Three jobs share the title. Here’s the one AirOps is building, what it ships, and whether you should hire for it.
A content engineer is a marketer who builds the systems that research, brief, draft, and refresh content, with a person approving the output. AirOps, an AI content platform, popularized the title in 2025 and certifies it. AirOps posted $130,000 to $170,000 for its own content engineer. GrowthPair places this builder as a full-time Marketing Engineer for about $4,000 a month, all-in.
AirOps sells software for content and AI search. Josh Spilker, its head of search marketing, published "The Rise of the 10x Content Engineer" on February 8, 2025. His version of the job blends content strategy, writing, SEO, prompt engineering, and a product manager’s habits. The person builds the system, and AI handles the repeated steps like research, metadata, and first drafts.
AirOps then built the company around the term. In November 2025, it closed a $40 million Series B led by Greylock and relaunched as what it calls a content engineering platform. It runs live training cohorts, which started in spring 2025, and says hundreds of operators have graduated. In February 2026, AirOps reported more than 200 live attendees for its January cohort.
AirOps doesn’t claim to own the idea. Its official company information page calls content engineer an emerging role across the industry. The phrase is older, too: Mark Baker called himself a content engineer on his blog in November 2013, meaning someone who applies engineering to how content gets created, including content that software generates and assembles. Ahrefs published its own guide to content engineering on May 19, 2026 and doesn’t credit anyone with the term. AirOps popularized the title, much as Profound did with marketing engineer when it launched that role on April 8, 2026.
Search for "content engineer" and you’ll find three different jobs. Know which one you mean before you post a role.
| AI content systems | Structured content | Technical content | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who uses it | AirOps, its customers, and AI search teams | Large companies with huge content libraries | Coding test companies like HackerRank |
| What they do | Build workflows that research, brief, draft, refresh, and publish content, with human review | Design taxonomies and metadata so content stays consistent across channels, products, and languages | Write code and technical material, like coding interview questions |
| Example | AirOps’ own Content Engineer, SEO Strategist post | Ahrefs cites Dell’s support docs and IKEA’s product information | HackerRank’s Technical Content Engineer Intern post asked for code and interview questions for engineers |
| Background | Content, SEO, or content operations | Taxonomy and metadata work | Coding |
This page is about the first one. The second is older and still fills search results. The third shares two words and nothing else.
Ahrefs read 20 U.S. job descriptions for "content engineer" and "AI content engineer." Building an AI-assisted content pipeline was the defining duty in 85% of them. 70% asked for SEO, AEO, or GEO work, and 65% asked for prompt engineering.
AirOps’ own examples from its customers show what that looks like in practice:
AirOps’ own job post set the bar. It asked for 5+ years in SEO execution, technical SEO, or content operations, plus tools like Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, Search Console, GA4, Zapier, Make, and Clay. It measured the role on rankings, organic traffic, AEO citations, and how widely the team used the workflows. AirOps’ glossary says coding isn’t required.
The work shows up under other titles too. Chime’s AEO Content Strategist post, from October 2026, asks the hire to manage the AirOps relationship and automate drafting through CMS publishing.
These three overlap. The cleanest split is what the person builds and for whom.
| Content engineer | Marketing engineer | SEO marketer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the title came from | AirOps, popularized in 2025 | Profound, launched April 8, 2026 | A standard marketing title |
| What they build | Content systems: briefs, drafts, refreshes, internal links, publishing | Pages, lead magnets, AI agents, and automations across marketing | Search strategy, technical fixes, and content briefs |
| Main tools | AirOps, plus SEO and automation tools | Claude, Cursor, Lovable, n8n, Zapier | Ahrefs or Semrush, Search Console, GA4 |
| Posted U.S. pay we verified | $130,000 to $170,000 (AirOps, closed) | $135,000 to $200,000 (Profound) | $60,414 to $83,114 average (Payscale, Indeed) |
| Hire one when | You publish at volume and want the production line automated | You want builders shipping tools and automations across marketing | You need rankings and AI citations owned end to end |
A content engineer is a marketing engineer pointed at content. If content is the bottleneck, the titles describe the same hire. For the wider family of new titles, see new AI marketing job titles. For the builder title we place, see what a marketing engineer is.
