ROADMAP to Become an AI Engineer in 2026 (Beginner to Pro) — Transcript
Full transcript
- 0:00Recently openai launched their chart
- 0:01GPT6 or Astra model and everywhere on
- 0:04the internet everyone is talking about
- 0:05that AGI is here. AGI fullform
- 0:08artificial general intelligence and it
- 0:10is actually intelligent as a general
- 0:13person. But the question that everyone
- 0:15is asking is doing AI engineering right
- 0:18now is a good choice or not? And
- 0:19honestly, this is the best time to
- 0:21become an AI engineer because at this
- 0:23moment AI engineering is moving so fast
- 0:26and if you are at the top tier, if you
- 0:28are actually learning all the skills
- 0:29that are required to become an AI
- 0:31engineer, then companies are dying to
- 0:34hire you. And every company in India, in
- 0:37GCC, in US is trying to hire an AI
- 0:40engineer because everyone wants to
- 0:42integrate AI solutions into their
- 0:43workflows. And if you don't know, I'm
- 0:45Nishant. I averaged $250 US for my AI
- 0:48startup and in that startup my
- 0:50co-founder is an AI engineer. He used to
- 0:52work at midlife and his CTC was around
- 0:5550 lakh rupees. I've also tried to
- 0:57answer all the questions that comes to
- 0:59your mind when you are trying to
- 1:00research for AI engineering roles and
- 1:02when you are trying to research what you
- 1:03want to do and you don't need to be a
- 1:05math genius to become an AI engineer.
- 1:07And the interesting part is the
- 1:09opportunity is not limited to people who
- 1:11are doing research or PhD. The problem
- 1:13is most people don't know where they
- 1:14have to start. They just think AI
- 1:16engineering is hard mathematics,
- 1:18research papers or they need a PhD and
- 1:21you don't. In this video, we'll be
- 1:23talking about what are the things you
- 1:24need to learn to go from a beginner to a
- 1:26job ready AI engineer. It also helps you
- 1:29improve your ATS score for your resume,
- 1:31create a cover letter, optimize your
- 1:32LinkedIn profile and everything can be
- 1:34done in few clicks. I would highly
- 1:36recommend you to check out hackats.com.
- 1:38We are adding so many features [music]
- 1:39every single day so that we can make
- 1:41your job finding process easy. Hi guys,
- 1:43I'm Nishan Zahar. Welcome back to the
- 1:44channel. I'm not going to waste time by
- 1:46giving my introduction. You can check
- 1:47out that anywhere. Let's just start with
- 1:50the road map. First, we need to
- 1:51understand what an AI engineer actually
- 1:53does because most people don't actually
- 1:55know what an AI engineer does. They get
- 1:57confused between a machine learning
- 1:58engineer and an AI engineer. By looking
- 2:00at the name, people think that AI
- 2:02engineers are responsible for creating
- 2:04models or training models. But that part
- 2:06is actually closer to a machine learning
- 2:08engineer or a researcher. What an AI
- 2:11engineer does is they take the models
- 2:12that are already there. They use them to
- 2:14create real world solutions for problems
- 2:16that exist around us. That means they
- 2:18don't just play around with the model.
- 2:20They actually create build applications,
- 2:23publish them, deploy them and actual
- 2:26users use them. And you need software
- 2:28engineering fundamentals because
- 2:32then you'll not be able to integrate AI
- 2:34properly. AI should not feel like a
- 2:36feature that you have added on top of it
- 2:37when you are creating any AI
- 2:38application. It should be integrated in
- 2:41the workflow so that the user doesn't
- 2:43even know that AI was used or there is
- 2:45AI inside the product. So let's start
- 2:47with the first layer which is software
- 2:48engineering fundamentals that you need
- 2:50to learn. Now because AI engineers don't
- 2:52just have to use LLMs they actually have
- 2:54to build real world software. You need
- 2:56to learn basics of software engineering
- 2:58as well. You don't have to go in depth.
