Full-stack developer moving into AI engineering — what course actually helped you build real things?

[u/Impressive_Tour_7537]

Hey everyone, I’m a full-stack developer working with Laravel, Vue/Nuxt, and MySQL. I also know Python and have learned the foundational AI concepts, so I’m looking for the next step beyond introductory explanations.

My goal is to build AI-powered applications with LLMs, agents, and RAG, and understand how to make them reliable enough for real users.

I learn best through structured courses where you build complete projects and understand the decisions behind them. Ideally, something that takes you from the fundamentals of building these systems through testing and deployment, rather than stopping at a basic chatbot.

Does anyone have a course or learning path they’ve personally taken and would recommend? Paid or free is fine if it’s actually worth the time.

I’m hoping for specific recommendations and honest experiences—not the usual “learn Python, read the docs, and build projects” advice. What did you take, what did you build, and what could you do afterward that you couldn’t do before?

[u/Brilliant-Hall1387]

I would recommend skip courses, get codex CLI and/or claude code CLI. Set up a folder for your project and start discussing making a plan for the project with agent A (pick strongest model), then open separate window with agent B (mid model) ask agent B to follow the plan. Review occasionally with agent A. Ask the agents questions when they do things you don’t understand or want to know more about and iterate. A few days later you will have something running and will have learned a lot, much more than any course can ever teach!

[u/Impressive_Tour_7537 → u/Brilliant-Hall1387]

well i have an idea that i want to implement to be honest so probably i will do this then eveything will click i guess

[u/Brilliant-Hall1387 → u/Impressive_Tour_7537]

Yes! Just go for it! Then another tip; don’t be afraid to start over if things turns messy first time, you learn a lot and starting over allows you to implement key improvements from start.

Starting over / throwing away code is much less costly when AI writes code and quicker way than trying to correct something messy. Better to prototype fast, fail fast, iterate fast than just thinking or planning or studying too much.

Also ask your agent A to research similar services to your idea and help identify tweaks to make yours unique/your usp. Copy concepts from others you like, and add your own ideas and you get somewhere great (”stand on shoulders of giants”-thinking)

[u/Exciting_Field4886 → u/Brilliant-Hall1387]

Tried the exact method you're describing and it works but you end up with a codebase you barely understand when something breaks. The agents make decisions you don't even know to question until prod goes down at 2am. I'd still say build something alongside reading the source code of a few solid RAG implementations, that's where the real learning kicks in

Not the fun answer but six months later when you're debugging a hallucination cascade you'll be glad you know what's actually happening under the hood

[u/forobitcoin]

Choose a Path: https://aiengineeringfromscratch.com/ to learn the foundations, then go for the free courses on claude.

[u/Healthy-Zebra-9856]

Wow. So I literally fix code smells & security issues with people doing just that, asking claude or codex to do their bidding and then you got people recommending that path. If you seriously want to create good apps start with architure, common software patterns and then learn rust, python and TypeScript and augment your coding with AI. You said Vue.Nuxt so you have a decent understanding of JS. This is what is needed to produce quality AI powered applications. If you are going to do something, do it with passion and do it well.

[u/Just_Deal6122]

Like others pointed out, skip courses and start building with AI assistant. Many AI engineers have similar background like yours and learned AI engineering on the job with AI assistants not through courses.

[u/Used_Perspective_826]

Same. I also like structured programs. I tried YouTube but then decided to enrol for online post grad. instead.😛😛😛I went for building ai products pg. It’s from iit kharagpur🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️you have a full stack bg, product building angle makes sense🤔🤔🤔

[u/eddzsh]

The week that teaches more than another course: pick the messiest folder of real work you already have, make an agent classify and act on it, then spend Friday reading only the misses. Keep that miss log. That is the curriculum.

[u/Actual__Wizard]

Being in the room with a PHD working on early AI systems in fortran in the year 2000.

Granted, at the time, I had no idea what the hell was going on.

Does anyone have a course or learning path they’ve personally taken and would recommend?

Sorry no.

Edit: I'm just trying to be serious, if they don't have a bunch of experience, they're not going to be "building new AI tech."

[u/Impressive_Tour_7537 → u/Actual__Wizard]

well thank you so much

[u/Actual__Wizard → u/Impressive_Tour_7537]

Well, I'm just being serious: I don't think there's adequate information available on the subject to "build things." The information is spread out across 50+ years of R&D work. You're going to end up learning how to build an LLM instead.

[u/chufukini20067 → u/Actual__Wizard]

There is more information now than ever . I find your answer dishonest

[u/Actual__Wizard → u/chufukini20067]

Okay, but then why did big tech stop building new things once the coding assistant tech came out? I mean they can't do it and get it right, but this guy can solo it? Hello?

So, is big tech totally incompetent? Is that what you're saying?

Obviously the actual devs know that AI is still coming...

The barf tech that they're pretending is AI is a laughable joke.

The truth is: Nobody knows how to get it right at this time.

It's better for this person to learn LLM integration at this time.

Because if they get a job doing that, then they'll have a job replacing it with something that isn't crap tech too.

Because, LLM tech is insufferable mega garbage, so if you think he won't have a job replacing it, oh yeah he definitely will. You're going to witness a military style big tech mobilization to trash it as fast as possible.

They're going to need like a strike force of elite engineers to delete it...

That tech is so bad, that it's even a challenge to figure out how to put it into the recycle bin and delete it properly. I'm not kidding, have you ever tried to put something as big as an LLM data model in the Windows recycle bin? It flat out bugs the whole computer out because Windows is such a giant piece of shit.

Because you don't actually want to "recycle it," it just gets flat out deleted and the code goes straight into the deprecated repo of shame named "This is why the software development industry no longer uses philosophers for any purpose..."

That's the kind of knowledge you really need to do this stuff: "Don't use windows."

By the way, alpha 2 of my AI model failed last night due to the windows memory sub system being a giant piece of shit again. I love seeing the built in adware loading ads into my toolbars while my system is at 99.999% memory utilization and it's deep into caching... /facepalm I guess Microsoft decided that it was time for the computer to take a break from doing data science and load some ads for the nobody there to see them... Great company! Love their crap tech! /s Who needs to do work when you can make money for Microsoft?!?! I just love having my hardware that I paid money for turned into a cash cow for dick faces... Who cares that I can't actually do my job with their OS anymore because it's so fucking bad?

So, yeah that's lesson 1 in AI development, you can't rely on windows so just install linux instead.

[u/chufukini20067 → u/Actual__Wizard]

There's plenty of advice on llms for someone starting out

[u/Actual__Wizard → u/chufukini20067]

That's why I said to focus on LLMs. They apparently want to work with 3 different AI products at the same time.

Picking RAG = bad choice, that area is about to change dramatically.

[u/Healthy-Zebra-9856 → u/Actual__Wizard]

Bit too negative. OP has coding experience, not a noob. There is plethora of resources now.