The AI Engineer Onramp: From Vibes to AI-Assisted Development with Cursor 2.0
"Dr. Greg" Loughnane, Ph.D.
Co-Founder & CEO @ AI Makerspace
Kat "KatGPT" Gawthorpe, Ph.D.
Data Scientist @ Fannie Mae
This course is popular
12 people enrolled last week.
Build 🏗️, ship 🚢, and share 🚀 end-to-end LLM applications with Cursor
At AI Makerspace, we are opinionated backend developers. We believe that vibe coding the frontend is OK, but it's not likely to be the bottleneck in production.
On the backend, it's a different story. if you're just doing a simple FastAPI application, fine. But what happens when you need to connect databases, use custom models, do advanced retrieval to augment generations, or build multi-agent systems that have to manage context as well as short and long-term memory?
Why we built this course
After working with >350 serious AI engineering students since January 2024 in The AI Engineering Bootcamp, we saw that many students could not complete end-to-end challenges even when the backends were completed in class!
What is the procedure for vibe coding frontends once you have the backend sorted out?
How should we leverage the Python ecosystem and branch development to build in an end-to-end way?
And how can we leverage AI-assist to help us, not to get us into trouble?
We all need to embrace AI-assist.
The onramp is here to show you how.
What you’ll learn
Build 🏗️, ship 🚢, and share 🚀 an end-to-end LLM application with AI-assisted development, vibe-coding, vibe-checking, and leading tools.
Set up your workstation like a professional AI Engineer, including your own specific rules, docs, package specifications, and git workflows.
Learn about all of the latest features in Cursor 2.0
Learn where the vibes go bad when vibe coding front ends, back ends, and connecting them!
Learn to debug AI-generated code effectively.
Ensure you can roll back changes when you need to.
Master Git workflows using best-practice branch development, and start seeing those commits!
Understand how front-end, back-end, and LLM components interact.
Learn simple vibe checking and how to add features to your LLM applications.
Who this course is for
Aspiring AI Engineers who do not yet code every day, but know they want to code every day.
Aspiring AI Engineering Leaders who lead coders and want skin in the game on building, evaluating, and deploying LLM applications.
Potential Aspiring AI Engineers who do not yet code every day, but think they might want to code every day.
Prerequisites
Preliminary understanding of Python, IDE's, CLI programming, and Git
To make the most out of the course, you will want to set up your AI-assisted Interactive Development Development Environment before Day 1.
(Recommended) Tooling Setup!
Set up Google Colab, GitHub, OpenAI API key, Cursor, Docker, Render, and (Windows Only) WSL2 to make the most out of the first live session!
What's included
Live sessions
Learn directly from "Dr. Greg" Loughnane, Ph.D. & Kat "KatGPT" Gawthorpe, Ph.D. in a real-time, interactive format.
Lifetime access
Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.
Community of peers
Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.
Certificate of completion
Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.
Maven Guarantee
This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.
Syllabus
Week 1
Live Session 1: 🎧 LLM APIs & AI-Assisted Development
Week 2
Live Session 2: 🖼️ Front End UI Development & Deployment of LLM Applications
Free lesson
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Vibe Coding and AI-Assisted Development with Cursor
Go beyond vibe coding to AI-Assisted development
Get your AI-assisted interactive development environment set up like a real AI Engineer
Learn the hard parts no one talks about
From version control with GitHub, to command line programming, to package and environment management, start here.
Spoiler: It's easier now with AI-Assist
While git is still the same, actually using version control is easier than ever. Just like writing code in general!
Schedule
Live sessions
2-5 hrs / week
We typically have 10+ hours per week of office hours that you can attend (1 for each instructor and peer supporter!)
Weekly Programming Projects
1-3 hrs / week
Each class period, we will get hands-on with Python coding homework!
Success stories
- "The onramp was really helpful" ~ The AI Engineering Bootcamp, Cohort 7 Student
Heemeng (Chris) Foo
Director of Quality Assurance / Head of Quality - "GitHub lets address it in the onramp most of the office hours were taken up with GitHub for the first 3 weeks." ~ The AI Engineering Bootcamp, Cohort 7 Student
Adrian V
Software Developer @ Alchemy Labs
📅 Detailed Course Schedule & Curriculum
Get all the details about tools we'll use and relevant papers for each project assignment, as well as our thoughts on who the ideal student is for this course, what success looks like, and the only prerequisites you'll need.