Build an AI Portfolio That Gets Hired

Hosted by Aki Wijesundara and Manu Jayawardana

Mon, Sep 28, 2026

5:30 PM UTC (30 minutes)

Virtual (Zoom)

Free to join

Invite your network

Go deeper with a course

AI Engineering Bootcamp and Certificate: Build and Ship Production AI Agents
Dr. Aki Wijesundara and Manu Jayawardana
View syllabus

What you'll learn

Choose three projects that cover the ground

Pick builds that give you evidence across retrieval, agents and evaluation.

Document a project so tradeoffs are visible

Write it up so a reviewer sees judgement rather than a completed tutorial.

Turn a project into a two-minute answer

Compress each build into a story you can tell when asked in an interview.

Why this topic matters

Certificates do very little now. What moves a hiring manager is evidence you haveshipped something that had to work, and that you can explain the tradeoffs you made.Most portfolios are tutorial follow-alongs with the serial numbers filed off, which isworse than having nothing because it signals exactly that.

You'll learn from

Aki Wijesundara

AI Advisor | Educator | Google AI Accelerator Alum

Aki Wijesundara is an AI leader with a PhD in Machine Learning and extensive experience mentoring startups at Google’s AI Accelerator. With a career spanning both research and applied AI, Aki has taught 5,000+ students worldwide how to design and deploy production-ready AI systems.

He has worked across cutting-edge areas of applied AI, from LangChain and RAG pipelines to observability and large-scale deployment. As a researcher and educator, Aki bridges the gap between theory and practice, making complex systems approachable and actionable for engineers, founders, and product leaders.

Aki is also a frequent speaker and advisor to organizations adopting AI, helping them transition from experimentation to production at scale.

Manu Jayawardana

AI Founder | CEO at TAI Labs | Co-Founder of Snapdrum

Manu Jayawardana is a serial entrepreneur with multiple AI startup successes.

He is also the Co-Founder of Snapdrum, an AI consultancy helping companies integrate and automate their businesses using AI. Through Snapdrum, Manu has worked with top startups and enterprises across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, advising on automation, product development, and AI strategy.

Currently, Manu is the Co-Founder & CEO of Krybe, an AI voice agent startup in London transforming how businesses automate customer interactions. His experience spans fundraising, scaling products, and leading teams to deliver production-grade AI solutions adopted globally.

See all products from TAI Labs

Sign up to join this lesson

By continuing, you agree to Maven's Terms and Privacy Policy.