Suddenly have a ton of leverage at work. Like everyone else, our company cut spending and laid off half of my backend team. At the same time, we pivoted to make LLMs and generative AI the core product of the company (yes, there's a hype bubble). I'm the only person in the company of 400 or so that is the SME on generative AI, and by a long shot.
I'm designing our entire AI strategy and implementing all of our features, soup to nuts, the whole enchilada: vector databases, prompt engineering/evaluation, RHLF feedback collection, chatbots, conversation state, proprietary content recommendation, agents, etc. VPs are reportedly very pleased with my performance.
I typically just keep my head down, but find myself suddenly a very high-leverage employee.
My goals are to soak up all of the experience I can shipping this stuff, but to take advantage of the moment and earn as much money as possible.
What are some different ways to play this situation?
Personally though I see the opportunity to do the work and define your own career within the company as the biggest opportunity here. If you like what they're doing, figure out what you want in terms of role and responsibility and ask for it. Tell them you want to be the chief of this or the director of that - not just the title but the responsibility too. If they say no, do the work anyway. When they see your level of ability and commitment they'll probably start to worry that you'll seek the role you want elsewhere, and so they'll give it to you.