Doan Thinh
Software Engineer at NVIDIA
“Before the Accelerator, I was more focused on the model itself. After the program, I started looking at AI applications as complete software systems.”
COHORT 3 · 6 WEEKS · STARTS NOV 5
Ship 4 AI systems in 6 WeeksDefend them as an AI engineer
A live accelerator for experienced engineers and tech leads. Every system you build ships with a live URL, an eval suite, real latency and cost numbers, and real users. Week 6 ends with Defense Day.
Applications open in
Applications open Oct 20, 11:59 PM IST · 50 seats · 7-day full refund
Actual Workflow Preview
Cohort Alumni's Work at
6
Weeks
4
Systems shipped
4
Proof Packs
50
Seats per cohort
24/7
Discord community
∞
Lifetime access
100
Interview questions
30
Design patterns
30
AI-DSA problems
7-Day
Full refund
01
Deployed software
Dockerized, containerized, behind a live URL. It runs on the internet, not in a notebook.
02
Real engineering
Python, latency, memory, cost. The parts interviewers ask about.
03
Evals in every build
Golden sets, calibrated judges, and a CI gate that blocks bad changes.
04
Live code review
AI first pass, alumni second, Himanshu at every gate.
Applications open in
Applications open October 20th, 11:59 PM IST
This Cohort Is for You If...
You are a senior engineer switching into AI.
You leave with 4 Proof Packs, 2+ mock interviews, a recorded defense, and an AITalentStudio profile.
You are a data scientist who cannot ship.
You leave with deployed systems that have CI, tracing, and eval gates.
You are going freelance.
You leave with a portfolio clients can click, plus templates to scope and price your first AI project.
You lead an engineering team.
You take the Leader Track and leave with decision records, a cost model, an eval strategy, and a rollout plan for your team.
NOT FOR YOU IF...
You have never written Python. Start with my free Python video, then Build30.
You want prompt tips, not engineering.
You want a certificate.
You cannot give 6 hours a week for 6 weeks.
If you saw yourself in that list, this is the cohort I built for you.
Applications open in
Applications open October 20th, 11:59 PM IST
A LETTER FROM HIMANSHU
I have built AI systems for hospitals, energy companies, and law enforcement. In those places, a wrong output has a cost you can name.
And I keep meeting the same engineer. Ten years of experience. Smart. Took three AI courses. Has the certificates. Then an interviewer asks one question and the room goes quiet:
"How did you know your system was working?"
That question decides AI offers right now. Teams ask about evals, latency, cost, and what broke in production. A notebook cannot answer it. Neither can a certificate.
So I built AI Engineer HQ around one rule. If it is not deployed, measured, and used by someone real, it does not count.
In Cohorts 1 and 2, 39 engineers built alongside me. Surjit went from prototypes to deploying with confidence. Alex landed 2 paid freelance AI projects before his portfolio was finished. Sanvendra, 12 years in, said it better than I can: if you can build and explain two or three of these properly, you can clear the interviews.
Cohort 3 is the last one of 2026, and the most demanding one I have run. Every system ships with a Proof Pack. And on December 10, you defend your work out loud.
Maybe that sounds like a lot. It is. That is the point.
Himanshu
“Himanshu’s approach is grounded in engineering rather than hype. He consistently emphasizes understanding the underlying systems, making good architectural decisions, and actually shipping working software.”
Doan ThinhSoftware Engineer at NVIDIANEW IN COHORT 3
Six things Cohorts 1 and 2 did not have
The Proof Pack
Every system ships with a live URL, an eval suite in CI, p95 latency, cost per 1,000 calls, and real users.
Evals in every build
The skill AI hiring teams screen for first. You build it four times, so you can explain it in your sleep.
Defense Day, Dec 10
10 minutes. Your system. A panel of senior engineers asks the questions real interview loops ask. You keep the recording.
The Sunday Interview Gym
AI system design mock interviews with alumni who work as senior engineers. At least 2 mocks each, plus a timed 4-hour take-home.
Leader Track
For tech leads and architects. Same sessions, different Proof Pack: decision records, a cost model, an eval strategy, and a 90-day rollout plan.
Pay once, come back forever
Every alum of Cohorts 1 and 2 is in Cohort 3 for free. When you join, every future cohort is free for you too.
THE METHOD
Built on PILOT. Proven with a Proof Pack.
Every system you build follows the same five steps, and each step leaves evidence a hiring manager can check.
| PILOT | What you ship |
|---|---|
| Problem | A one-paragraph problem statement about a specific person with a specific pain |
| Insight | An architecture diagram and 3 architecture decision records |
| Learning | An eval suite: golden set, LLM judge calibrated against your own labels |
| Output | A live URL, Dockerized, CI with an eval gate, p95 and cost in the README |
| Traction | 5 real users with logged feedback during the cohort, and a 5-minute recorded defense |
HOW IT WORKS
A 6-week simulation of a high-performance engineering team
01
Ship Days, twice a week
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 90 minutes, live. Three time slots so India, Europe, and the Americas can all attend. Switch slots anytime.
