Free resources to watch, recommended by Bashiri Smith and Melvin Vivas
69 free videos, playlists, channels and courses from 102 Facebook reels, 1,391 X posts and 2 blog articles, plus the PDFs they shared. Sorted by topic in study order; the most recommended come first. Tick the boxes as you go (VS Code and Obsidian render them as checkboxes).
Start Here: Roadmaps & Strategy (1)
- The Complete AI Engineer Roadmap for 2026 (Exact Courses + Step-by-Step) · video · youtube.com · free
Bashiri Smith's free YouTube training on upgrading your skills and becoming competitive for AI engineering roles, with specific courses listed step by step.
Mentioned in: SWE-to-AI Engineer Plan for 2027: LLMs, RAG, Agents, Evals, Job Search (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Pointer to Bashiri Smith's Complete AI Engineer Roadmap for 2026 (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Step-by-Step Roadmap to a $200K+ AI Engineering Role (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Software Engineer to AI Engineer Before 2027: A 5-Step Career Plan (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) and 20 more
Programming & ML Foundations (6)
- Neural Networks: Zero to Hero (Andrej Karpathy) · course · karpathy.ai · free
Build GPT from scratch. The guide calls it the deepest free foundation.
Mentioned in: AI Engineer Roadmap Before 2027: Fundamentals, RAG, Agents, Ops, Evals (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), AI Engineer Roadmap: Fundamentals, RAG, Agents, Books & Your First AI Service (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
In a shared PDF: The AI Pivot Field Guide - shared in this reel on Facebook, this reel on Facebook - 3Blue1Brown Neural Networks series · video · youtube.com · free
A visual series by 3Blue1Brown explaining neural networks, backpropagation and transformers.
Mentioned in: AI Engineer Roadmap: Fundamentals, RAG, Agents, Books & Your First AI Service (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - fast.ai, Practical Deep Learning for Coders · course · course.fast.ai · free
Build-first deep learning course: you train a model in lesson 1.
In a shared PDF: The AI Pivot Field Guide - shared in this reel on Facebook, this reel on Facebook - freeCodeCamp · channel · freecodecamp.org · free
Nonprofit that publishes free, full-length programming and AI courses.
Mentioned in: 6 Free Videos to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - Google Machine Learning Crash Course · course · developers.google.com · free
About 15 hours, free, no signup. Its Fairness module is recommended as one of the best intros to bias in ML.
In a shared PDF: The AI Pivot Field Guide - shared in this reel on Facebook, this reel on Facebook - Kaggle Learn · course · kaggle.com · free
Free micro-courses with certificates.
In a shared PDF: The AI Pivot Field Guide - shared in this reel on Facebook, this reel on Facebook
LLM Fundamentals (5)
- Hugging Face LLM Course · course · huggingface.co · free
Hands-on course on transformers, tokenizers and fine-tuning.
Mentioned in: How to Relearn LLMs & RAG in 2026: A 7-Step Roadmap with Free Resources (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), AI Engineer Roadmap for 2026 in 60 Seconds (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
In a shared PDF: The AI Pivot Field Guide - shared in this reel on Facebook, this reel on Facebook - [1hr Talk] Intro to Large Language Models (Andrej Karpathy) · video · youtube.com · free
A video by Andrej Karpathy that introduces how large language models work.
Mentioned in: 6 Free Videos to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), How to Relearn LLMs & RAG in 2026: A 7-Step Roadmap with Free Resources (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - Building Systems with the ChatGPT API · course · deeplearning.ai · free
A DeepLearning.AI course on building with LLM APIs. Free with a DeepLearning.AI account during its platform beta; certificates are paid.
Mentioned in: How to Relearn LLMs & RAG in 2026: A 7-Step Roadmap with Free Resources (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - OpenAI with Python: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners (George Shakan) · video · youtube.com · free
A video tutorial on starting to build with the OpenAI API (creator and title not shown).
Mentioned in: How to Relearn LLMs & RAG in 2026: A 7-Step Roadmap with Free Resources (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - X post by DonvitoAI: animation of how an LLM works · video · x.com · free
The linked X post with the short animation that shows how an LLM works.
Mentioned in: Claude Opus 4.8 Generates an Animation of How an LLM Works in One Shot (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)
Prompt & Context Engineering (2)
- ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers · course · deeplearning.ai · free
A DeepLearning.AI short course on prompt engineering. Free with a DeepLearning.AI account during its platform beta; certificates are paid.
