Vietnamese Companies Invest Millions in Hiring AI Prompt Engineers

In recent times, Vietnamese companies have begun recruiting prompt engineers, professionals who specialize in instructing AI language models. These AI prompt engineering jobs offer salaries similar to those of technology engineers but require a deep understanding of machine learning and AI.

The launch of ChatGPT sparked a big debate in the tech community about prompt engineers. James Neave, head of data science at Adzuna, once told Business Insider that "giving instructions to AI could be the most exciting job in 2024". Some companies are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for these natural language processing jobs.

In Vietnam, prompt engineering became popular for a while. Many training courses appeared to teach people from different backgrounds who wanted to switch to AI. Unlike programming engineers, prompt engineers mainly interact with AI to improve system responses and customize commands and texts for ChatGPT for business use cases and ChatGPT integration.

Over the past year, after the GenAI trend, almost no domestic companies recruited for this position. Prompt engineers were no longer talked about much, and training courses gradually disappeared. However, recently, MoMo fintech, one of Vietnam's tech unicorns, posted a job ad for a prompt engineer, attracting a lot of attention from the community and highlighting generative AI trends.

According to MoMo's description, this role will play an important part in improving the performance of internal AI tools and ChatGPT applications. The engineer will develop, refine, and optimmize prompts for AI prompt optimization. Additionally, candidates need to work with databases, ensure efficient information retrieval, and optimize AI-generated content, showcasing the potential of GenAI in fintech. 

Another important task for the prompt engineer at this leading Vietnamese AI company is to build a set of guidelines and support training for other company members on how to use and optimize AI tools.

Quan Nguyen, a former OpenAI engineer, thinks this requirement from shows that the company is recruiting people with deep AI experience, not just those who have taken prompting classes, as part of the growing GenAI adoption in Vietnam.

Mr. Pham Kim Long, Director of AI and Big Data at MoMo, shared: "From the early stages of GenAI application development, MoMo has been doing work related to prompt engineering. However, with the growing need to develop and optimize AI solutions, the company needs more specialized staff for prompting", highlighting opportunities in the AI job market Vietnam.

Mr. Long said that in this position, prompt engineering is not as simple as many people think. Besides understanding generative AI, engineers must have comprehensive knowledge and experience such as data analysis, NLP (natural language processing), feature analysis, converstation scenario design, participation in technical solution design; working with software engineers, AI engineers, product managers and business analysts to write prompts (scenarios for chatbots). This job requires a combination of analytical skills, technical solution design, and user experience optimization, making upskilling important.

Prompt engineers also need to be familiar with vector databases and other IT concepts. With the growing AI job opportunities and AI recruitment, having these skills can open up exciting AI career paths aligned with business requirements. Creating clear AI documentation is another key aspect.

Quan Nguyen believes this shows that the role of prompt engineering is becoming increasingly important in bringing large language models into everyday life as part of MoMo's AI initiatives. However, each company may only need 2-3 staff for this field, not as many as machine learning engineers in Vietnam. MoMo's representative also confirmed that there are currently no plans to expand the prompt engineering team beyond the position being recruited, although the company is committed to investing heavily in AI and nurturing AI talent in Vietnam.

In recent times, a new job role has emerged in the technology sector: the AI prompt engineer. This position is becoming increasingly popular in Vietnam, with companies like MoMo and others advertising job openings on platforms such as TopCV, contributing to the growth of the Vietnamese AI workforce and Vietnamese AI ecosystem. These Vietnamese tech startups are looking for people to help them use AI-driven financial services in their internal products.

The salary for prompt engineers is quite good. Many companies offer between 12 and 20 million Vietnamese dong per month. MoMo, a popular e-wallet company, says they pay their prompt engineers the same as other tech engineers, based on their skills and experience.

Experts say that it's very important for prompt engineers to understand AI and Machine Learning. They need to know about different types of machine learning data and how computers "think". At first, many companies thought AI could do everything on its own, so they asked their AI engineers or programmers to do this job too. But now, with more AI models and products available, companies need special prompt engineers to design different chatbot features.

This is why the job of prompt engineer is only now becoming a real career in Vietnam, even though AI became very popular at the end of last year. Mr. Pham Kim Long from MoMo says that prompt engineering will be an important job for a long time. The technology might change, but the basic role of these engineers will still be important in the near future, despite concerns about AI obsolescence.

In the future, prompt engineering will be even more useful. Companies that are not mainly tech companies might want to use AI in their products. People who know about AI can help these companies quickly understand new trends, make their work better using effective prompt strategies, and use AI in simple products to enable AI-driven productivity and AI performance optimization.

However, experts warn that there's a difference between knowing how to write prompts and being a prompt engineer. Many courses teach people how to talk to chatbots, which is good for personal use. But to become a real prompt engineer, you need to know a lot about technology and AI. AI skill development is crucial. So, people shouldn't expect too much from quick "prompt engineering" courses.

The emergence of the AI prompt engineer role highlights the evolving AI job market and the importance of AI integration across industries. As more companies adopt AI technologies, the demand for professionals who can effectively communicate with and optimize these systems will continue to grow, shaping the future AI economy.