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THE AI PULSE
AI Agents Just Crossed 600 Job Mentions. Here's What That Means for Your Career.
Week of February 11, 2026 · 1,969 active roles · 80.5% salary disclosure · Issue #2
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Active AI Roles
1,969
▲ +122 vs last week
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Median Salary
$258K
─ flat vs last week
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This Week's Signal
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AI Agents crossed 600 mentions for the first time. Six months ago, that number was under 200. Now it's in nearly a third of all AI roles.
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The job count is healthy at 1,969 active roles, up 122 from last week. The skills data is more interesting.
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Skills in Demand
| Skill |
Mentions |
vs Last |
| RAG RISING |
1,466 (74.5%) |
▲ +2.1% |
| Python |
1,281 (65.1%) |
─ flat |
| AWS |
1,123 (57.0%) |
─ flat |
| Rust RISING |
844 (42.9%) |
▲ +3.4% |
| AI Agents RISING |
622 (31.6%) |
▲ +8.7% |
| Azure |
524 (26.6%) |
─ flat |
| Prompt Eng. FALLING |
380 (19.3%) |
▼ -1.2% |
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The Agent Shift
Six months ago, employers wanted people who could prompt models. Now they want people who can build systems where models take actions autonomously.
LangChain, AutoGen, CrewAI — all production-ready now, all experimental six months ago. The job descriptions caught up, citing specific agent applications: automated research, code review pipelines, customer support triage, data extraction workflows.
The economics shifted too. An agent that completes a task has clearer business value than one that generates text for a human to review. Easier to justify headcount.
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The gap between Prompt Engineer ($155K median) and AI Agent Developer ($300K median) is $145K.
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Where does that leave prompt engineering as a standalone skill? Down 1.2% this week while agents grew 8.7%. The same way "webmaster" became a set of skills distributed across engineering and marketing roles, prompt engineering is merging into AI engineering, product, and ops.
Six months from now, "can you build an agent?" will be a standard interview question for senior AI roles. The hiring data says yes.
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Skills to Watch
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Rising
● AI Agents (+8.7%) — Fastest mover this week
● Rust (+3.4%) — Performance-critical AI infrastructure
● RAG (+2.1%) — Still dominant, still growing
Falling
● Prompt Engineering (-1.2%) — Being absorbed into broader roles
● TensorFlow (-0.8%) — PyTorch keeps winning the framework war
New Entrant
● CrewAI — First week in 50+ job descriptions. Multi-agent orchestration. Watch this one.
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Salary Snapshot
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AI Agent Developer tops the chart at $300K median. Only 10 jobs. A year ago this role barely existed. Scarcity premium.
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| Role |
Median |
Roles |
| AI Agent Developer |
$300,000 |
10 |
| AI/ML Engineer |
$258,000 |
482 |
| Research Scientist |
$240,000 |
98 |
| Data Scientist |
$205,000 |
327 |
| Prompt Engineer |
$155,000 |
145 |
| Highest Posted This Week |
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Performance Engineer 6
@
Netflix
— $230K-$960K
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Software Engineer 5 - Ads Finance
@
Netflix
— $100K-$720K
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Senior AI Research Scientist
@
Anthropic
— $380K-$450K
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The Remote Salary Gap
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Onsite
$223K
76% of roles
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Remote
$185K
24% of roles (468)
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17% less for remote. That's ~$38K/year in base salary.
The highest-paying AI roles are at companies that require onsite: Netflix, Anthropic's research team, trading firms. $300K+ and requiring you in the building. Remote roles skew toward smaller companies, agencies, and startups with tighter budgets.
The market is pricing remote flexibility at about $38K/year in AI roles.
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AI in Marketing
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AI penetration in Marketing: 18% ▲ from 16% last month
What Marketing + AI Roles Want (354 roles analyzed)
● AI-powered analytics (67%)
● Content generation tools (54%)
● Marketing automation + AI (48%)
● Customer segmentation (31%)
● RAG for research (19%)
The Salary Premium
Marketing Director: $145K → $185K with AI = +$40K
Growth Marketing Mgr: $125K → $155K with AI = +$30K
Content Marketing Mgr: $95K → $118K with AI = +$23K
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The Bottom Line
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● AI Agents crossed 600 job mentions — fastest-growing skill at +8.7% week-over-week
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● Remote AI roles pay 17% less — $185K vs $223K median
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● AI Agent Developer is the highest-paid role — $300K median, only 10 jobs
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● Marketing AI penetration hit 18% — highest non-technical function, $23K-$40K salary premium
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● Prompt Engineering is flattening — down 1.2%, being absorbed into broader roles
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