- 3:00First you need to learn a programming
- 3:01language. Whenever you do anything
- 3:03technical, you need to know a
- 3:04programming language for sure. In this
- 3:06case, we are going to learn Python. The
- 3:07most popular libraries and frameworks
- 3:09that we use in machine learning are in
- 3:11Python. And that is why Python should be
- 3:13your primary language. I've already
- 3:15created a dedicated video on how you
- 3:17should learn Python. What is the road
- 3:18map for that? I won't spend time on
- 3:20that. There the video is in the I
- 3:21button. You can definitely check that
- 3:22out. Second thing is API. API is
- 3:25application programming interface. That
- 3:27means how two softwares or two services
- 3:29actually interact with each other. That
- 3:31is what an API is. You need to
- 3:33understand how these APIs are created,
- 3:35how you can create this, how you can
- 3:36interact with the APIs and how you
- 3:39actually use them in the production
- 3:40environment. This is also important for
- 3:42an AI engineer because you have to use
- 3:44the AI model that you use in your
- 3:47products through APIs. Third thing is
- 3:49going to be git, GitHub and basic cloud.
- 3:51Get GitHub because you are going to work
- 3:53in an environment with other engineers
- 3:55as well. So you need to learn basics of
- 3:57Git and GitHub. It is used for version
- 3:59control. Next is going to be cloud
- 4:00because you are going to deploy your
- 4:03application finally on some cloud
- 4:05server. That's why you need to learn
- 4:06cloud as well. So I've already created a
- 4:08dedicated road map for Python. You can
- 4:11definitely check that out. All the
- 4:12resources are mentioned there. I'll also
- 4:13mention them in the doc. Second, if you
- 4:15want to learn about git, you can check
- 4:17out this video by free code camp. And
- 4:19even if you want to learn about APIs,
- 4:21this is also another video by free code
- 4:24camp on APIs that you can check out.
- 4:25There is a 80/20 rule. If you want to
- 4:27learn 80% of the things in a programming
- 4:29language, you just need 20% of the time.
- 4:31So if you want to learn Python and all
- 4:33these things, it should not take you
- 4:35more than 3 to 4 weeks if you have some
- 4:37background in software engineering. Even
- 4:39if you don't have, it won't take you
- 4:40more than 6 weeks. Now comes the layer
- 4:42two which is going to be AI and LM
- 4:44fundamentals. The most important part
- 4:46here is that you don't need to
- 4:48understand deep mathematics. You don't
- 4:50need to understand how the actual
- 4:52transformers or your attention matrices
- 4:55work. You just need to have the basic
- 4:57idea on how these things are built. No
- 5:00one is going to ask you to actually use
- 5:02them or do the maths behind them. That
- 5:04level of understanding is more relevant
- 5:06for researchers or ML engineers. You
- 5:08just need to understand the practical
- 5:09intuition behind on how LMS actually
- 5:11work. And at the basic level, these are
- 5:13the three things that you need to know.
- 5:15The first is tokens. What do models do?
- 5:17They break the text that you are talking
- 5:18about into multiple set of tokens. And
- 5:21that is why the length of the prompt
- 5:22that you are giving actually matters
- 5:24when you're calculating the cost. Second
- 5:25is going to be temperature. It controls
- 5:27how random or predictable your output is
- 5:29going to be. If you change the
- 5:30temperature, it is possible that the
- 5:32output for the same prompt can be
- 5:34different if you increase the
- 5:35temperature, decrease the temperature or
- 5:37you do anything with that. And third is
- 5:38going to be knowing which model is good
- 5:40for what. And this can only be done when
- 5:42you actually experiment with things. And
- 5:43you won't be able to understand all this
- 5:45by only watching some tutorials or
- 5:47actually just reading articles. You need
- 5:49to get your hands dirty. Pick an AI
- 5:51model, go to charg or claude and
- 5:54actually run the same prompt with
- 5:55different temperatures. You can go to
- 5:56platform.openai.com and you will find
- 5:59all these settings there. Also, there is
- 6:01an amazing video by Andre Karpathi on
- 6:02intro to large language models. This is
- 6:05one of the best videos that you can find
- 6:07on how LMS actually work. Do check it
- 6:09out. Do watch that full. Second, if you
- 6:11want to understand how tokens actually
- 6:12work and how text is broken down into
- 6:14context, what you can do is you can go
- 6:16to this website which is
- 6:16platform.opi.com/ openi.com/to
- 6:19tokenizer. Whatever prompt you add, it
- 6:21will show you how and what are the exact
- 6:24tokens and how your prompt is being
- 6:26divided into multiple tokens. This layer
- 6:28is relatively small. You should not take
- 6:29more than 1 to two weeks in finishing
- 6:31this. Layer three is going to be core AI
- 6:33implementation. Once your basics are
- 6:34done, now you need to actually build
- 6:37stuff. And here there are two concepts
- 6:39which are absolutely important for you.