Mentioned in: How to Relearn LLMs & RAG in 2026: A 7-Step Roadmap with Free Resources (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - Prompt Engineering Full Course (Tech With Tim) · video · youtube.com · free
A Tech With Tim video on how to prompt LLMs well.
Mentioned in: How to Relearn LLMs & RAG in 2026: A 7-Step Roadmap with Free Resources (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
Embeddings & Vector Databases (4)
- Word Embedding and Word2Vec, Clearly Explained!!! (StatQuest with Josh Starmer) · video · youtube.com · free
StatQuest's visual explanation of word embeddings and how Word2Vec learns them.
Mentioned in: 6 Free Videos to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), How to Relearn LLMs & RAG in 2026: A 7-Step Roadmap with Free Resources (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - Understanding and Applying Text Embeddings (DeepLearning.AI) · course · deeplearning.ai · free
A DeepLearning.AI course on embeddings and semantic search. Free with a DeepLearning.AI account during its platform beta; certificates are paid.
Mentioned in: How to Relearn LLMs & RAG in 2026: A 7-Step Roadmap with Free Resources (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - Vector Databases: from Embeddings to Applications (DeepLearning.AI) · course · deeplearning.ai · free
A DeepLearning.AI short course on how vector databases work and how to build applications with them. Free with a DeepLearning.AI account during its platform beta; certificates are paid.
Mentioned in: How to Relearn LLMs & RAG in 2026: A 7-Step Roadmap with Free Resources (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - What is a Vector Database? Powering Semantic Search & AI Applications (IBM Technology) · video · youtube.com · free
An IBM video introducing vector databases.
Mentioned in: How to Relearn LLMs & RAG in 2026: A 7-Step Roadmap with Free Resources (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) (12)
- RAG from Scratch (freeCodeCamp) · video · youtube.com · free
A freeCodeCamp video about two and a half hours long on building basic RAG (the exact title isn't shown).
Mentioned in: 6 Free Videos to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), How to Relearn LLMs & RAG in 2026: A 7-Step Roadmap with Free Resources (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - RAG From Scratch (LangChain) · video · github.com · free
LangChain's free video series and notebooks that build retrieval-augmented generation step by step, from indexing through retrieval and generation.
Mentioned in: AI Engineer Roadmap Before 2027: Fundamentals, RAG, Agents, Ops, Evals (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), AI Engineer Roadmap: Fundamentals, RAG, Agents, Books & Your First AI Service (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - 5 Levels of Text Splitting for Retrieval (Greg Kamradt) · video · youtube.com · free
A video by Greg Kamradt that walks through chunking and text-splitting strategies for RAG, from simple to advanced.
Mentioned in: How to Relearn LLMs & RAG in 2026: A 7-Step Roadmap with Free Resources (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - Advanced Retrieval for AI with Chroma (DeepLearning.AI) · course · deeplearning.ai · free
A DeepLearning.AI short course on advanced retrieval techniques that improve RAG results. Free with a DeepLearning.AI account during its platform beta; certificates are paid.
Mentioned in: How to Relearn LLMs & RAG in 2026: A 7-Step Roadmap with Free Resources (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - Build Production-Ready Retrieval RAG Pipeline in LangChain | Hybrid Search (BM25), Re-ranking & HyDE (Venelin Valkov) · video · youtube.com · free
A 15-minute video by Venelin Valkov on hybrid retrieval and advanced retrieval tactics.
Mentioned in: How to Relearn LLMs & RAG in 2026: A 7-Step Roadmap with Free Resources (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - Complete RAG tutorial 2026, with free labs · video · youtube.com · free
A full code-along crash course that goes from setup to a working RAG system.
In a shared PDF: How to become an expert in RAG (BASWE AI Engineer Field Guide) - shared in this reel on Facebook, this reel on Facebook - DeepLearning.AI Short Courses · course · deeplearning.ai · free
Applied courses of 1 to 2 hours on RAG, agents, LangChain and LLMOps.
In a shared PDF: The AI Pivot Field Guide - shared in this reel on Facebook, this reel on Facebook - LangChain Chat with Your Data · course · deeplearning.ai · free
A DeepLearning.AI course on building RAG with LangChain. Free with a DeepLearning.AI account during its platform beta; certificates are paid.
