Stop Writing AI Keyword Soup: Build Projects That Solve Real Problems

Bashiri Smith · Facebook reel · 2026-09-23 · 1:05 · 3,684 views · Open on Facebook

Topics: Portfolio Projects, Resume, Job Search & Interviews · Level: beginner

Summary

Bashiri Smith argues that listing RAG, agents, LLMs and evals on your resume isn't enough to get hired. Companies hire engineers to solve problems, so every project should show the problem you found, who needed it solved, what you built and how you know it worked. He backs this up with a quote from NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang: coding is only one part of an engineer's job, and the real job is solving problems.

Key points

• Learning tools just to learn them (RAG, agents, LLMs, evals, harness engineering, loop engineering) doesn't impress employers.
• A resume that reads like 'AI keyword soup' is a red flag, not a strength.
• Every project should answer: What problem did you find? Who needed it solved? What did you build, and how do you know it worked?
• Companies hire software, AI and data engineers to solve problems, not to see 'who can RAG the best'.
• Show proof that you can find problems, solve them, and explain how you solved them.
• Jensen Huang (NVIDIA) says the number of software engineers at NVIDIA will grow. Coding is related to an engineer's purpose but isn't the same thing. He cares about problems solved, not lines of code.
• Tools still matter, but showing how you used them on a real problem is what gives someone a reason to hire you.

Resources mentioned

• 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.
  Also 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), Beat the Hiring "Trust Recession" With Public Proof-of-Skill Projects (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), 90-Day AI Engineering Job Search: Targeted Companies, Outreach & Loom Pitches (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) and 2 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

• Stop learning AI tools just for their own sake. Point them at real problems.
• Check your resume and project descriptions for 'AI keyword soup' and rewrite them around the problems you solved.
• For each project, write down the problem, who needed it solved, what you built and how you checked that it worked.
• Watch the creator's full training on building projects that get you hired.
• Find a real problem that a specific person or group has, build an AI solution for it (using RAG, agents, etc. only where they help), and document how you know it worked.