Start here
Pick what you came for. Each path starts with three reads in order, and the rest wait underneath when you want more.
AI career paths
Pick the kind of work you'd like to do, then read its guides in order: what the job is, how people get in, and what interviews ask.
Start with these, in order
- Next for youCompare the AI career pathsSee what each job involves day to day, then open its guides, posted pay and practice interview questions.
- What Is a Forward Deployed Engineer?The job in one read: what FDEs do with customers, who hires them, and why the title exists.
- How to Become a Forward Deployed EngineerThe skills to learn and the project to show if you don't have the title yet.
More in this path (7)
- Career Path FinderAnswer ten questions and get a suggested AI engineering role, with the guides for it.
- AI Engineer: A Practical Career and Portfolio GuideWhat AI engineers build, how they check it works, and what to show in a portfolio.
- Agent Engineer: A Practical Career and Portfolio GuideWhat agent engineers build, the skills it takes, and a portfolio project you can show.
- GTM Engineer: A Practical Career and Portfolio GuideHow GTM engineers fix the data and automate the handoffs a sales team depends on.
- Forward Deployed Engineer Interview GuideWhat FDE interviews test, with practice questions.
- The Forward Deployed Engineering Playbook: Discovery to ProductionHow FDE teams take a customer project from first call to handoff.
- Forward Deployed Engineer vs Solutions Architect vs ConsultantThree similar-sounding jobs compared, so you can tell which one fits you.
Or go straight to a role
Forward Deployed Engineer
Work with a customer, find out what is actually stuck, and build the software that makes their workflow run.
AI Engineer
Build useful software on top of AI models, then find out where it gets things wrong and fix it.
Agent Engineer
Build AI software that can take actions, with clear limits and a way to recover when something fails.
GTM Engineer
Fix the data and automate the handoffs a sales or marketing team depends on.
Keep going with Still Building
For people who build with AI and want judgment instead of a roundup.
Build with agents
Start the free agent course at lesson one, then see full agent workflows from start to finish.
Start with these, in order
- Next for youAI APIs for Beginners: Make a Request and Handle the ResponseLabLesson one of the free 17-lesson agent course: send a request to a model, read the answer, and test what happens when it fails.
- Install Claude Code and Codex, Then Run a First TaskLabInstall Claude Code and Codex, give both the same small task, and check the result before you trust it.
- Human Approval for Agents: Store and Check the Exact DecisionLabSave exactly what a person approved, and refuse to run it if anything changed since.
More in this path (4)
- Build a Ticket Workflow with Signed Delivery and ApprovalLabThe course's final project: a support-ticket agent, tested against twelve ways it could go wrong.
- Agent or Workflow?Score a task to see if it needs a fixed workflow, a workflow with one AI step, or a full agent.
- Coding Agent CostEstimate a month of coding-agent API spend and compare it with the subscription price.
- Open-source GTM skillsAgent skills for sales research and outreach that you can read before you install.
Keep going with Still Building
For people who build with AI and want judgment instead of a roundup.
Sources worth following
The accounts, newsletters and blogs worth your time. Every list says when it was last checked.
Start with these, in order
- Next for youBest AI Accounts to Follow on X (Twitter) in 2026Researchers, engineers and lab accounts, with examples of what each one posts.
- The Best AI Newsletters to Subscribe ToNewsletters still worth opening after a month in your inbox.
- Best AI Blogs and News Sites for 2026: A High-Signal Reading StackLab blogs and sites where news starts, before it gets retold.
More in this path (7)
- The Best AI YouTube Channels for EducationChannels that build things start to finish, not launch demos.
- Best AI communitiesReddit groups, Discord servers and events, each joined through its official page.
- The Best AI Podcasts for Staying InformedLong conversations with the people doing the work.
- AI RSS and OPML Pack: Import Six Engineering FeedsSix checked engineering feeds you can import into your reader in one file.
- AI Engineering Blogs: Systems, Evals and Practical WorkA short reading list for experiments, evaluations and running AI in production.
- AI Agent Repos and Starter Templates: Seven ProjectsStarter code for agents, picked by what it's for and how readable it is.
- Companies Hiring Forward-Deployed and GTM EngineersWho is hiring FDEs and GTM engineers right now, with links to the postings.
Keep going with Still Building
For people who build with AI and want judgment instead of a roundup.