Wrtn Technologies joins latest AI fad, looking for prompt engineers

Wrtn Technologies Inc. has joined the latest generative artificial intelligence (AI) boom with its high-paying official job post for a prompt engineer who can program refined human language commands allowing AI precisely to perform a wide range of tasks.

The South Korean startup developing AI-powered writing tools will pay up to 100 million won ($76,657.72) a year for a prompt engineer, according to the company job post.

Its generous payment for the job reflects the soaring demand for AI prompt engineers since generative AI chatbot ChatGPT has wowed the world with its precise and natural responses to commands in plain human language but produces results that vary depending on text commands. Generative AIs can even invent facts when they are asked about unfamiliar topics. 

An AI prompt engineer is responsible for creating and refining text typed into the AI to induce optimal results.

It is not a must to have deep knowledge of traditional coding languages like Python or SQL, but prompt engineers should be good at commanding the AI system in terms of language to perform specific tasks.

Companies around the world, tech and non-tech, are also vying for the best prompt engineers who can converse with AIs logically and linguistically to enhance their early stage generative AI systems.

London-based law firm Mishcon de Reya LLP. is hiring a GPT legal prompt engineer who can develop prompts for different legal and non-legal use cases and evaluate and improve existing prompts to ensure accuracy in AI performance.

Google recently invested about $300 million in AI startup Anthropic, which develops ChatGPT rival Claude, which is less prone to biased, toxic or offensive language, according to the company.

Wrtn Technologies is looking for a prompt engineer regardless of his or her coding ability.

“Because creative thinking is expected to be more important than coding knowledge in the future, we are looking for an engineer who can have conversations with AI,” said Wrtn Technologies CEO Seyoung Lee.

Prompt engineers are expected to help the Korean startup develop generative AI capability that can offer a wide range of experiences beyond English-centered services, he added.

Write to Da Eun Choi at max@hankyung.com

Sookyung Seo edited this article.