Generative AI Is Now Fundamental. A recent McKinsey report calls artificial intelligence a "foundational amplifier," meaning AI boosts all other technology trends and spans every industry.
With 78% of surveyed companies already using AI in at least one business function and 92% planning to increase their budgets over the next three years, it’s clear why no product roadmap is complete without Gen-AI features.
Why Integration Is More Important Than Research
Many teams already have access to models via API. What's missing is the expertise to securely, performantly, and maintainably integrate these models into real-world workflows. This is where the AI Engineer's work begins:
The blog RedMonk observes a mix of mockery and seriousness: developers in forums ask if everyone is an AI Engineer now, while LinkedIn profiles use the title to gain visibility. Beneath the label lies a genuine need - the market requires generalists who can combine classic software patterns with Gen-AI building blocks.
Essential Skills
Job Market and Numbers
IBM announced plans last year to create up to 800 new AI-related jobs in Ireland, primarily in research, consulting, and digital services. Other major corporations are shifting budgets from traditional roles to build teams with an AI focus. The result: the word "Engineer" remains, but with a new prefix.
Everyday Tasks
Career Opportunity at classix in Hamburg
classix Software GmbH is currently looking for a Software Engineer AI (m/f/d). The main task is to further develop KLIO, a chat assistant that provides answers with source citations.
Applicants should have the following tech stack: Kubernetes, Rust, vLLM, LanceDB, axum, tokio, tower, utoipa, Git, (Angular + TypeScript).
The development of KLIO is one of the main tasks. KLIO is classix's AI chat assistant that compiles information from any documents and answers questions about them. The results have been continuously improved through the evaluation of different models, prompt engineering, and the use of a re-ranker.
The complete job posting can be viewed here: https://classix.de/unternehmen/jobs/
Conclusion
Generative AI will remain the biggest driver of innovation in 2025. But models alone don't solve customer problems. Value is created only when AI Engineers build the bridge from theory to practice. The job title is not a buzzword but a direct response to the pressure to roll out AI features securely and profitably. For those who see themselves at this intersection, classix offers a tangible opportunity to ship real products instead of just talking about AI.
With 78% of surveyed companies already using AI in at least one business function and 92% planning to increase their budgets over the next three years, it’s clear why no product roadmap is complete without Gen-AI features.
Why Integration Is More Important Than Research
Many teams already have access to models via API. What's missing is the expertise to securely, performantly, and maintainably integrate these models into real-world workflows. This is where the AI Engineer's work begins:
- Data preparation and vector databases for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)
- Prompt versioning and evaluation
- Production environment metrics like latency and response quality
- Deployment on Kubernetes or serverless platforms
- Governance and cost control
The blog RedMonk observes a mix of mockery and seriousness: developers in forums ask if everyone is an AI Engineer now, while LinkedIn profiles use the title to gain visibility. Beneath the label lies a genuine need - the market requires generalists who can combine classic software patterns with Gen-AI building blocks.
Essential Skills
- Solid programming experience in at least one systems or web language
- Experience with LLM frameworks like LangChain or LlamaIndex
- Knowledge of container orchestration and CI/CD
- Basic model fine-tuning and evaluation know-how
- Security concepts, especially data and rights separation
Job Market and Numbers
IBM announced plans last year to create up to 800 new AI-related jobs in Ireland, primarily in research, consulting, and digital services. Other major corporations are shifting budgets from traditional roles to build teams with an AI focus. The result: the word "Engineer" remains, but with a new prefix.
Everyday Tasks
- Reconfiguring an existing search feature to use RAG.
- Building an interactive FAQ that summarizes product documents live.
- Creating monitoring dashboards to track hallucination rates after a release.
- Using A/B tests to evaluate prompt variations against real user data.
Career Opportunity at classix in Hamburg
classix Software GmbH is currently looking for a Software Engineer AI (m/f/d). The main task is to further develop KLIO, a chat assistant that provides answers with source citations.
Applicants should have the following tech stack: Kubernetes, Rust, vLLM, LanceDB, axum, tokio, tower, utoipa, Git, (Angular + TypeScript).
The development of KLIO is one of the main tasks. KLIO is classix's AI chat assistant that compiles information from any documents and answers questions about them. The results have been continuously improved through the evaluation of different models, prompt engineering, and the use of a re-ranker.
The complete job posting can be viewed here: https://classix.de/unternehmen/jobs/
Conclusion
Generative AI will remain the biggest driver of innovation in 2025. But models alone don't solve customer problems. Value is created only when AI Engineers build the bridge from theory to practice. The job title is not a buzzword but a direct response to the pressure to roll out AI features securely and profitably. For those who see themselves at this intersection, classix offers a tangible opportunity to ship real products instead of just talking about AI.
