When it comes to jobs, Big Data and AI have a reputation about as bad as Joan Jett. There’s so much 'talk' about how the new technology is taking jobs and so little about all the jobs it’s creating! 

In reality, research and CareerBuilder insights shows there is tremendous opportunity for current IT roles to mature and for new roles to develop. With the maturing tech landscape, the standard software engineering and application development roles are transforming into cutting edge career paths. Check out these profiles of the hottest emerging roles in Big Data and Artificial Intelligence below:

Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning Developer

The demand for Artificial Intelligence talent is at an all-time high! If you have found yourself in a software engineering role you ought to consider stepping into the AI space.

Responsibilities: Research, develop, optimize and prototype cognitive solutions such as Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Linguistics, Information Retrieval, Image Recognition, Deep Learning, etc. 

Skill Set: AI Developers have experience in developing machine learning, text extraction and processing algorithms. Candidates also have experience in Python and products like Tensorflow, CUDA toolkit, CuDNN, Theano, Caffe, Torch, OpenCV or similar tools.

Compensation: $82,250-$123,600

Companies Hiring For this Role: Amazon, Microsoft, Samsung

Number of Job Postings in US: 25,829

Augmented Reality Developer

Many corporations are adopting an augmented reality approach to enhance their customer experience. Specifically, marketers are adopting this game changing tech to better introduce their product to the consumer in real time and space.

Responsibilities: Lead a team of software engineers to build custom AR Experiences and tools to facilitate such. 

Skill Set: AR Developers are proficient in the usage of various engines and are experienced in C, C++, C#, Objective, Python, JavaScript etc. 

Compensation: $80,000-$114,000

Companies Hiring For this Role: Facebook, Amazon, Intel

Number of Job Postings in US: 6,058

Internet of Things Architect

Evolving from the Solutions Architect role, IoT Architects are rapidly becoming an essential position to any corporation creating a new product. The future is connected and in need of IoT Talent.

Responsibilities: Develop, design and articulate IoT Strategy to all internal and external stakeholders. 

Skill Set: IoT Architects have experience in developing software products in one or more specific IoT, embedded, M2M industries and are required to have an understanding of application, server, and network security and compliance requirements.

Compensation: $114,400-$206,500

Companies Hiring For this Role: Verizon, Cisco Systems, Amazon

Number of Job Postings in US: 7,549

Blockchain Engineer

The number of job postings today, as compared to this time last year, has increased dramatically. According to CareerBuilder, in March of 2017 there were 36 job postings regarding Blockchain Engineers. Today, there are 3,688 job postings.

Responsibilities: Build Blockchain projects along with integration layers between the various Blockchain back-end and front-end systems.

Skill Set: Blockchain engineers have previous experience developing and testing software in JavaScript and other technologies, predominantly using Agile Methodology. 

Compensation: $90,550-$134,815

Companies Hiring For this Role: IBM, Microsoft, Oracle

Number of Job Postings in US: 3,688

Data Protection Officer /Data Compliance Officer

With new tech comes new policy; since the introduction of GDPR and other regulations it is more imperative now than ever to have a Data Protection Officer. This is a position that will touch on every industry from Finance, to Healthcare to Retail. If a company is collecting consumer information in anyway it’d be wise to have a position that ensures compliance.

Responsibilities: Serve as point of contact between the company and GDPR Supervisory Authorities, conduct audits to ensure compliance, educate and train staff on best practices and maintain proper records on all data processing. 

Skill Set: Data Protection Officers have experience working in general compliance and managing EU and global data protection requirements. 

Compensation: $100,196-$159,907

Companies Hiring For this Role: Bank of America, Genesis Healthcare, Wells Fargo

Number of Job Postings in US: 52,224

Cybersecurity Engineer

After taking witness and falling victim to multiple data breaches this past year, it’s no wonder cybersecurity is one of the top sought after roles on the market!

Responsibilities: Act as cyber security subject matter expert and develop enforce, and monitor security controls, policies, procedures, disaster recovery programs, GRC and reporting. 

Skill Set: Cyber security Engineers have a background in application architecture, development and secure coding practices. Also, candidates are familiar with multiple technologies such as Java, Python, Ruby, AWS, Terraform, Ansible, etc. 

Compensation: $80,000-$130,000

Companies Hiring For this Role: Lockheed Martin, Wells Fargo, AT&T

Number of Job Postings in US: 159,166

While those are the hottest emerging roles, they certainly aren’t the only roles emerging. Machine Learning Engineers, AI Lawyer, Cyber Risk Resilience Managers, Cloud Vendor Managers, Data Scientists, Solutions Architects,  and Quantum Programmers, just to name a few, are all up and coming positions to keep an eye on if you want to stay relevant in the tech sphere!