What matters now is not a profession or a degree but the ability to understand the task as a whole
22 episodes in 12 months · 27 total · first in December 2024
The “prompt engineer” profession is an illusion: the model itself will write the best prompt. The winner is the one who knows how to ask questions, understands the range of what is possible and knows the details.
What is needed are people who understand not only programming but also business analysis and systems analysis: they see the task as a whole rather than just carrying it out. After that, everything depends on how well you can connect, assemble and manage.
Happening now. This already shows in hiring: I need people who understand both business analysis and systems analysis, not just code (No. 148, August 2026).
Where to start
Learn to understand the task as a whole and to ask questions, rather than memorising prompts.
Hire people who understand business logic and systems analysis, not just code.
The bar is high, though: to build a system yourself, you have to understand architecture, business analysis and the front end.
“But it turns out that to do this, you have to know all at once what architecture is, and what systems analysis is, and what business analysis is, and what markup is, and what front-end programming is, what captchas are and what cookies are, and what user consent is, and what audio transcriptions are, and so on.”
When I said it
Quotes
“Like, right now the profession of writing prompts is very widespread, but I think that all of that is also very much illusory, because, essentially, the coolest prompt can only be written by the LLM system itself.”
“Actually, that question is asked better by those who knew how to ask them, right, who at least understood the range. And you have to understand the details.”
“Obviously, from there on everything depends on your brains, how developed you are, how capable you are of linking everything together, putting it together, managing all of it.”
“These have to be people who don't just understand programming, but who understand business analysis pretty well, and at the same time understand systems analysis, can look at different systems, and not just carry out a task. That's very important.”