- 6:41The first one is prompting. It's not
- 6:42just about asking the smart questions.
- 6:44It's about giving the model clear
- 6:46instructions. so that you get a
- 6:47predictable and reliable output. There
- 6:50are three things in this. The first one
- 6:51is context window. So what do you mean
- 6:53by context window? So context window is
- 6:55the amount of information or the memory
- 6:57a model can save. Earlier when charge
- 6:59GPT the initial charge GPT models came
- 7:02the context window was pretty small. It
- 7:04was less than 1,000 2,000 words and
- 7:06that's why these models were
- 7:07hallucinating. As the models got better,
- 7:10the context window improved which has
- 7:12more than 1 million tokens context
- 7:13window. Second is going to be system
- 7:15prompts and third is going to be
- 7:16temperature. As we talked about this is
- 7:18the control which decides how
- 7:19predictable the output is going to be or
- 7:21how creative it is going to be. And one
- 7:23more important skill that you need to
- 7:24learn is how to get structured outputs.
- 7:27Most of the outputs that we get are in
- 7:28the JSON format because at the end you
- 7:31want the data to be used somewhere. If
- 7:33you don't get the output in a structured
- 7:34format, you'll not be able to show it to
- 7:36the user. Now the next and the most
- 7:38important part in the whole AI
- 7:40engineering thing is rag because most of
- 7:43the companies I I would say all of the
- 7:45companies need someone who can implement
- 7:46rag for their systems so that whatever
- 7:49the output is by the LM by the model is
- 7:52actually relevant to their customers to
- 7:54their team or any of the stakeholders.
- 7:57What is rag now? RAG is retrieval
- 7:59augmented generation. Now think of it if
- 8:01you work at Adobe there are so many
- 8:02instructions so many docs which the LLM
- 8:05is not trained on. If you have a big
- 8:07code base there are so many dogs that
- 8:10would have been written. If you want to
- 8:11create a chat bot so that other teams
- 8:13can also understand what you have done.
- 8:15There is no direct way to use the same
- 8:18data for training your model. The only
- 8:21way was either fine-tuning or training
- 8:22the model. But in that way it is a
- 8:25longer way and you don't want to do
- 8:27that. Now how do you actually give
- 8:28context to a model and for this you use
- 8:31rag. There are different types of rags
- 8:33and there is a whole like you need to
- 8:36get into the depth of it. There is graph
- 8:38rag, there is your normal rag, then
- 8:40there is aentic rag, there is vector
- 8:42search. There are so many things that
- 8:43you need to learn in this. Uh I'll just
- 8:45talk about the basics but you need to go
- 8:47in depth. I'll give you resources where
- 8:49you can actually learn in depth. For
- 8:51prompting you can check out the free
- 8:52official guides by enthropic or openai.
- 8:54Both the links are in the description
- 8:55and you can see them here as well. For
- 8:57rag, you can check out the video uh rag
- 9:00from scratch by free code camp. This is
- 9:02important the basics. It will take you 3
- 9:04to 4 weeks but you need to go in depth
- 9:07as well. So add another month for that
- 9:09when you are building projects. You can
- 9:11try out different types of rags for each
- 9:13of this and you can actually showcase
- 9:15that as well. Fourth is going to be
- 9:16advanced agentic systems. Till now the
- 9:19model was only able to answer you right
- 9:21you were asking some questions and the
- 9:23model was answering. Now the next part
- 9:25is actually getting some work done by
- 9:27these models and that is where the
- 9:29concept of agent actually comes. So the
- 9:31difference between an AI agent and a LLM
- 9:34or a model is that AI agent has some
- 9:36tools that it can access. [music] It can
- 9:38be a browser. It can be a video editor.
