careers · 24 May 2026 · 2 min read
Careers that did not exist five years ago
A field guide to the jobs that were not on the curriculum — and how to credibly walk into them now.
Careers that did not exist five years ago
The career you want probably wasn't on the curriculum. That's not a bug. That's the whole point.
The pattern
Every couple of years a new role appears. Prompt engineer. Forward-deployed engineer. AI producer. Agent operator. They start as job titles you'd be embarrassed to put on a CV — and end as the only jobs paying.
How to walk into one credibly
- Ship a thing — a small, real, demonstrable thing.
- Write it up — honestly, including what broke.
- Find one person already doing the work and ask them what you're missing.
That's the whole script. The rest is repetition.