AI Engineer Roadmap: Fundamentals, RAG, Agents, Books & Your First AI Service

Bashiri Smith · Facebook reel · 2026-08-28 · 1:15 · 93,460 views · Open on Facebook

Topics: Start Here: Roadmaps & Strategy, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), AI Agents, Tool Use & MCP · Level: beginner

Summary

Bashiri Smith lays out a short roadmap for becoming an AI engineer before 2027. Start with how models work, using Karpathy's Zero to Hero and 3Blue1Brown's neural network series. Then learn the core of the job, RAG and agents, through LangChain's RAG From Scratch, LangGraph and the Hugging Face Agents Course, and back it up with two books. Finish by shipping a real AI service with FastAPI and Docker.

Key points

• Learn fundamentals first. Tools change every few months, but engineers who understand what happens inside the model keep their edge.
• Step 1: Watch Andrej Karpathy's Neural Networks: Zero to Hero alongside 3Blue1Brown's Neural Networks series.
• Step 2: RAG and agents are the core of the job right now.
• For RAG, LangChain's RAG From Scratch series covers embeddings, vector databases, retrieval and how to run RAG in production.
• For agents, pick one orchestration framework and go deep. The creator picks LangGraph and pairs it with the Hugging Face Agents Course on multi-step, tool-using systems.
• Back this up with Chip Huyen's 'AI Engineering' and Michael Albada's 'Building Applications with AI Agents'.
• Take the production skills you already have and point them at AI. AI engineering is basically software engineering that ships AI.
• Step 3: Build an AI service with FastAPI, containerize it with Docker and put it behind a real API.

Resources mentioned

• Neural Networks: Zero to Hero (Andrej Karpathy) · course · karpathy.ai · free
  Build GPT from scratch. The guide calls it the deepest free foundation.
  Also in: AI Engineer Roadmap Before 2027: Fundamentals, RAG, Agents, Ops, Evals (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
• 3Blue1Brown Neural Networks series · video · youtube.com · free
  A visual series by 3Blue1Brown explaining neural networks, backpropagation and transformers.
• 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.
  Also in: AI Engineer Roadmap Before 2027: Fundamentals, RAG, Agents, Ops, Evals (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
• LangGraph · tool · langchain.com · free
  Open-source library for building stateful LLM workflows as graphs, with branching, loops and human-in-the-loop pauses.
  Also in: Step-by-Step Roadmap to a $200K+ AI Engineering Role (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), LangChain vs. LangGraph Explained with One RAG Chatbot (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Wannabe vs $200K+ AI Engineer: RAG, Agents, Context and Fine-Tuning Mistakes (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), 7 Habits to Become an AI Engineer: Books, Tooling, Research & Shipping (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) and 2 more
• Hugging Face Agents Course · course · huggingface.co · free
  A free agents course with a real completion certificate.
  Also in: AI Engineer Roadmap Before 2027: Fundamentals, RAG, Agents, Ops, Evals (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
• AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation Models (Chip Huyen) · book · github.com · paid
  Essential for AI engineers, even if some topics may not cover the newest tools. Good to know for ML engineers who want to build products with their models.
  Also in: 5 Books to Move from Software Engineer to AI/ML Engineer (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), AI Engineer Roadmap Before 2027: Fundamentals, RAG, Agents, Ops, Evals (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
• Building Applications with AI Agents (Michael Albada) · book · oreilly.com · paid · open in a browser to verify
  Michael Albada's O'Reilly book on designing and building agent-based applications.
  Also in: AI Engineer Roadmap Before 2027: Fundamentals, RAG, Agents, Ops, Evals (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
• FastAPI · tool · fastapi.tiangolo.com · free
  Wrap your models as real inference APIs.
  Also in: Step-by-Step Roadmap to a $200K+ AI Engineering Role (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), 8-Week Roadmap to a $200K+ AI Engineering Role (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Software Engineer to AI Engineer: Job Boards, Stack, Projects and Learning Sites (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), AI Engineer Roadmap for 2026 in 60 Seconds (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
• Docker · tool · docs.docker.com · free · recommended by both Bashiri Smith & Melvin Vivas
  Containerize everything you ship.
  Also in: Deploying AI workflow integrations with Apache Camel in Docker (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Devin's cloud Ubuntu sandbox ships with Docker pre-installed (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), 7 Habits to Become an AI Engineer: Books, Tooling, Research & Shipping (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), 8-Week Roadmap to a $200K+ AI Engineering Role (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) and 5 more
• 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.
  Also 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 19 more
• BASWE.Ai Engineer (Skool community) · community · skool.com · paid
  The creator's paid community and program, with an AI learning roadmap (including the full ops and evaluation track), daily calls with engineers and recruiters, resume and portfolio help, and a job-search pipeline.
  Also in: Basic RAG Pipeline in 60 Seconds: From Documents to Grounded Answers (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), How to Evaluate a RAG Pipeline: Retrieval vs. Generation (Interview Answer) (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) and 76 more

Try this

• Watch Karpathy's Neural Networks: Zero to Hero alongside 3Blue1Brown's Neural Networks series.
• Work through LangChain's RAG From Scratch series to learn embeddings, vector databases and retrieval.
• Pick one agent orchestration framework (the creator suggests LangGraph) and go deep on it.
• Take the Hugging Face Agents Course.
• Read 'AI Engineering' by Chip Huyen and 'Building Applications with AI Agents' by Michael Albada.
• Build an AI service with FastAPI, containerize it with Docker and deploy it behind a real API.
• Comment 'AI' on the video to get the creator's free roadmap with resources.
• Your first AI service: build it with FastAPI, containerize it with Docker and serve it behind a real API.