From Software Developer to AI Engineer: Antje Barth

In this keynote, Antje explores how generative AI is transforming the landscape of software development, enabling developers to innovate like never before. She will showcase the latest advancements in AI and demonstrate the powerful capabilities of generative AI tools available on AWS. You will learn how to harness these tools to accelerate your development processes, enhance creativity, and build robust, AI-driven applications.
Recorded live in San Francisco at the AI Engineer World's Fair. See the full schedule of talks at www.ai.enginee... & join us at the AI Engineer World's Fair in 2025! Get your tickets today at ai.engineer/2025
About Antje
Antje Barth is a Principal Developer Advocate for generative AI at AWS. She is co-author of the O’Reilly books Generative AI on AWS and Data Science on AWS. Antje frequently speaks at AI conferences, events, and meetups around the world. She also co-founded the global Generative AI on AWS meetup and the Düsseldorf chapter of Women in Big Data.

[@falmanna]

*reads a bit about LLMs and use some APIs* hey I'm an AI engineer!
Dude, that's just software engineering.

[@jim02377]

I can't speak for the rest of the engineers in the world but I know I am tired of non-engineers being able to call themselves engineers but I do think that if you are an engineer you should have the right to change your "engineering title", within reason, based on new acquired knowledge. I also think we need to have more rigorous licensing requirements in some fields and AI may be one of those. As a whole, we engineers tend to undervalue and trivialize what we do and that allows the people that control all the money to treat us like interchangeable cogs. Sorry for the rant.

[@TheRealCaptainAwesome]

Some of the best engineers are self-taught. Quality shouldn't be weeded out with licensing. And I see no reason or argument for rigorous licensing in AI, I have worked in AI since 2019 as a consultant, in projects including government and military. Engineers with or without special degrees, it hasn't made a difference, talent is the main differentiator.

[@jim02377]

@@TheRealCaptainAwesome All good engineers that I have ever met are self-taught because engineering school is supposed to give you the foundation not all the knowledge. I know a paramedic who doesn't see why you should have to go through all that stuff that doctors go through to be a doctor, or electricians that don't see why they need a license or licensed vs unlicensed plumbers. I have watched people that aren't engineers or programmers continue to lower the pay scales because you can be "replaced" with anyone that can write code. Licensing may not be the answer but I don't see any indication of companies requiring a apprenticeship program before they start asking a new programmer or engineer to start delivering into systems they may not understand. Maybe that is what happened at crowdstrike. Just thinking out loud. Something we do as we get older. 🙂