The Context Engineer

A new role at the heart of agentic systems.

What this chapter covers

Prompt engineering was the job of 2023. Context engineering is the job of the agentic era. This chapter defines the role, its responsibilities, its overlap with data engineering, and the skills that make a great context engineer valuable to every AI team in the company.

Key takeaways

What a context engineer actually does day to day
How the role differs from data engineer, ML engineer, and AI engineer
The core skills — data modeling, semantics, evaluation, and product sense
How to grow into the role from a data engineering background
What to look for when hiring your first context engineer

Why it matters

If your company is building agents, someone is already doing this job informally. Naming it is the first step to doing it well.

Read the full chapter — unlock the book

The Context Advantage is a living guide for the agentic era. Chapters 1 – 3 are free. Everything else, plus future updates, templates, and resources, is included with the lifetime edition.

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Browse the full table of contents, or explore the four pillars — Context, Control, Cost, and Choice.