Top 5 Skills to Look for in an AI Engineer
Introduction
So, you’re ready to hire an AI engineer. Great! But let’s be honest between the resumes packed with buzzwords and the LinkedIn messages that scream “AI wizard,” how do you actually know who’s the real deal?
Hiring AI talent isn’t just about finding someone who knows Python or says “neural networks” with confidence. There are specific key skills to look for in an AI engineer that separate the code poets from the code pretenders. Let’s break them down in plain English minus the jargon overload.
1. Strong Programming Foundations
Yes, Python is king in AI land but it’s not the only language that matters.
A solid AI engineer should be fluent in:
- Python: For libraries like TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn
- SQL: For querying datasets (because what’s AI without data?)
- C++ or Java: For performance-heavy models or backend systems
But it’s not just about knowing these languages, it’s about using them efficiently and cleanly.
💡 Pro tip for hiring: Ask to see their GitHub or coding samples. Bonus points if they’ve contributed to open-source AI projects.
Why it matters: AI is built on code. Clean, maintainable code makes your models easier to scale and debug later.
2. Mastery in Machine Learning and Deep Learning
This is the bread and butter. Your AI hire should understand:
- Supervised vs unsupervised learning
- Model training, evaluation, and tuning
- Deep learning architectures like CNNs and RNNs
- Transfer learning and reinforcement learning
They should also have hands-on experience with:
- Scikit-learn, XGBoost, Keras, PyTorch, or TensorFlow
Why it matters: It’s one thing to understand the theory behind decision trees. It’s another to actually train, deploy, and monitor a model that predicts customer churn or detects fraud.
3. Data Wrangling Like a Pro
No data scientist escapes the trenches of data cleaning. AI engineers need to be part-detective, part-surgeon when it comes to datasets.
They should know how to:
- Handle missing values
- Normalize, encode, and transform data
- Work with structured and unstructured data (think text, images, audio)
- Create efficient pipelines for preprocessing
Fun fact: Most AI projects fail not because of the models but because of bad data handling.
Why it matters: Garbage in, garbage out. You don’t want a genius model trained on a messy spreadsheet.
4. Deployment Skills (Because Models Don’t Just Sit on Laptops)
A brilliant model sitting on someone’s laptop isn’t helping your business.
An AI engineer should understand:
- Model versioning and testing
- How to deploy models to production (via REST APIs, Flask, FastAPI)
- Cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud
- Docker and CI/CD pipelines for smooth rollouts
Red flag: If they’ve only ever trained models in Jupyter notebooks, you might have a research-heavy profile not a product-ready one.
Why it matters: AI isn’t just about accuracy; it’s about delivering results in the real world.
5. Communication & Problem-Solving Mindset
Surprise! The best AI engineers aren’t just great with code, they’re great at communication.
Why?
- They must explain model decisions to non-tech folks
- They need to align solutions with business needs
- They should work well in cross-functional teams (Product, Design, Marketing)
Ask yourself:
- Can they describe their past projects clearly?
- Do they ask smart questions about your use case?
Soft skills count, especially in high-growth teams where clarity = velocity.
Why it matters: You want a collaborator, not a code cave-dweller. Great AI only works when humans can understand and trust it.
Conclusion
Hiring an AI engineer shouldn’t feel like solving a math riddle. If you focus on these five key skills to look for in an AI engineer, you’ll dramatically improve your odds of building something that doesn’t just “work” but wows.
Whether you’re a startup founder building your MVP, or a tech lead scaling AI features, don’t settle for flashy resumes. Look for these practical, high-impact skills and you’ll find someone who’s more than just smart. You’ll find someone effective.
Ready to find vetted AI engineers who actually check all these boxes?
Start hiring with Loopp and connect with world-class talent today.
