects get delayed further in the other stacks I would normally be all over. Then they get to decide. Adapt or be a goat farmer.
0263111771@reddit
Yeah, my time as a sysadmin is probably over. I hate this stuff so much.
ReptilianLaserbeam@reddit
I wish I could say the same but I still have at least a decade and a half to make enough money to support the kids in whatever they choose to do with their lives. After that fuck everything IT and IA related. I will move to the country side and will spend my time restoring cars, hopefully cars with a carburetor I don't wanna touch a computer, at least not for work
My_Big_Black_Hawk@reddit
My dad did exactly that when he retired. It became boring after a couple of years.
ReptilianLaserbeam@reddit
Maybe. Then after I can learn woodworking. If that gets boring I can learn how to weld.
0263111771@reddit
I am 50. One in college and 3 to follow. I just do not think I can do this anymore. Keep up with the technology. Career change time for me.
ReptilianLaserbeam@reddit
I've assisted to a few events this year to keep up to date. EVERYTHING was AI related. I can't keep up with this pace, it's driving me crazy, I felt I didn't understand half of what was being discussed and I'm not even 40 yet
shimoheihei2@reddit
We have project managers, sales people, even our CEO is making apps and using Claude Code. I think it's pretty much expected now. They're even adding more visibility tools to see how many tokens all the employees are using.
ukulele87@reddit
Thats like passengers in a jet thinking they can build or maintain a plane with AI help.
applo1@reddit
Sounds like a good way to make your network and endpoints Swiss cheese.
Zerowig@reddit
GM just laid off hundreds of their IT staff, to make room for those with AI skills.
Yes, this will be a requirement going forward.
Va1crist@reddit
That’s not accurate , they layed off a ton of data people , and they laid off AI engineers as well
tankerkiller125real@reddit
I've always done a little bit of dev work, including customer facing dev work in my positions. But it's been insane over the last 6 months I've built MCP servers, RAG systems, etc. etc. and basically learned how AI works and how to develop agents from scratch.
And I hate fucking all of it. It's gotten to the point where I've informed my boss (the CEO) that if they don't let me hand this shit off to someone else soon, I might seriously consider leaving, regardless of if I have a job lined up or not.
It's incredibly tiring... Solve things and get things working just right, and then within the next month have your to rebuild because the protocols changed, or there's some new thing that the AI vendors want you to use for tooling/knowledge. It's a clusterfuck, and I hate it all. I just want to go back to dealing with the Intune migration, or hell I'll even take a complete network crash over all this shit.
Hot_Direction7888@reddit
You willing to teach/mentor or nahh?
tankerkiller125real@reddit
My knowledge is specific to C# at this point, and as of last week outdated because Microsoft once again changed the libraries to use for this stuff.
Hot_Direction7888@reddit
Thank you
JustFrogot@reddit
It took a while to get a dedicated SharePoint dev.
I'm wondering the types of positions AI requires. Somee type of developer and product manager.
onbiver9871@reddit
It makes me genuinely miss the JavaScript framework wars of the 2010’s lol.
tankerkiller125real@reddit
Can we please go back to those days? It would be lovely so I can completely ignore it all because I only generally deal with the backend.
SufficientFrame@reddit
I'm seeing a lot of roles bundle "AI" into general IT without separating ops from product work. Running inference infrastructure, data access, governance, and workflow automation can sit near sysadmin/IT, but building reliable internal AI apps usually needs different ownership, otherwise you get one person carrying help desk, infra, and an R&D roadmap at the same time.
Secret_Account07@reddit
I hate what our sector has turned into. We really do give power to the worst kind of people, don’t we?
tankerkiller125real@reddit
I've always been good with my hands, I've started to get very tempted to go into the trades and just deal with the body destroying work. At the rate things are going it will be better than dealing with the BS that the AI people are shoving down everyone's throats.
Stinky0007@reddit
I think all the meathead morons are worse than the physical issues. I worked construction in high school with my dad and the personalities were awful to deal with.
After-Vacation-2146@reddit
AI dev has become like 70% of my current job. It’s cool and is a really marketable skill. When I create an AI system so good to put myself out of a job, I’ll just go to a less mature company to do the same there and wipe out a team or two. Rinse and repeat. If there aren’t any more tech jobs available (god I wish), I’ll fulfill my dream of opening a restaurant.
oceans_wont_freeze@reddit
If they offer the 300k, 400k salaries sure. I'll do the whole ollama LLM thing i got going on at home.
automounter@reddit
Computers have automated people out of jobs since inception. AI is the same. Learn it or be obsolete.
Newalloy@reddit
Learn it AND be obsolete is more like it.
conspicuous-aardvark@reddit
That’s an AI developer who also does sysadmin work with the relevant experience that goes along with both. That salary should be sky high, which I’m guessing it isn’t.
The reality is, whoever is writing the job description has a limited idea what they’re doing, or more likely is using an AI agent to write the description. Automating 40 to 60% of a workforce’s job requires a deep level of understanding of documented on undocumented processes. You can and should hit them with as much bullshit corporate jargon as possible. With someone like that and you just have to talk a good game to get past the screen. I guarantee you there is a long suffering sysadmin drowning in a huge queue of AI integrations at that company. You just have to get to them and offer support I imagine.
SketchyTone@reddit
My guess is because C-Suite want AI, so its being trickled into job descriptions. Then recruiters say "Make a description for this role" and throw basic requirements given by someone partially competent and understanding of business needs. This artificially is inflating the requirements of any admin role.
We had a vibe contest at my work, after winning my CIO turned around and said "Great job, this will backfill and slowly remove X positions from the company hopefully by EOY." This was regardless of the guidance that my VP, Director and direct manager said how much time it would actually take to implement without sacrificing other projects.
This unecessary and forecul scope creep is such ass and people who constantly push AI the way they are also ass. Sad thing is, you need to put AI fluff in your resume otherwise ATS will ignore you.
0xB_@reddit
If they are paying me 3x the normal salary ill bark also.