AirOps University offers two Content Engineering certifications. Both are graded projects, and both ask for a link to a playbook built in an AirOps workspace.
| Certification | What you submit | How it’s graded |
|---|---|---|
| AEO Analyst | A structured report on a brand’s AI visibility: current state, gaps, and a ranked recommendation, plus a playbook link from an AirOps workspace | Analytical rigor 30%, strategic thinking 30%, technical accuracy 25%, communication 15% |
| Systems Builder | An 8 to 12-minute screen-share video, a live AirOps playbook pair, and a written report | Build quality 30%, design rationale 30%, problem clarity 20%, business connection 20% |
AirOps’ certification pages don’t list a price, a pass rate, or how many people hold either one.
As a buyer, it tells you the person can build and explain a working system inside AirOps. It doesn’t tell you whether they can do the same in your stack, or pick the right problem on your team. Treat it as a plus. Don’t make it a requirement unless your team runs on AirOps, and even then, ask to see the playbook they submitted.
Our take: hire for the work and skip the title fight. The title is new and closely tied to one vendor, so a post built around it may mostly reach AirOps users. Write the job around the content system you want built, and you’ll reach builders who’ve done it in n8n, Make, Claude, or AirOps.
There isn’t enough pay data yet for a median. The one posted band we could verify is AirOps’ own: $130,000 to $170,000 plus equity for a Content Engineer, SEO Strategist, now closed. Add benefits, which were 30.0% of total compensation for U.S. private-industry workers in June 2026 per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and that’s about $15,500 to $20,200 a month. We divide base salary by 0.70, then by 12.
That’s close to the marketing engineer band. Profound posts $135,000 to $200,000 for its own Marketing Engineer.
We don’t place by the content engineer title. We place Marketing Engineers, full-time AI and no-code builders who sit inside your marketing team and build content workflows, pages, and automations. Each one earns three certifications in their first 30 days: GrowthPair University, Profound Marketing Engineering, and Profound AEO. They work for one client, in your time zone, for about $4,000 a month, all-in. That covers their pay, payroll, benefits, and HR. Every candidate passes our five-step vetting, and about 1.5% of applicants are accepted. If the job is mostly search strategy, an SEO Marketer may fit better, and our guide to hiring an SEO/AEO specialist covers that hire.
When we’re the wrong call: if your team runs on AirOps and you want someone certified in it on day one, look in AirOps’ own community. AirOps isn’t one of the 16 tools we vet Marketing Engineers on, so ask about it in your interview.
They build the systems that produce content: workflows that research, brief, draft, refresh, and publish, with a person approving the output. Ahrefs found that building an AI-assisted content pipeline was the defining duty in 85% of 20 U.S. job descriptions.
Nobody has a clear claim. AirOps popularized the current meaning through Josh Spilker’s February 2025 post, "The Rise of the 10x Content Engineer." The phrase is older: Mark Baker used it on his blog in 2013 for someone who applies engineering to how content gets created.
Only if your team runs on AirOps. Both certifications are graded projects built inside an AirOps workspace, so they prove skill in that tool. AirOps’ pages don’t list a price, a pass rate, or how many people hold them.
No. AirOps’ glossary says coding isn’t required. Its own job post asked for SEO and content operations experience plus automation tools like Zapier, Make, and Clay.
AirOps posted $130,000 to $170,000 plus equity for its own role, which is about $15,500 to $20,200 a month with benefits. A full-time Marketing Engineer through GrowthPair, who builds the same kind of content workflows, costs about $4,000 a month, all-in.
A content engineer builds content production systems. A marketing engineer builds across marketing: pages, lead magnets, AI agents, and automations. If content is your bottleneck, they’re the same hire.
