Ivy League degree not needed: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri reveals two qualities required for world-class AI engineers

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri has spoken about the top qualities that are needed for top AI engineers. Instead of having to obtain the highest form of education, the top AI engineers must have two things in common: scrappiness and quick learning ability. His remarks come at a time when entry-level job seekers stack on higher degrees to shield against the threat of AI.

However, the CEO at one of the biggest social media companies thinks differently: most AI engineers may not even need a prestigious degree to be seen as top talent. According to Adam Mosseri, the most sought-after AI engineers may not require a prestigious Ivy League degree to be considered top talent, reports Fortune.

Instagram CEO on top AI talent

At a time when AI talent is in high demand, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri highlighted scrappiness and rapid learning as key traits for top AI engineers. Traditional degrees are less important than hands-on experience. “It’s people who are very quick learners who actively experiment,” Mosseri said on an episode of the Good Guys podcast hosted by Josh Peck and Ben Soffer. Mosseri added that this new wave of AI talent looks very different from the traditional Silicon Valley engineer.


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“It’s a much more scrappy type of engineer or researcher really than what most of the Valley has historically hired, which are much more like, ‘This is the right way to build a database that serves this many millions of people over this many data centers where there’s a right way to do it, where you could write a PhD about it.’”

“This is not that. There are PhDs about the research, for sure, who work in the research area, but the people who are doing the applied stuff—it’s a small group of people,” he added.

Adam Mosseri said one of the main reasons why salaries have become inflated for seeking out the best AI talent is because it’s not something you could learn in school, because it’s so new. “A lot of them are in their 20s,” he said. “It’s a bunch of techniques and technologies that are evolving very quickly,” he said.

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A white-hot talent war

The competition for AI talent has intensified sharply in 2025 across the Silicon Valley. Multiple tech giants like Meta reportedly offered pay packages to the tune of $100 million to recruit OpenAI employees. While Mosseri warned that such figures are often exaggerated, he confirmed that salaries remain substantial due to the scarcity of engineers capable of working on cutting-edge AI models.

“There’s an immense amount of competition to hire that talent, which is what’s driving up the cost of hiring these people,” he said. “Some of these techniques are decades old, but a lot of it is just brand-new and novel, and everyone is learning on the fly.”

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Vibe-coding and hands-on advantage

The emergence of vibe-coding, using AI to generate and refine software through natural language prompts, is another trend transforming the pathway for young coders. Alexandr Wang, the 28-year-old billionaire founder of Scale AI who is now leading superintelligence efforts at Meta, says “vibe-coding,” or using AI to generate and refine software code through natural language prompts, has massive potential for young coders. In his view, time spent hands-on with AI tools now could lead to a career-defining advantage later.

“When personal computers first came about, the people who spent the most time with it and grew up with it had this immense advantage in the future economy—like the Bill Gateses, even the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world,” the Gen Z cofounder said on the TBPN podcast. “I think that moment is happening right now.”