Four skills that define AI engineering, drawn from 10,000 job postings
Source
Andrew Ng
Author
Andrew Ng
Date
Terms in this piece · Glossary
grounding — Tying a model's answers to checkable sources — retrieved documents, live data, tool results — instead of letting it answer from memory alone.
agent skill — A reusable instruction file that teaches an agent how to do one job well — the procedure, the tools, and what counts as done.
Why it matters
A learning and hiring frame groundingTying a model's answers to checkable sources — retrieved documents, live data, tool results — instead of letting it answer from memory alone.Full definition → in labor-market data, with "shaping the build" identified as the agent skillA reusable instruction file that teaches an agent how to do one job well — the procedure, the tools, and what counts as done.Full definition → that shifts most as agents get better at delivering to a spec.
