AI field engineers are rare, highly paid, and in extreme demand everywhere

Someone who can combine process knowledge, production engineering, and AI layer expertise is extraordinarily rare — more like a top 1% NBA player than a typical employee. Most people have one or two of these skills, or are mediocre across all three. But the good news is you don't need a CS degree to get there; you just need to dedicate yourself to learning the craft, gain hands-on deployment experience, and build relationships across different ecosystems — open source versus closed source, Microsoft, Salesforce, and others. The problems these engineers solve — like deploying agent environments that save millions annually — are why they command exceptional compensation. As one well-known founder with multiple billion-dollar exits put it: the best job is the one that makes the most money for your employer. If you can demonstrate you've added $10 million in value, asking for 10% of that is a reasonable deal. Even private equity firms are hiring field engineers and giving them equity stakes based on the operational value they can unlock.