Should you hire a prompt engineer?

Remember when 'social media manager' sounded exotic? The AI prompt engineer is the latest shiny new title that is likely to feel ubiquitous within a few months. Born in early 2023 alongside the Gen AI boom, this role exists for one reason: to persuade large‑language models (LLMs) and image generators to crank out gold instead of garbage. Think of them as creative technologists who dabble in linguistics, product design, and a dash of data science.

Or as Lindsay Hong of SmartAssets evocatively put it, writing for The Drum: “[P]rompt engineers need to combine the linguistic creativity and think-on-your-feet chops of a stand-up comedian; the gift of gab of a content marketer; and the savviness of a data scientist capable of having full-length conversations with bots and manipulating them to produce the precise outcome that they want.”

What a prompt engineer actually does

A prompt engineer kicks off their morning a bit like an experimental chef, experimenting with phrasing, structure, and model settings until the AI isn’t running half-baked. They might be focused on translating a creative brief for a new client into a series of prompts for ChatGPT, Midjourney, and whatever new models have surfaced that month. 

By mid‑day they’re combing through the results, noting patterns (“Why does the model insist on returning to these annoying pirate metaphors?”), coaxing better answers with gentle nudges, and logging every breakthrough in a living playbook that colleagues can draw from.

In the afternoon they might put on their compliance hat, running outputs past legal to catch bias or IP slip‑ups to avoid a future headache. They’re also scoring outputs against brand voice and accuracy. 

Before EOD, they stitch together mini‑automations—tiny scripts and tool integrations that let campaigns run on autopilot while the rest of the team heads home. It’s a fast, iterative dance: prompt, test, refine, repeat until the team is squeezing the absolute most out of available GenAI tools.

How a prompt engineer’s colleagues benefit

A prompt engineer’s wins show up everywhere. Think of their output as a set of cheat codes that every other team can use to accelerate their own work.

• A lasting resource. The prompt library they curate is a proprietary cookbook. A strategist who needs a product‑launch tagline can copy‑paste a proven prompt template, tweak the brand name, and watch the AI spit options that already nail tone, length, and legal guidelines—no cold starts, no guesswork.
  
  
• Pre‑wired guardrails. Compliance, brand voice, regional spelling quirks—those rules get baked right into the prompts and the small automations the engineer sets up. Designers, copywriters, even interns can fire off requests without accidentally breaking the rules.
  
  
• Shared performance metrics. Because the engineer scores and tags outputs, every team inherits a feedback loop. Over time, the AI gets sharper, the prompt playbook gets smarter, and everyone learns what “good” looks like.

The real upside is that great prompting becomes ambient. Teams focus on ideas and execution while the semi-invisible efforts of the prompt engineer create a scaffolding to leverage AI efficiently and safely. 

Why bother when ChatGPT is “so easy”?

Off‑the‑shelf tools look friendly until you ask for something nuanced or very complex. Anyone can create AI slop, but true prompt engineering is a combination of art and science.

What’s more, lackluster prompting wastes compute credits, plus your team’s time. A dedicated prompt engineer helps slash editing cycles (since the model is given crystal-clear instructions to begin with), and also safeguards your brand identity and voice, since things like tone, formatting, and compliance considerations are built into the prompts themselves.

What happens when superior prompting is built into martech tools?

Purpose‑built tools are quietly stuffing expert prompting under the hood—meaning anyone can drive. This is one of the selling points of martech tools like those from The Marketing Cloud, which eliminate much of the AI learning curve and empower colleagues across disciplines to take advantage of

In other words, the right software can potentially fill the role of a prompt engineer. These platforms distill thousands of expert prompts into simple toggles, sliders, or “draft” buttons. Instead of hiring someone to perfect the phrasing, you license software that’s already done it.

Deciding what’s right for your brand or agency

This doesn’t have to be a binary decision between martech tools and a human prompt engineer. Depending on what you need to accomplish, one option might be preferable—or you could combine the right tools with a more junior, or part-time, engineer.

• Complex outputs. If you’re dealing with regulated copy (say, for the insurance or pharmaceutical industry), or projects that require multilingual nuance, a prompt engineer will likely prove valuable.

• Volume & speed. If your brand is primarily trying to produce hundreds of assets every week for cross-channel campaigns, martech tools that simplify this scaling process could be more than sufficient.

• Budgets. Maybe you’re sitting on an endless pile of cash. (If so, please share your secrets.) But if not, consider the prompt engineer’s six-figure salary VS. the SaaS fees you’d pay for martech tools like those from The Marketing Cloud. The math often favors the latter option, especially if these applications can benefit multiple teams.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter

Prompt engineers aren’t a fad, any more than AI itself is. For some brands and agencies, hiring one is proof of a serious commitment to this technology for the long term. 

For others, the right martech tools can do the job without adding headcount. Platforms like The Marketing Cloud make expert prompting feel invisible, letting creatives, strategists, and media buyers do the fun stuff instead of sweating prompt intricacies.

So ask yourself: Do we need a full‑time expert, or can smarter tools let every employee be their own prompt engineer?