- 9:40It can be cloud like a AWS or Azure. It
- 9:44has access to multiple tools which it
- 9:46can invoke whenever required. An AI
- 9:48agent can actually take actions as well
- 9:49like calling an API, [music] invoking,
- 9:51triggering a workflow, going through the
- 9:53database, getting some data from
- 9:55database, understanding that giving you
- 9:57the final output like all these things
- 9:58can be done by an AI agent. And most of
- 10:01the enterprises right now want a mixture
- 10:03of these agentic rag systems because
- 10:06they want uh to create their rag and
- 10:09agents that can do a lot of stuff. And
- 10:11to get the work done by an agent, there
- 10:13are two things which are absolutely
- 10:14important. The first one is function
- 10:16calling and the second one is
- 10:17frameworks. What do you mean by function
- 10:19calling? So basically once the AI model
- 10:21decides what are the tools it wants to
- 10:23call they [music] it needs to call these
- 10:25functions as well. Needs to call these
- 10:27tools as well and this is called
- 10:28function calling. Second is [music]
- 10:29frameworks. When you are doing
- 10:30multi-step task or orchestration there
- 10:33are few tools that you need to learn to
- 10:35get these things done. And there is one
- 10:36more concept that you need to learn
- 10:38which is MCP which is called model
- 10:39context protocol. Think of MCP as a way
- 10:42to talk to any tool that was built
- 10:45before the AI era. If I want to talk to
- 10:48AWS, there are there is an MCP server
- 10:51which has a list of tools it can call.
- 10:52My LLM can call and this is what an MCP
- 10:55server is where they have given you a
- 10:57list of tools that you have access to.
- 10:59Your LLM has access to and they can call
- 11:02it. It is an advanced topic. So
- 11:03initially you need to just learn the
- 11:05basics and when you use it you can go in
- 11:07depth. Here are few free resources that
- 11:09you can definitely check out. The first
- 11:10one is by Microsoft AI agents for
- 11:12beginners course. This is on GitHub.
- 11:15This is free on GitHub. It has 12
- 11:16lessons. And here you'll be learning
- 11:18agents tools and multi- aent systems.
- 11:21[music] And second is going to be AI
- 11:22agent course by hugging face. Here
- 11:24you'll be learning how you can create
- 11:25agents. You can [music] build agents.
- 11:27And all this is absolutely free. You
- 11:29also get a certification. That is not
- 11:31the important part. But yeah, this whole
- 11:33step is going to take you anywhere from
- 11:343 to 4 weeks to get [music] the gist of
- 11:37it. Now I understand this sounds like a
- 11:39lot of new terminologies. MCP agent
- 11:41multi- aent orchestration rag and like
- 11:44so much more. So it can be confusing for
- 11:46sure. For this only I found a really
- 11:48interesting tool. This is called explain
- 11:50and it is built by scrimbar. Let me show
- 11:52you. So I've just asked what is MCP and
- 11:54AI? I'll ask it to explain and it will
- 11:57create an explainer for me.
- 12:00>> MCP stands for model context protocol
- 12:02and it's basically a universal plug for
- 12:04AI. Think of MCP like a USBC port for
- 12:08AI.
- 12:08>> As you can see, it is generating
- 12:09everything real time for me. Initially
- 12:12when we started it was only 7 seconds
- 12:14and now it's 1 minute. It gives you a
- 12:16clear video explanation. There is no
- 12:17unnecessary jarens and it comes in 33
- 12:20languages so that it gives you more
- 12:22accessibility as you can see
- 12:25GPS.
