Why Software Engineers Should Move Into AI Engineering

Bashiri Smith · Facebook reel · 2026-08-31 · 0:53 · 6,912 views · Open on Facebook

Topics: Industry Trends & Job Market, Resume, Job Search & Interviews, Start Here: Roadmaps & Strategy · Level: beginner

Summary

Bashiri Smith argues that AI is changing software engineering more than any other profession, but job openings are still going up. The catch is that engineers who still code like it's 2022 will struggle. He presents AI engineering as the best skill to add: it pays more, it is growing fast, and most of it overlaps with what software engineers already do. The video ends with a pitch for his AI Engineer community.

Key points

• An unnamed 'AI expert' is quoted saying software engineering is the profession AI affects most right now.
• Despite the 'doom fearmongering', software engineering job openings are up.
• Engineers who still write code 'like it's 2022' are in trouble and need new skills.
• According to LinkedIn, AI Engineer is the #1 fastest-growing job in the U.S.
• AI Engineers earn about 20% more than Software Engineers on average.
• About 80% of an AI Engineer's job is work software engineers already do, so your existing fundamentals give you a big head start.
• The creator's community offers an AI engineering roadmap, daily calls with AI and ML engineers, and guidance from recruiters.

Resources mentioned

• BASWE.Ai Engineer (Skool community) · community · skool.com · paid
  The creator's paid community and program, with an AI learning roadmap (including the full ops and evaluation track), daily calls with engineers and recruiters, resume and portfolio help, and a job-search pipeline.
  Also in: Basic RAG Pipeline in 60 Seconds: From Documents to Grounded Answers (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Pointer to Bashiri Smith's Complete AI Engineer Roadmap for 2026 (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Step-by-Step Roadmap to a $200K+ AI Engineering Role (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), How to Evaluate a RAG Pipeline: Retrieval vs. Generation (Interview Answer) (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) and 76 more

Try this

• If you code the same way you did in 2022, learn new skills, starting with AI engineering.
• Build on the software engineering fundamentals you already have to move into an AI Engineer role.
• To get the link to the community, comment 'AI skills' on the video.