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How to Become an AI Engineer from a Fullstack Background - Reid Mayo
Takeaway
A focused 7-section curriculum (LLM overview → prompting → OpenAI → LangChain → evals → fine-tuning → advanced) plus Socratic ChatGPT tutoring lets full-stack engineers reach professional AI engineering quickly.
Summary
- 'Shift left' syllabus for full-stack engineers with zero AI background, designed as an AI engineering bootcamp; inspired by swyx's 'The Rise of the AI Engineer'
- Section roadmap: 1) Cohere LLM Module 1 overview, 2) prompt engineering (Elvis Saravia + LearnPrompting), 3) OpenAI docs/cookbook, 4) LangChain (read Python + JS docs, study source)
- Section 5 covers evals as the AI analog of software tests using OpenAI's eval framework; Section 6 walks through OpenAI fine-tuning then matching it with a cheaper open-source Llama-2 (citing OpenPipe's $19-vs-$244K cost study)
- Pedagogy: use ChatGPT Socratically as a private tutor since many concepts predate the Jan 2022 knowledge cutoff; build from fundamentals via composition
- Advanced section follows after deploying a real AI engineering project; recommends Yannic Kilcher / The Art of Learning techniques
ai-engineeringsyllabuslearning
Original description
Swyx’s watershed essay “The Rise of the AI Engineer” revealed the need for evolving your talents to seize the opportunities of the future; but how can you rapidly learn a novel discipline mired in lack of structure, fluff, & clickbait? What if there was a single syllabus that “shifted you left” from Fullstack Engineer to AI Engineer upon completion? In this talk, we’ll provide and review a syllabus that walks you step-by-step through a defined process (with practical & actionable references/tutorials) that teaches you the comprehensive best-practice skills, knowledge, and foundations required for professional AI Engineering. Topics include: Generative AI Fundamentals, Prompt Engineering, Retrieval Augmented Generation, Agents & Functions, Fine-tuning AI Models, Open Source AI Model Repositories & Communities, AI Development & Production/Monitoring Tooling, Required Libraries/Platforms/Tools to be aware of, and more. Recorded & streamed live for the AI Engineer Summit 2023. See the full schedule of talks at https://ai.engineer/summit/schedule & join us at the AI Engineer World's Fair in 2024! Get your tickets today at https://ai.engineer/worlds-fair About Reid 15 years building as a full-stack engineer, serial entrepreneur over the same time period. As an engineer I've built systems that powered several of the highest traffic web properties in the US & led teams who built core tech for high-growth startups, unicorns, $10B+ enterprises. As an entrepreneur I built a UGC tech product (acquired by Orchard) a lifetime ago, and more recently built a $5MM/year software engineering firm. Living in Austin, TX, I’m friendly & authentically respectful. I'm engaged by technology because it's impossible to learn it all -- I’m a perennial student! Excited to learn from you!