- 12:31And if I want to go deeper, I want to
- 12:33understand the concept more, what I can
- 12:35do is I can actually click on go deeper
- 12:37and ask follow-up questions as well. And
- 12:39if I want to learn the topic in more
- 12:40detail, what I can do is I can even
- 12:42convert this into a complete mini course
- 12:44or a playlist. You can even install
- 12:45their Chrome extension and you can
- 12:46understand any difficult topic. If
- 12:48you're reading a research paper, an
- 12:49article, you can just go there and ask
- 12:51it to explain the same to you. It will
- 12:53break the article down into simpler and
- 12:55easier to understand parts. You can also
- 12:57bring this into your existing workflow.
- 12:59Explain works with claude, cursor,
- 13:01codeex through MCP and it also has a
- 13:03chart GPT plug-in. So whenever you get
- 13:05stuck on a new concept, you can actually
- 13:07use this as your personal tutor. Having
- 13:09something like this can actually make
- 13:11your process so much easier. And that's
- 13:13why I found explain pretty useful. If
- 13:15you want to try it out, the link is in
- 13:17the description. Now let's come back to
- 13:18the road map. Now comes the layer five.
- 13:20Now you have already created the AI
- 13:22application. You learned how to create
- 13:23agents. [music] You learned how to add
- 13:25drag. You learned most of the things.
- 13:27Now the main part is the most important
- 13:30problem that all of us have seen in our
- 13:34past that it worked on my machine and it
- 13:36is not working on the production
- 13:37environment and to solve this we have
- 13:39docker and that is why you need to learn
- 13:41the basics of mlops as well you can call
- 13:44it mlops you can call it a ops so first
- 13:46you need to learn docker for this it
- 13:48converts your entire application into a
- 13:50container so it runs consistently across
- 13:52different platforms across different
- 13:54machines so whether it's on your laptop
- 13:56or it's on cloud it will actually work.
- 13:58Second is going to be cloud platforms
- 14:00like Azure, AWS, GCP whichever one you
- 14:02like. This is where you are going to
- 14:03host your application. So you need to
- 14:05learn the basics of this as well. And
- 14:07third is going to be cost control
- 14:08because everyone wants the cost to be
- 14:10down and you need to know how you can
- 14:12bring the cost down not just by reducing
- 14:15the model that you are using or reducing
- 14:17the intelligence of the model that
- 14:18you're using but actually doing
- 14:20optimizations throughout your process
- 14:22throughout your pipeline. And if you can
- 14:24reduce the cost for any company that
- 14:26then you are going to be really valuable
- 14:28for that. If you want to learn Docker,
- 14:30there's a free course by a free code
- 14:31camp. You can check that out. If you
- 14:33want to learn about LLM ops, there is a
- 14:35course on deep learning AI that you can
- 14:38check out here. This should take you
- 14:40anywhere from 3 to 4 weeks. Now the most
- 14:42important part, the most important layer
- 14:44is going to be your career strategy
- 14:47because the things in the AI world are
- 14:49changing so fast. There are so many
- 14:51things that are going on and so many new
- 14:52things that are coming up that you need
- 14:54to stay updated. When you are actually
- 14:56learning how to become an AI engineer,
- 14:57the last thing that you need to do is
- 14:59adding the projects that are relevant
- 15:00for becoming an AI engineer in your
- 15:02resume. If you just say that I am an AI
- 15:05engineer, I've done these
- 15:06certifications, no one is going to
- 15:07actually care what what you have done
- 15:09until and unless you can actually show
- 15:11them what you have done. So to show them
- 15:13you need to create real world projects
- 15:14or you need to do some internships. You
- 15:16need to create products that you have
- 15:17shipped, users are using. That is what
- 15:20you need to do in 2026. So if you are
- 15:23already a software engineer, uh I told
- 15:25you in the start of the video about hack
- 15:26ATS, we have built a product. There is
- 15:28one more feature in that which I find
- 15:31very very very interesting. So it is
- 15:33around how you can add projects in your
- 15:36resume so that you can show that you
- 15:38have learned these skills as well. So
- 15:41what you have to do is you just have to
- 15:42upload your resume. It will ask you some
- 15:45questions on which roles you want to
- 15:47target. You can tell that it will find
- 15:49all the jobs that are relevant for you
- 15:52uh and [music] give you a ATS score.
