Topic 14 of 16 in the learning path

Portfolio Projects

Project ideas and how to build a portfolio that gets interviews.

Reels and posts (21)

Melvin Vivas's GitHub Profile of AI Projects · Melvin Vivas, X: The creator updated his GitHub profile (donvito) to list the projects he's working on.
Build Side Projects With Real Users to Stand Out to Employers · Bashiri Smith, Facebook · 0:59: Bashiri Smith builds on advice from an unnamed tech influencer.
27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer · Bashiri Smith, Facebook · 0:08: This 8-second reel has no speech.
Be the "Glue": Build AI Projects That Solve Real Problems to Get Hired · Bashiri Smith, Facebook · 1:21: Bashiri Smith starts from a quote by Microsoft's CEO: even with heavy automation, humans do the "glue work," and new glue work will keep appearing.
Six AI Engineering Skills, Six Portfolio Projects to Practice Them · Bashiri Smith, Facebook · 0:19: A quick list that pairs six core AI engineering skills (RAG, agents, LLMOps, evals, fine-tuning, safety) with one hands-on project for each.
6 Steps to Build a Resume Project That Lands an AI Engineering Job · Bashiri Smith, Facebook · 2:47: Bashiri Smith lays out a six-step framework for building portfolio projects that get you hired as an engineer in 2026.
6-Step Framework for Building AI Projects Target Companies Care About · Bashiri Smith, Facebook · 0:08: This short reel (no speech, caption only) gives a six-step process for picking and building a portfolio project.
Stop Writing AI Keyword Soup: Build Projects That Solve Real Problems · Bashiri Smith, Facebook · 1:05: Bashiri Smith argues that listing RAG, agents, LLMs and evals on your resume isn't enough to get hired.
Beat the Hiring "Trust Recession" With Public Proof-of-Skill Projects · Bashiri Smith, Facebook · 1:06: The creator says candidates aren't getting interviews because companies no longer trust résumés and credentials.
Generate Job-Worthy AI Project Ideas from Recent Research Papers + ChatGPT · Bashiri Smith, Facebook · 0:43: The video shows a quick way to find portfolio project ideas that show real-world skill.
3 AI Portfolio Projects That Get Past the 6-Second Resume Scan · Bashiri Smith, Facebook · 0:12: Most AI projects on resumes get skipped because they're basic demos like a chatbot over a single PDF.
15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer · Bashiri Smith, Facebook · 0:07: A short reel listing 15 portfolio projects for software engineers moving into AI engineering.
5 Weekend AI Engineering Projects: Cost Routing, Caching, Evals & Observability · Bashiri Smith, Facebook · 1:28: Bashiri Smith suggests five AI projects you could build in a weekend.
6 Job-Realistic AI Engineering Projects: Reranking to Exfiltration Guardrails · Bashiri Smith, Facebook · 0:36: This short video links six AI engineering skills to six portfolio projects.
Learn AI Engineering by Building One Project per Skill · Bashiri Smith, Facebook · 0:22: Bashiri Smith says you should stop learning AI concepts without building anything with them.
Comment-to-DM Offer: Claude Prompt, 27 AI Engineering Projects & BASWE.AI · Bashiri Smith, Facebook · 0:08: This is an 8-second reel with no speech, so there is no lesson in it.
GPT-6 Astra Hackathon in Singapore (13 Sep) · Melvin Vivas, X: The creator shares a free hackathon in Singapore on 13 September for building with GPT-6 Astra.
Portfolio Projects to Get Hired as a $100k–$200k+ AI Engineer (Teaser) · Bashiri Smith, Facebook · 0:11: This 11-second reel is a teaser for a list of portfolio projects that Bashiri Smith says can help you get hired as an AI engineer earning $100k–$200k+.
X Developer Exhibit: Showcase Your X Apps · Melvin Vivas, X: X announced the Developer Exhibit, a place where builders can list their X apps to get traffic and revenue.
Real-Time Tennis Computer Vision Project at 30+ FPS · Melvin Vivas, X: A computer vision portfolio project for tennis that detects the player, ball and racquet and estimates player poses.
Local Image Generation Pipeline Built with Claude Code · Melvin Vivas, X: The creator used Claude Code to build a local image-generation pipeline that needs no external APIs.

