Unless you're working in artificial intelligence, it's a difficult time to become a young person looking for a job.
Lily Ma was a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and was interviewed with about 12 employers.
The entry-level worker job market is in a continuous recession. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said the unemployment rate for new graduates in New York was 4.8% in June, compared to 4% of all workers.
AI is part of the reason for the decline, but there is a bright spot when it comes to workers with real-world experience in machine learning. They are in their early 20s, have AI know-how, and many people make $1 million a year.
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According to a new report from AI staffing firm Burtch Works, the experience of non-administrator AI workers with 0-3 years of experience increased by around 12% between 2024 and 2025. We also found that people with AI experiences are being promoted to management roles almost twice as fast as counterparts in other technology areas. They are jumping over the ladders as a result of their skills and impact, not their years at work.
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According to a new report from AI staffing firm Burtch Works, the experience of non-administrator AI workers with 0-3 years of experience increased by around 12% between 2024 and 2025. We also found that people with AI experiences are being promoted to management roles almost twice as fast as counterparts in other technology areas. They are jumping over the ladders as a result of their skills and impact, not their years at work.
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“There is a huge salary difference between the job of a machine learning engineer and the job of a software engineer,” says Anil K. Gupta, professor at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and co-lead of AI job trackers.
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“There is a huge salary difference between the job of a machine learning engineer and the job of a software engineer,” says Anil K. Gupta, professor at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and co-lead of AI job trackers.
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Databricks, a data analytics software company that has skyrocketed in value during the AI boom, is well-versed in AI, and plans to triple the number of people they will hire right after leaving school this year.
“They'll come in and they'll all be AI-NATIVE,” says Ali Ghodsi, the company's CEO. “We can't let more older people adopt it for our lives.”
According to the company's job search page, a generative research scientist with two years of experience can earn a base salary of between $190,000 and $260,000 with Databricks. Overall coverage, including stock grants, can be much higher.
“We definitely have a huge impact on us, and they get a lot of payment,” Ghodsi says. “If you're under the age of 25, you can make 1 million.”
Even the market for people with AI experience is divergent, says Jure Leskovec, a professor of computer science at Stanford University and co-founder of startup Kumo.ai. He is taking his PhD. Students in their early 20s produce effective research, leave the program early and are taken away by companies with large offers before they have experience in the industry.
“The number of zeros is very high,” he says.
Secondly, there are people who are proficient at using AI. They can learn faster, think faster, and use technology more effectively. They don't have advanced degrees, but the gap between them and traditional programmers is growing, he says.
“It almost seems like the next generation of software engineers,” he adds.
According to Revels.fyi, many of the work of machine learning engineers who require a year of experience from scratch pay more than $200,000 a year. Remuneration – DATA providers have seen offers from AI companies that have been choked with over $1 million. Of those, nine candidates had less than 10 years of experience in corporate workplaces, but some may have had a PhD.
In the large AI that recently completed a reverse-up fin contract with Metaplatform, approximately 15% of its employees are under the age of 25. After graduating from school, large AI employees can expect a base salary of around $200,000 a year.
Cyril Gorlla, co-founder of AI startup CTGT, says his company's average age is 21 years old. He is 23 years old.
“We are eager to hire AI-Native experts. Many of these candidates are in the early stages of their careers,” says Ashli Shive, who scales the heads of Ai people.
The company has gone so far as to threaten legal action against companies seeking to poach the youngest talent.
Lily Ma applied to employment for 30-40 people after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University's AI-Enriched Computer Science major in December. She was interviewed with about 12 people. “I've realized that having research experience can really help,” she says. (She also interned at Tesla.)
The 22-year-old landed on the size of AI but turned down an attractive offer from a startup that offered a 1% stake in the company.
Cyril Gorlla co-founded CTGT. CTGT is a startup that creates safety and enterprise risk software designed to fix issues such as AI Hallucinations. That investor includes Google. He says the average age for his company is 21 years old. A portion of the employee's capital is currently worth around $500,000.
Gorlla, 23, has received inbound requests from young, young prospective employees, including a 16-year-old, who has already been made public at the AI conference.
“I definitely didn't see it a few years ago,” he says.
Write to Katherine Bindley at Katie.bindley@wsj.com
These AI skills in their 20s create hundreds of thousands of people a year
These AI skills in their 20s create hundreds of thousands of people a year