- 15:54Give you a relevancy score. After
- 15:55getting the relevancy score, you can
- 15:57actually check out the ATS score for
- 15:59your resume. If the ATS score is low, it
- 16:01will recommend you the courses that you
- 16:03can do for the cluster of jobs that you
- 16:06can apply to. Once you do that, you can
- 16:07actually improve your ATS score as well.
- 16:09and it will just give you a step-by-step
- 16:11guide on how to build it. It is going to
- 16:13be very relevant to you if once you do
- 16:16that and give it the final GitHub repo.
- 16:19It will give you the final pointers that
- 16:22you need to add in your resume so that
- 16:24your resume is again ATS friendly and
- 16:26you can apply to any job that you want.
- 16:28It will tailor your resume for each of
- 16:30the jobs that you want to apply to. So
- 16:32there are free credits that I'm giving
- 16:34to people who are going through this
- 16:36video. So do check it out and for any
- 16:39feedback there is a support email that
- 16:41you can email us to. We would love to
- 16:43know what all new features you want in
- 16:45this product. Apart from that there is a
- 16:47GitHub template on how you should create
- 16:50the readme file, how you should add the
- 16:52video on uh on whatever product that you
- 16:55have built. I've also attached all that
- 16:56in the document and in the description.
- 16:58So you should check that out too. Now
- 17:00the last part and the most interesting
- 17:01part is the salary and the actual
- 17:04reality. So if you are a fresher who
- 17:06wants to become an AI engineer and this
- 17:08is going to be your first role, you can
- 17:10expect anywhere from 12 lakhs to 15
- 17:12lakhs in India. If you come to the Gulf
- 17:15area, if you're able to find a job in
- 17:17GCC, if you are find able to find a job
- 17:18in Europe or outside India, the salaries
- 17:20are going to be crazy. In GCC that means
- 17:23Dubai and the Gulf area, the salaries
- 17:25can go anywhere from 50 lakh rupees to 1
- 17:28K. Once you have 2 to 4 years of
- 17:30experience, your salary can go anywhere
- 17:32from 24 lakhs to 50 lakh rupees. My
- 17:34co-founder had a three years of
- 17:35experience and his salary was in that
- 17:38range. He was he's from IIT Del. So that
- 17:40also plays some role but if some if you
- 17:42are not from a very prestigious college
- 17:44but you have done an amazing projects
- 17:47you can [music] get into YC companies
- 17:48you can get into startups and create
- 17:50your portfolio and not just salary range
- 17:52these are the skills which are really
- 17:54very important if you're applying for AI
- 17:56engineering roles and the skills are
- 17:58generative ILM fine tuning MLOps AI
- 18:00agents these are the skills that you
- 18:02need to learn. We did not talk about LLM
- 18:04finetuning in this whole video because
- 18:07it it would have taken more time and
- 18:09there are some nuances that you need to
- 18:11discover yourself the things that you
- 18:13need to find yourself to become a good
- 18:15AI engineer and a good engineer in
- 18:17general. In 2025 there were around 2.9
- 18:20lakh job posting for AI engineering
- 18:22roles. In 2026 it's around 3.82 lakhs.
- 18:25There's a 32% jump in just one year and
- 18:27this is going to increase. So this is
- 18:29the skill that you need to learn in
- 18:302026. If I talk about the timeline, it
- 18:32can take you anywhere from four months
- 18:34to 6 months and even more depending upon
- 18:36how much time you are actually giving to
- 18:38learn this. But realistically, it will
- 18:40take you 8 to 12 months to actually
- 18:41become an AI engineer. So that is it.
- 18:43Next step is on you. You need to start
- 18:46learning today. You need to build
- 18:47projects. Do check out scrimar. Do check
- 18:49out hackats whenever you are applying
- 18:51for jobs. And thank you for watching
- 18:52this video. I hope I was able to help
- 18:54you out. If you like this video, do
- 18:55click on the like button. Do subscribe
- 18:57to the channel. And I'll see you in the
- 18:58next one. Bye.
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