Watch, free (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)

Read and use (13)

Bashiri Smith's AI Projects Guide · pdf · drive.google.com · free
The creator's guide to 27 AI projects, with full architecture, build steps phase by phase, interview talking points, and the stack for each project.
Mentioned in: 6-Step Framework for Building AI Projects Target Companies Care About (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Generate Job-Worthy AI Project Ideas from Recent Research Papers + ChatGPT (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), 3 AI Portfolio Projects That Get Past the 6-Second Resume Scan (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), 15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) and 4 more
Three.js · tool · x.com · free
JavaScript 3D graphics library whose browser-rendered scenes can become video frames.
Mentioned in: Building a 3D Flight Scene with Sonnet in Cursor, three.js and 3D Models (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Vibe-Coding a 3D Human Anatomy App with Three.js and GPT 5.6 (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Building a Three.js Scene with Claude Opus 5 in Claude Desktop (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), HyperFrames: Let Coding Agents Turn HTML into MP4 Videos (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 1 more
donvito (GitHub) · repo · github.com · free
Melvin Vivas's GitHub profile listing the AI projects he is working on.
Mentioned in: Melvin Vivas's GitHub Profile of AI Projects (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Natural Language to API Calls with LangChain APIChain and OpenAI (Melvin Vivas on melvinvivas.com · notes), Q&A Over Your Own PDFs with LlamaIndex, OpenAI and Python (2023) (Melvin Vivas on melvinvivas.com · notes)
AI Engineering Hub (patchy631/ai-engineering-hub) · repo · github.com · free
GitHub repo with in-depth tutorials and projects on LLMs, RAG and real-world AI agent applications, at beginner to advanced levels.
Mentioned in: Two Free Resources to Learn AI Engineering: AI Engineering Hub & AI Safety Book (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
AI Projects (Google Drive guide) · pdf · drive.google.com · free
The creator's Google Drive folder with a guide to 27 AI engineering portfolio projects, organized by skill.
Mentioned in: Learn AI Engineering by Building One Project per Skill (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
Bashiri Smith's AI Engineer Projects Breakdown · pdf · check price
The creator's step-by-step guide to building the six projects in the video, plus about 20 more project ideas.
DM only: comment SKILLS on this reel on Facebook and you get it by DM.
Mentioned in: Six AI Engineering Skills, Six Portfolio Projects to Practice Them (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
Excalidraw · repo · github.com · free
Popular open-source virtual whiteboard, used here as the demo codebase (the transcript mishears it as 'Excalibur').
Mentioned in: Cursor Cloud Agents: Onboarding, Self-Testing on a Remote Desktop, Video Demos (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)
Flappy Bird — Pocket Arcade · website · flappy-bird-arcade.donvitocodes.chatgpt.site · free
The creator's live Flappy Bird clone, built by GPT-6 Astra in Codex and hosted on ChatGPT sites.
Mentioned in: Building and Deploying a Flappy Bird Clone with GPT-6 Astra in Codex (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)
GPT-6 Astra Hackathon: Singapore · other · astra-hackathon-singapore.openai.chatgpt.site · free
An in-person hackathon in Singapore for building projects with GPT-6 Astra.
Mentioned in: GPT-6 Astra Hackathon in Singapore (13 Sep) (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)
Medium · website · medium.com · free · open in a browser to verify
Blogging platform for writing up your project story and architecture decisions.
Mentioned in: 6 Steps to Build a Resume Project That Lands an AI Engineering Job (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
Reddit · community · reddit.com · free
Online forums where you can share your finished project.
Mentioned in: 6 Steps to Build a Resume Project That Lands an AI Engineering Job (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
Streamer Suite (donvito/streamer-suite) · repo · github.com · free
Open-source app for managing livestream widgets and overlays, such as CPU/RAM/GPU monitors, as OBS browser sources.
Mentioned in: Streamer Suite: livestream overlay app built live with Claude Code (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)
X Developer Exhibit · website · developer.x.com · free
X's showcase platform where developers list and promote apps built on the X API.
Mentioned in: X Developer Exhibit: Showcase Your X Apps (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)

