AI is a communication skill. It's not about being technical, it's about communicating. If you can speak, you can be great at this.
What does a good prompt look like?
At a masterclass I built a chart live by saying exactly what I wanted: the first chart is a bar chart, I want the numbers on the y-axis and the industries on the x-axis. That's plain English, and it worked because it was specific.
A structure that helps: say who Claude is in this job (role), what to do (task), what it needs to know (context), what it should never do (constraints) and what the finished piece looks like (output).
Do I need to write prompts from scratch every time?
No, and you shouldn't. Once a prompt works, save it as a skill so you never type it again. A skill is a prompt that's earned a permanent spot.
Is prompt engineering a job?
For some companies. For a small business it's a skill you, or the one person holding it all together, can pick up in a few weeks of practice.