Let's unravel what employers are really looking for - and what you need to know to land the job or to hire someone right. For the past three weeks, I've been reading AI engineer job descriptions on LinkedIn, Greenhouse and Lever. I read 200+ of them. My conclusion: the majority of AI engineer job descriptions don't make sense. They want a data scientist, a full-stack engineer, an MLOps engineer, a product manager and an AI ethicist - all rolled into one. At a mid-level salary. This is not a HR rant. It's an analysis of a rapidly changing industry, and it will help you, whether you are on the job or looking for one. What an "AI Engineer" Actually Is in 2026 The title is new. It was a non-existent job in 2022. The current AI engineer is more or less: an ML engineer but with a greater focus on large language models, API integration and deployment - and less on research.…