Build

A small, shareable side project with real users that deals with production-level problems. (from Build Side Projects With Real Users to Stand Out to Employers)
Model regression detection system (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
LLM cost autopilot (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Failure forensics tool for AI pipelines (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Self-healing documentation bot (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
LLM output arbitration system (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
RAG pipeline with hybrid search (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Semantic caching layer (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Text-to-SQL with guardrails (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Prompt versioning + A/B testing platform (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Fine-tuning pipeline with LoRA (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
LLM gateway with rate limiting + fallback routing (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
AI feature flag system (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Automated eval dataset generator (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Multimodal document processor (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Agent orchestration system (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Multimodal RAG assistant for HVAC technicians (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Multi-agent insurance claims reviewer (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
E-commerce support caching system (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Legal research retrieval evaluation system (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
LoRA fine-tuning for freight invoice extraction (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Prompt injection defense for recruiting assistants (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Knowledge graph RAG for enterprise data (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Multi-agent research assistant (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Self-healing LLM gateway (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
LLM-as-a-judge with human calibration (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Model distillation pipeline (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Automated AI red-teaming harness (from 27 Portfolio Projects to Move from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Pick a real problem that real users have, build a solution for it, put it in their hands, and record the impact so you can show it in interviews. (from Be the "Glue": Build AI Projects That Solve Real Problems to Get Hired)
RAG: a hybrid knowledge graph + vector retrieval system that handles multi-hop questions. (from Six AI Engineering Skills, Six Portfolio Projects to Practice Them)
Agents: a multi-agent research assistant with a supervisor agent and durable state. (from Six AI Engineering Skills, Six Portfolio Projects to Practice Them)
LLMOps: a self-healing LLM gateway that fails over when a provider goes down. (from Six AI Engineering Skills, Six Portfolio Projects to Practice Them)
Evals: an LLM-as-judge evaluator calibrated against real human labels. (from Six AI Engineering Skills, Six Portfolio Projects to Practice Them)
Fine-tuning: distill a frontier model's task performance into an 8B model at a fraction of the cost. (from Six AI Engineering Skills, Six Portfolio Projects to Practice Them)
Safety: an automated red-team harness that runs on every deploy. (from Six AI Engineering Skills, Six Portfolio Projects to Practice Them)
Build a 1–2 month project that solves one real problem shared across many of your target companies, chosen from their job postings, engineering blogs and conversations with their engineers. (from 6 Steps to Build a Resume Project That Lands an AI Engineering Job)
Build a project that solves a problem that keeps showing up in your target companies' job descriptions and engineering blogs, sized to finish in 1–2 months. (from 6-Step Framework for Building AI Projects Target Companies Care About)
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. (from Stop Writing AI Keyword Soup: Build Projects That Solve Real Problems)
A 'signal project': an ongoing public project that solves a real problem companies care about, run like a mini startup with regular public progress updates. (from Beat the Hiring "Trust Recession" With Public Proof-of-Skill Projects)
Build a coding project based on a recent arXiv paper in AI, ML, or Computational Engineering/Finance/Science, using ChatGPT's step-by-step plan. (from Generate Job-Worthy AI Project Ideas from Recent Research Papers + ChatGPT)
