A new job title appeared on my LinkedIn feed 47 times last month: "AI Trust Engineer."

This role sits at the intersection of AI engineering, security, ethics, and user experience. The AI Trust Engineer ensures that AI systems are trustworthy enough for users to rely on.

What they do: design explainability features users can actually understand. Build confidence scoring systems. Implement human-in-the-loop workflows for high-stakes decisions. Create user-facing transparency about how AI makes decisions. Design graceful degradation when AI fails.

Why it's emerging now: as AI moves from optional features to core decision-making, trust becomes a product requirement, not a nice-to-have. Users won't use an AI system that feels like a black box for important decisions.

The skill set is unusual: ML engineering (understand how models work). UX design thinking (present AI decisions in trustworthy ways). Psychology (understand how humans form trust with technology). Ethics (reason about fairness and accountability).

Salary range: $140K-$260K. Growing fast because the role is new and the talent pool is small.

Companies hiring: banks, healthcare providers, government contractors, and any company where AI decisions have significant consequences for people.

This is a genuinely new discipline. Not repackaged ML engineering. Not repackaged UX design. Something new at their intersection.

If you care about both building AI AND making it trustworthy — this might be your ideal role.