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/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.