RAG pipeline with hybrid search: dense vectors + BM25 + reranking + verified citations (from 3 AI Portfolio Projects That Get Past the 6-Second Resume Scan)
Agent orchestration system: supervisor agent, tool use, persistent memory, handing off to a human when needed (from 3 AI Portfolio Projects That Get Past the 6-Second Resume Scan)
LLM gateway with fallback routing: per-team budgets, rate limits, circuit breakers, switching providers on failure (from 3 AI Portfolio Projects That Get Past the 6-Second Resume Scan)
Model regression detection system (from 15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
LLM cost autopilot (from 15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Failure forensics tool for AI pipelines (from 15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Self-healing documentation bot (from 15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
LLM output arbitration system (from 15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
RAG pipeline with hybrid search (from 15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Semantic caching layer (from 15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Text-to-SQL with guardrails (from 15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Prompt versioning + A/B testing platform (from 15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Fine-tuning pipeline with LoRA (from 15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
LLM gateway with rate limiting + fallback routing (from 15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
AI feature flag system (from 15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Automated eval dataset generator (from 15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Multi-modal document processor (from 15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
Agent orchestration system (from 15 Production-Grade AI Projects to Go from Software Engineer to AI Engineer)
LLM cost autopilot: a router that scores query complexity and sends each query to the cheapest model that can still answer well (from 5 Weekend AI Engineering Projects: Cost Routing, Caching, Evals & Observability)
Semantic caching middleware for LLM APIs that serves semantically similar requests from a cache (from 5 Weekend AI Engineering Projects: Cost Routing, Caching, Evals & Observability)
Model regression detector: a CI/CD pipeline that tests LLM outputs against a golden dataset and sends Slack alerts (from 5 Weekend AI Engineering Projects: Cost Routing, Caching, Evals & Observability)
Failure forensics / observability tool that traces multi-step AI pipelines and finds where failures start (from 5 Weekend AI Engineering Projects: Cost Routing, Caching, Evals & Observability)
Self-healing technical docs: a GitHub Action that finds outdated docs after code changes and updates them (from 5 Weekend AI Engineering Projects: Cost Routing, Caching, Evals & Observability)
RAG pipeline with reranking (retrieval reranking) (from 6 Job-Realistic AI Engineering Projects: Reranking to Exfiltration Guardrails)
Human approval agent (human-in-the-loop control) (from 6 Job-Realistic AI Engineering Projects: Reranking to Exfiltration Guardrails)
LLM request batching layer (inference optimization) (from 6 Job-Realistic AI Engineering Projects: Reranking to Exfiltration Guardrails)
LLM-as-a-judge eval harness (automated evaluation) (from 6 Job-Realistic AI Engineering Projects: Reranking to Exfiltration Guardrails)
QLoRA fine-tuning pipeline (efficient fine-tuning) (from 6 Job-Realistic AI Engineering Projects: Reranking to Exfiltration Guardrails)
Data exfiltration guardrails (data loss prevention) (from 6 Job-Realistic AI Engineering Projects: Reranking to Exfiltration Guardrails)
RAG pipeline with hybrid search (retrieval-augmented generation) (from Learn AI Engineering by Building One Project per Skill)
Multi-agent orchestration system (from Learn AI Engineering by Building One Project per Skill)
Eval set generator built from production logs (LLM evaluation) (from Learn AI Engineering by Building One Project per Skill)
Semantic caching layer (LLMOps) (from Learn AI Engineering by Building One Project per Skill)
SQL guardrail layer that blocks destructive queries (AI security and guardrails) (from Learn AI Engineering by Building One Project per Skill)
Fine-tuning pipeline with LoRA (ML foundations) (from Learn AI Engineering by Building One Project per Skill)
Build an app on the X API and list it on the Developer Exhibit. (from X Developer Exhibit: Showcase Your X Apps)
Build a sports-analytics CV pipeline: object detection, pose estimation, exclusion zones and smoothed ball tracking running in real time. (from Real-Time Tennis Computer Vision Project at 30+ FPS)
Build an automated local stock-photo production pipeline with ComfyUI, Z-Image-Turbo and FLUX.2 dev, using Claude Code to write the automation. (from Local Image Generation Pipeline Built with Claude Code)