u/Apprehensive-Lie4231

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for some career advice.

I've spent the last 4 years at a well-known AI research organization in India working on building their LLM. I started as an annotator at ₹35k/month, worked my way up through audio verification, data tasks, prompt writing - the whole thing. On paper it sounds decent but in reality, I'm 29 and barely making ₹50k per month.

Where I'm at -

My core expertise is in language, specifically prompt writing and data annotation for LLMs. No coding background whatsoever.

This year I'm planning to start learning to code, build some small projects, and figure out how to integrate apps and tools. The idea is to combine my language/AI domain knowledge with actual technical skills so I can compete for better-paying roles.

My questions for this community:

Is this a realistic pivot or am I overestimating how far coding skills will take me?

What should my actual career trajectory look like given my background? Is prompt engineer and actual role that I can work towards?

Has anyone else made a similar transition from language/annotation work into a more technical AI role?

I know I need to level up for my career advancement . I just want to make sure I'm going in the right direction.

Additionally, if anyone from India would be kind enough to chat with me about this, I’d be genuinely grateful.

Thank You.

Request the mods to kindly approve this post.

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for some career advice.

I've spent the last 4 years at a well-known research organization in India working on building their LLM. I started as an annotator at ₹35k/month, worked my way up through audio verification, data tasks, prompt writing - the whole thing. On paper it sounds decent but in reality, I'm barely making ₹50k per month.

Where I'm at -

My core expertise is in language, specifically prompt writing and data annotation for LLMs. No coding background whatsoever.

This year I'm planning to start learning to code, build some small projects, and figure out how to integrate apps and tools. The idea is to combine my language/AI domain knowledge with actual technical skills so I can compete for better-paying roles.

My questions for this community:

Is this a realistic pivot or am I overestimating how far coding skills will take me?

What should my actual career trajectory look like given my background? Is prompt engineer and actual role that I can work towards?

Has anyone else made a similar transition from language/annotation work into a more technical role?

I know I need to level up for my career advancement . I just want to make sure I'm going in the right direction.

Any advice appreciated.