Mentioned in: How to Relearn LLMs & RAG in 2026: A 7-Step Roadmap with Free Resources (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - LangChain: RAG From Scratch (YouTube playlist) · video · youtube.com · free
Short-video series by Lance Martin that goes from indexing basics up to advanced routing and reranking; the guide calls it the gold standard.
In a shared PDF: How to become an expert in RAG (BASWE AI Engineer Field Guide) - shared in this reel on Facebook, this reel on Facebook - Preprocessing Unstructured Data for LLM Applications · course · deeplearning.ai · free
A DeepLearning.AI course on document processing and chunking. Free with a DeepLearning.AI account during its platform beta; certificates are paid.
Mentioned in: How to Relearn LLMs & RAG in 2026: A 7-Step Roadmap with Free Resources (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - RAG explained in 20 minutes · video · youtube.com · free
A fast, clear intro with a hands-on project; the quickest way to see the full RAG loop in action.
In a shared PDF: How to become an expert in RAG (BASWE AI Engineer Field Guide) - shared in this reel on Facebook, this reel on Facebook - RAG++: From POC to Production (Weights & Biases) · course · wandb.ai · free
RAG course from Weights & Biases named in the Class Central roundup of the best RAG courses.
In a shared PDF: How to become an expert in RAG (BASWE AI Engineer Field Guide) - shared in this reel on Facebook, this reel on Facebook
AI Agents, Tool Use & MCP (8)
- Hugging Face Agents Course · course · huggingface.co · free
A free agents course with a real completion certificate.
Mentioned in: AI Engineer Roadmap Before 2027: Fundamentals, RAG, Agents, Ops, Evals (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), AI Engineer Roadmap: Fundamentals, RAG, Agents, Books & Your First AI Service (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
In a shared PDF: The AI Pivot Field Guide - shared in this reel on Facebook, this reel on Facebook - AI Agents in LangGraph (DeepLearning.AI) · course · deeplearning.ai · free
Build an agent, then rebuild it in LangGraph.
In a shared PDF: The AI Pivot Field Guide - shared in this reel on Facebook, this reel on Facebook - Building Adaptive AI Agents · course · deeplearning.ai · free
A course on agents that learn from experience: turning their traces into reusable skills and building a code knowledge graph for retrieval.
Mentioned in: Building Adaptive AI Agents: Skills from Traces and Code Knowledge Graphs (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Google DeepMind (@GoogleDeepMind) on X: AI pointer demo post · video · x.com · free
Google DeepMind's original post with the demo video of a Gemini-powered pointer that combines voice, pointing and visual understanding.
Mentioned in: Multimodal AI Pointer: Combining Voice, Mouse Pointing and Vision with Gemini (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Intro to Agent Skills (video) · video · youtube.com · free
Intro video on building modular, on-demand agent skills that give coding agents deep context.
Mentioned in: Agent Skills: Modular On-Demand Context, and skillsbento (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Master All 20 Agentic Design Patterns (Mark Kashef) · video · youtube.com · free
Mark Kashef's walkthrough of 20 agentic design patterns you can use when building agents.
Mentioned in: 6 Free Videos to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - MiniMax Agent post: MaxClaw walkthrough · video · x.com · free
MiniMax Agent's own X post with the MaxClaw walkthrough video.
Mentioned in: Set Up MaxClaw in MiniMax Agent and Connect It to Telegram (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - What Are AI Agents? (IBM Technology) · video · youtube.com · free
IBM's short explainer on what AI agents are and how they work.
Mentioned in: 6 Free Videos to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
LLMOps, Deployment & Monitoring (4)
- Large Language Model Operations (LLMOps) Explained (IBM Technology) · video · youtube.com · free
An IBM explainer video on running and operating LLM applications (LLMOps). The exact title was shown on screen only.
Mentioned in: AI Engineer Roadmap Before 2027: Fundamentals, RAG, Agents, Ops, Evals (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - LLMOps (DeepLearning.AI) · course · learn.deeplearning.ai · free
A DeepLearning.AI course on putting LLM applications into production. The exact course was shown on screen only. Free with a DeepLearning.AI account during its platform beta; certificates are paid.
Mentioned in: AI Engineer Roadmap Before 2027: Fundamentals, RAG, Agents, Ops, Evals (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - Made With ML · course · madewithml.com · free
End-to-end MLOps curriculum; the guide calls it the best free resource in the category.
