10 kinds of AI jobs
Pay is a rough US range for full-time roles unless it says per hour; it varies a lot by city, company and experience.
| Job | What you do | Rough pay | How to get in |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI trainer / data annotator | Rate and correct AI answers, write example answers, label data. Mostly remote and freelance, paid by the hour. | $15 to $40 an hour; $40 to $100+ for experts in coding, maths, law or medicine | No degree for general work; a degree or job experience for expert projects |
| AI automation specialist | Connect AI to a company's tools (email, CRM, documents) with no-code platforms or simple scripts to save staff hours. | $50,000 to $110,000, or $50 to $150 an hour freelance | Learnable in months: Zapier, Make or n8n, plus prompting |
| Prompt engineer / AI specialist | Design prompts, test AI tools and train colleagues. Often a role inside marketing, support or operations teams. | $70,000 to $150,000 | Show results: a portfolio of workflows that saved time or money |
| Machine learning / AI engineer | Build and deploy AI models and AI-powered products. | $130,000 to $250,000+ | Computer science or maths, Python, strong coding |
| Data scientist | Turn data into predictions and decisions; increasingly builds on AI models. | $100,000 to $170,000 | Statistics, Python or R, SQL |
| AI product manager | Decide what AI features to build and check they actually help users. | $130,000 to $220,000 | Product or engineering experience plus AI literacy |
| AI solutions / sales engineer | Show companies how an AI product fits their business and help them roll it out. | $110,000 to $200,000 with commission | Technical background plus people skills |
| AI safety and policy | Research how to make AI reliable and safe, or shape rules for it in government and companies. | $90,000 to $300,000+ | Research, law, policy or deep technical background |
| Data centre technician | Keep the servers that run AI working: hardware swaps, cabling, monitoring. | $50,000 to $95,000 | IT certificates such as CompTIA A+; no degree needed |
| Electrician or HVAC for data centres | Power and cool AI data centres, one of the fastest-growing building trades. | $60,000 to $120,000+ | Apprenticeship and licence |
AI training jobs: real, with traps
Companies building AI models pay people to write and grade answers, from general writing to expert coding, maths and medicine. The work is real and often remote, but it comes and goes with projects, pay depends on passing skills tests, and there are fake listings.
- Never pay to get the job. Real AI training platforms do not charge sign-up or "equipment" fees.
- Watch for chat-app recruiters who contact you first on WhatsApp or Telegram with "rate products online" tasks: that is a well-known scam.
- Apply on the platform's own site, and expect an unpaid skills test first.
More on spotting fakes: AI scams to avoid.
Getting in with no experience
- Use AI tools every day in the job you already have, and write down the time it saves.
- Learn one automation tool and build three small workflows.
- Put them in a short portfolio and apply for "AI specialist" or "automation" roles in your own industry, where your domain knowledge counts.
Free courses to start: learn AI from zero. Want work on the side instead? See 21 ways to make money with AI. Prefer a job AI is unlikely to touch? See jobs safe from AI.
General information, not financial, legal or tax advice. Check anything important with a qualified professional.
More AI worries, sorted
AI apocalypse tools
RoboDoom is for information and entertainment. Job risk scores are our own estimates from published research on AI task exposure, not predictions about any person or employer. Full disclaimer