Understanding the rise of tech-bro language in marketing Have you ever heard of an "IRL engineer" or an "Inbound engineer"?

«Roles in the marketing sector are being renamed so that men can take them on too». This is the claim made by content creator Miranda Shanahan, a communications and branding expert, who in a video posted on TikTok — which went viral — discussed a trend that, she argues, is spreading across tech companies. According to Shanahan, some firms are progressively replacing job titles traditionally associated with marketing with professional titles that draw more heavily on technical and engineering language. In this context, for example, an "events marketing manager" would become an "IRL engineer" (IRL stands for In Real Life, referring to someone who designs in-person meeting opportunities with clients and partners), while someone handling content and copywriting would be called an "Inbound engineer" — despite their respective duties being essentially the same.

Shanahan wrote about the issue in the well-known American magazine Time, and other major media outlets around the world — including the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times — have picked up the story. One of the cases most frequently cited by Shanahan is that of an artificial intelligence startup operating in the marketing space, which was looking for an "IRL engineer" to handle, among other things, the scheduling of client dinners: essentially, someone responsible for event planning.

Why are tech companies changing the names of marketing roles?

For Shanahan, this topic has come back into the spotlight partly in the wake of the rise of artificial intelligence. While until recently marketing seemed to be one of the professions most exposed to the risk of automation, a different perspective is now emerging, according to the content creator. By making software development more accessible, AI has increased the importance of soft skills such as creativity, so-called design thinking, and the ability to identify original solutions. «Having taste has become a new essential skill», said, for instance, Greg Brockman, co-founder of OpenAI.

Marketing has long been considered a predominantly female field, and women's presence in this area is historically significant. Engineering, by contrast, continues to be associated primarily with men. Yet the fact that the same skill set can appear more authoritative or qualified simply by changing its title reveals just how strongly the job market — especially in the United States, and particularly in Silicon Valley — is still shaped by gender stereotypes. If artificial intelligence does not appear likely to diminish the importance of marketing, the real risk is rather that the skills typical of this field will be recognised and valued primarily when they are given a technical label and a traditionally masculine image.

Why is marketing more important than ever for AI companies?

In Silicon Valley, and by extension across much of the Western tech industry, those who design and develop products are generally considered more important than those who promote them. The rise of artificial intelligence, however, is helping to challenge this assumption: according to industry insiders, in an increasingly crowded market of similar AI products, the ability to make one's service stand out and communicate it effectively — including and especially through creative and marketing skills — is becoming essential. And yet, in this very same context, the tech sector still seems to struggle to recognise marketing for what it is, preferring instead to assign it technical labels and a vocabulary closer to its own culture.

This shift is no coincidence — it comes at a moment of uncertainty for the artificial intelligence sector. After years of enthusiasm and enormous investment, fears remain that AI could turn out to be a bubble. Many companies are still struggling to identify sustainable business models: developing and managing these products and services entails high costs, against proportionally limited revenues. It comes as no surprise, then, that some companies are willing to offer very high salaries to professionals capable of making AI firms stand out and effectively communicating their value.