In a shared PDF: The AI Pivot Field Guide - shared in this reel on Facebook, this reel on Facebook - Original LFM 2.5-Encoder prompt routing demo video (YouTube) · video · youtube.com · free
The full original YouTube demo of zero-shot prompt routing with LFM 2.5-Encoder. The caption link appears truncated and looked broken when checked.
Mentioned in: Zero-Shot Prompt Routing with Liquid AI's LFM 2.5-Encoder-350M (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)
Fine-tuning & Model Customization (3)
- Training Agents series (Hugging Face) · video · youtube.com · free
Hugging Face live tutorial on fine-tuning a coding agent with its own traces for continual learning.
Mentioned in: Hugging Face Training Agents series: post-training coding agents (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Fine-Tune a Model on Your Own Coding Agent Traces (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Hugging Face LLM Course – Chapter 7.3 · course · huggingface.co · free
A section of Hugging Face's free LLM Course with hands-on training and fine-tuning of models.
Mentioned in: Hugging Face LLM Course: Chapter 7.3 for Training Your Own Model (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Hugging Face YouTube channel · channel · youtube.com · free
Hugging Face's official YouTube channel, which hosts the Training Agents sessions.
Mentioned in: Hugging Face Training Agents series: post-training coding agents (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)
AI Safety, Security & Guardrails (1)
- DonvitoAI post on X (AIBackends PII redaction demo) · video · x.com · free
The original X post with the short video demo of AIBackends redacting PII locally.
Mentioned in: Local PII Redaction on CPU with the AIBackends Python Package (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)
AI Dev Tools & Productivity (10)
- Melvin Vivas YouTube channel · channel · youtube.com · free
The creator's channel with livestreams and videos on building apps with AI tools.
Mentioned in: Melvin Vivas YouTube channel for live replays (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Livestream: Building a React Native ChatGPT App with Cursor and OpenAI (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Claude Academy · course · academy.claude.com · free
Learning content about Claude that can be opened in the Claude desktop app.
Mentioned in: Claude Academy is now in the Claude desktop app (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Cursor (@cursor_ai) on X – Projects launch post · video · x.com · free
Cursor's official launch video and post introducing Projects, long-lived agents that manage fleets of coding agents.
Mentioned in: Cursor Projects: Long-Lived Agents That Manage Fleets of Coding Agents (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Katia Gil Guzman (@kagigz) on X – Codex workflow post · video · x.com · free
The original X post with the video showing how to build and deploy an app with the Codex app.
Mentioned in: Building and Deploying a Full App with the Codex App, MCP Servers and Skills (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Livestream replay on YouTube (Codex vs Devin) · video · youtube.com · free · link looked broken
Replay of the creator's livestream about Codex usage limits and building with Devin.
Mentioned in: Livestream Recap: Codex Limits and Why Devin Is a $200 Option (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Magnific broadcast: Learn Seedance 2.0 · video · x.com · free
A live broadcast on X teaching how to use Seedance 2.0.
Mentioned in: Seedance 2.0 Video Generation in Freepik (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Matt Pocock's Agentic Engineering Workflow (just copy him) · video · youtube.com · free
David Ondrej's YouTube video on how Matt Pocock works with AI coding agents.
Mentioned in: Video: Matt Pocock's Agentic Engineering Workflow (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Removing Plan Mode in Claude, Codex and Cursor Is a Huge Mistake · video · youtube.com · free
Melvin Vivas's long-form YouTube video arguing for keeping Plan Mode in AI coding agents.
Mentioned in: Why removing Plan Mode from coding agents is a mistake (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - X Live broadcast · video · x.com · free · open in a browser to verify
The original X livestream broadcast. The link currently returns 404.
Mentioned in: Livestream Recap: Codex Limits and Why Devin Is a $200 Option (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - YouTube Studio · tool · studio.youtube.com · free
YouTube's creator dashboard for uploading and managing videos; it is the target app in the demo workflow.
Mentioned in: Codex Record & Replay: Turn a Demonstrated Workflow into a Reusable Skill (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)
Portfolio Projects (3)
- How to Build a Coding Project That Will Get You Hired in 2026 [FULL BLUEPRINT] · video · youtube.com · free
Bashiri Smith's full YouTube tutorial on planning and building portfolio projects that solve real problems and show employers you can do useful work.
Mentioned in: Build Side Projects With Real Users to Stand Out to Employers (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Be the "Glue": Build AI Projects That Solve Real Problems to Get Hired (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Stop Writing AI Keyword Soup: Build Projects That Solve Real Problems (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Beat the Hiring "Trust Recession" With Public Proof-of-Skill Projects (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) and 3 more - 27 AI Engineering Projects to Get Hired - The Ultimate Guide · video · youtube.com · free
A longer walkthrough of all 27 projects: what to build, which tools you need, how long to spend building and how to find real users.
