Years of experience is the wrong question for AI engineers.

We are hiring AI engineers right now.Almost Every one shows 3+ years of AI experience.

Now look at the calendar.

ChatGPT launched in November 2022.

LangChain, the top skill LinkedIn lists for AI engineers, was released in October 2022.

The modern AI stack is barely three years old.

LinkedIn's own Jobs on the Rise data shows where AI engineers come from: software engineer, data scientist, full stack engineer.

So the experience is real. The title is often borrowed.

That is what happens when a market screens by years. Candidates learn to rename their past to match the filter.

In a field this young, years tell you very little.

What you shipped tells you everything.

Did it go to production? Did real users touch it? What broke, and who fixed it?

A candidate with 18 months of real production work can outbuild someone with a renamed 5 year resume.

The filter that counts years misses that person first.

If you are hiring AI engineers today, what do you screen for instead of years?

Krishna Lakamsani | Serial Entrepreneur | Investor | I write at the intersection of AI, capital, and the future of the human job market,
sharing my life lessons, reflections, and honest takes from the founder-investor's seat.