AI Engineer Reference Modules: Build, Debug, Explain

This section is the reusable reference layer for the site. The day-by-day execution now lives in the learning revision plan, while these pages hold the durable deep dives, worked examples, and reusable interview prep modules.

Use the daily plan when you want to know what to do next. Use these reference modules when you want the fuller explanation, example code, or lab pattern behind that day.

Who This Is For

Use this if you are targeting AI Engineer, Agent Engineer, GenAI Engineer, or LLMOps roles where interviewers test build-debug-deploy ownership.

Week 1 - Foundations, RAG, and Retrieval

Day	Focus	Primary material	Code or lab to use	End-of-day artifact
1	LLM pipeline map and model basics	Foundations Overview	Prompt Builder and Token Budget	System diagram
2	Prompting patterns and guardrails	Foundations Overview	Prompt Builder and Token Budget	Prompt template library
3	Embeddings and retrieval basics	01 RAG Debugging and Quality	Minimal Grounded Retrieval Prototype	Chunking experiment note
4	RAG architecture and grounding	01 RAG Debugging and Quality	Minimal Grounded Retrieval Prototype	Grounded QA script
5	RAG quality debugging	01 RAG Debugging and Quality	Failure Logging for RAG Debugging	Root-cause table
6	Multimodal and long-context strategies	Foundations Overview	Long-Context Map-Reduce Scaffold	Long-doc summary scaffold
7	Consolidation and retrieval drill	Week 1 RAG Foundations Lab	Lab A or Lab B	One-page debugging checklist

Week 2 - Agents, LangGraph, and Reliability

Day	Focus	Primary material	Code or lab to use	End-of-day artifact
8	Agentic patterns and tool calling	02 Agentic Workflows	Tool Contract and Validator	Tool schema set
9	Planning, memory, and state management	02 Agentic Workflows	Stateful Workflow with Retry and Approval	State transition sketch
10	LangGraph fundamentals	02 Agentic Workflows	Stateful Workflow with Retry and Approval	Node-edge graph draft
11	Multi-agent coordination	02 Agentic Workflows	Supervisor-worker adaptation of workflow example	Multi-agent handoff design
12	Human-in-the-loop and approvals	02 Agentic Workflows	Stateful Workflow with Retry and Approval	Approval gate path
13	Reliability hardening for agents	02 Agentic Workflows + Week 2 Agent Reliability Lab	Tool Reliability Sprint	Failure matrix
14	Consolidation and design review	02 Agentic Workflows + Week 2 Agent Reliability Lab	Lab C output review	Architecture brief

Week 3 - Evals, Observability, and Production

Day	Focus	Primary material	Code or lab to use	End-of-day artifact
15	Eval strategy and datasets	03 Evals, Observability, and Production	Tiny Eval Dataset and Gate	Starter eval set
16	Automated eval pipelines	03 Evals, Observability, and Production	Tiny Eval Dataset and Gate	Release gate policy
17	Observability and tracing	03 Evals, Observability, and Production	Structured Trace Record	Trace example
18	Safety and policy controls	03 Evals, Observability, and Production	Observability Checklist plus safety notes	Safety middleware checklist
19	Deployment, scaling, and SLOs	03 Evals, Observability, and Production	Release gate plus reliability checklist	SLO and rollout note
20	Postmortems and continuous improvement	03 Evals, Observability, and Production	Release gate retrospective	Postmortem draft
21	Readiness review	03 Evals, Observability, and Production + Week 3 Eval and Ops Lab	Lab D and readiness checklist	Production scorecard

Week 4 - Portfolio, Stories, and Mock Loops

Day	Focus	Primary material	Code or lab to use	End-of-day artifact
22	Role targeting and competency mapping	04 STAR Story System	Role-to-Evidence Matrix	Competency matrix
23	STAR story bank	04 STAR Story System	Story Card template	Six story draft
24	Portfolio assembly and narrative	04 STAR Story System	Story Card plus case-study framing	Case-study outline
25	Technical interview drills	05 Interview Sprint Loops	90-Second Drill Runner	Drill score sheet
26	Behavioral and cross-functional communication	05 Interview Sprint Loops	Example Scorecard and stakeholder rewrite	Behavioral answer sheet
27	Full mock loop and feedback integration	05 Interview Sprint Loops + Mini Projects Overview	Lab E and mock loop	Revision log
28	Final synthesis and launch plan	05 Interview Sprint Loops	Step-by-Step Mock Loop Runbook	Two-week interview calendar