Mentioned in: Software Engineer to AI Engineer Before 2027: A 5-Step Career Plan (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - [Full livestream] Build a React Native ChatGPT app using Cursor, OpenAI, and Expo · video · youtube.com · free
A full livestream building an iOS ChatGPT app with React Native, Expo, the OpenAI API and Cursor.
Mentioned in: Livestream: Building a React Native ChatGPT App with Cursor and OpenAI (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)
Resume, Job Search & Interviews (2)
- Why Your Job Applications Keep Getting Ignored · video · youtube.com · free
Bashiri Smith's YouTube video on his strategy for standing out among applicants and getting interviews.
Mentioned in: Software Engineer to AI Engineer Before 2027: A 5-Step Career Plan (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Beat the Hiring "Signal Problem": Referrals, Targeting, and Volume (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Using the September Hiring Surge: Volume Plus Quality in Your Job Search (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - Theo's video 'We're leaving GitHub' (rebranded 'Get in, we're leaving GitHub') · video · youtube.com · free
Theo's video that flopped at first and then beat his channel average after it was repackaged with a new thumbnail and title.
Mentioned in: Theo's YouTube Packaging Masterclass: Thumbnails, Titles and the Algorithm (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)
Industry Trends & Job Market (8)
- OpenAI DevDay livestream replay · video · x.com · free
Replay of Melvin Vivas's X Live watch party covering the full OpenAI DevDay 2026 keynote.
Mentioned in: OpenAI DevDay recap: Dots, GPT-6.1 Sol, Codex Cloud, Agents API (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), OpenAI DevDay 2026 Replay: Timestamped Guide to the Announcements (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - AI Engineer (conference and YouTube channel) · channel · youtube.com · free
AI engineering conference series that posts its talks for free on YouTube, including the full version of this talk.
Mentioned in: Self-Flow: Training Multimodal Generative Models Without an External Encoder (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - F.03 Livestream - Day 9 | 191 consecutive hours and 238,000 packages · video · youtube.com · free
Figure's livestream of F.03 humanoid robots running package handling around the clock.
Mentioned in: Figure F.03 Livestream: Humanoid Robots Working Nonstop (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Fireship · channel · youtube.com · free
Developer YouTube channel with short, fast-paced videos on tech news and programming; it made the 'indie hackers going extinct' video quoted here.
Mentioned in: Is Indie Hacking Dead? How AI Coding Changes the Micro-SaaS Playbook (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Full interview with Dario Amodei · video · youtube.com · free
Full-length YouTube interview with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei about the Anthropic story.
Mentioned in: Must-Watch: Full Interview with Dario Amodei on the Anthropic Story (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Inside Anthropic, the $965 Billion AI Juggernaut | The Circuit · video · youtube.com · free
A Bloomberg Originals interview with Anthropic co-founders Dario and Daniela Amodei about the company's history, safety approach and politics.
Mentioned in: Bloomberg's 'Inside Anthropic' interview with Dario and Daniela Amodei (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - President Xi pitches China as leader of new global AI order, challenging US dominance (CNA) · video · youtube.com · free
CNA news video on China's pitch to lead global AI governance and cooperation.
Mentioned in: Why Chinese AI Models Are Mostly Open Source (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Theo - t3.gg (YouTube channel) · channel · youtube.com · free
Theo Browne's channel about web development and AI tools, and the main speaker in this masterclass.
Mentioned in: Theo's YouTube Packaging Masterclass: Thumbnails, Titles and the Algorithm (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)
Mentioned without a public link
Check the original post for these:
- AI Engineering Interview Questions Training Video: The creator's full walkthrough video covering each of the 100 interview questions and their answers.
From: The 5 Categories Asked in Every AI Engineering Interview (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) - Melvin Vivas – full Hermes assistant build video: The creator's full walkthrough of building this personal assistant agent.
From: Personal Assistant Agent on Hermes: Morning Briefings and Inbox Triage (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) - Tomy's AI Garage (YouTube channel): The creator's YouTube channel with videos on AI and agents, including a beginner's guide to Buzz.
From: Connecting Hermes Agent to the Buzz Agent-First Chat App via the Native Gateway (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)