02
Code review at every gate
An AI reviewer trained on my rubric comments on every pull request. Alumni reviewers check it. I review every Proof Pack at the Week 3, 5, and 6 gates.
03
Pods of 5
You build next to 4 other engineers and an alumni pod captain. Weekly 30-minute standup. Nobody gets stuck alone at 11 PM.
04
IDE, not notebooks
Everything is a deployed service: Docker, FastAPI, CI/CD, tracing. You start Day 0 with a starter repo that already has CI and an eval gate wired in.
“He brings a comprehensive, 360-degree approach to his course delivery, balancing collective group instruction with individualized support.”
Dr Kulvinder PanesarAI LeaderVOICES FROM COHORTS 1 AND 2
What members say after they ship
Engineers, architects, and leaders on what changed once they built real AI systems.
Hamad
Senior Manager
“Himanshu emphasizes building, testing ideas, and connecting AI to actual problems, not just following the latest tools and trends.”
Dr Kulvinder Panesar
AI Leader
“An exceptional AI leader, developer, facilitator, and coach.”
He brings a comprehensive, 360-degree approach to his course delivery, balancing collective group instruction with individualized support.
Before and after
Sireesha J
Broadcast Support Engineering · 12 Years Experience
FOMO + zero curriculum → structured clarity
Before
"Clueless. So much FOMO, but no curriculum, no idea where to start."
After
"Now I have a structured, step by step pathway. I know what's happening behind the AI."
Alex Ariza Herrera
AI Engineer & Freelance Developer · Colombia
Zero AI experience → 2 paid freelance projects
Before
"I didn't have the basis to know how to explore, where to explore, what to find, what to expect. Very lost in this world of AI."
After
"Now I have the confidence to acquire clients and do the jobs. This cohort immerses you in real world AI production systems."
Sanvendra Singh
Platform Engineer · Telecom · 12+ Yrs
12+ yrs exp → interview-ready AI projects
Before
"Whatever course I took previously, they were good for freshers but not for experienced people. No interview-credible projects."
After
"The projects here are niche enough that if you can build and explain two or three of them properly, you can clear the interviews."
Surjit Choudhury
Sr. Data Architect · Envision Pharma Group
5× ROI on the production module alone
Before
"I could build models but had no clue about production deployment stuck creating prototypes with no path to ship anything real."
After
"Now I confidently deploy AI systems with practical tips that aren't documented anywhere else. The production deployment module alone is worth 5x what I paid."
More from the cohorts
“The production deployment module alone is worth 5x what I paid for this course. I could build models but had no clue about production deployment. I was stuck creating prototypes. Now I confidently deploy AI systems with so many practical tips that aren't documented anywhere else. This knowledge transformed my capabilities completely.”
Surjit ChoudhurySr. Data Architect · Envision Pharma Group“Himanshu's expertise in AI was instrumental in demystifying the field for me. AI felt like a complete mystery and I had zero confidence about entering this space, but his guidance provided a clear path for my successful career transition. He didn't just teach concepts; he boosted my confidence and made me ready for success.”
Sunke AkhilOperations Specialist · Iqvia“The course was designed for everyone to enjoy and work hands-on. Most AI learning felt boring and theoretical to me, but this Accelerator made me actually enjoy learning. The practical approach and real-world examples made learning engaging and effective. I now get excited about technical sessions instead of dreading them.”
PoornimaBI Consultant · Deloitte“Past courses on ML foundations and Gen AI have been very useful in my work. I have been able to apply the concepts learned in real-world projects.”
Milan T DesaiPrincipal Consultant - Analytics · Infosys“My experience with Himanshu Ramchandani's course on Generative AI has been hugely valuable for me. As someone deeply involved in data management, analytics, and business intelligence, I was looking for ways to integrate AI-driven automation into my workflows. This course provided both theoretical depth and hands-on experience, making it highly valuable for professionals like me.”
Hamad Mohammed BahadiSenior Consultant“I have made my transition to AI from being in the mechanical engineering field.”
Saravanan SAI Engineer · Tejis.AIStraight from Discord
Unfiltered messages from our community channel. This is what people actually type.
Applications open in
Applications open October 20th, 11:59 PM IST
COHORT 3 BUILDS
Curriculum Roadmap
Tuesday: Build. Thursday: Ship. Sunday: System Design and Guests.
00
Readiness CheckWeek 0
The Velocity Kickoff
Eliminate all technical debt. Set up the AI-assisted IDE so we can code 10x faster next week.
- Thu
Live Session
The Command Center Setup
Install and configure claude-code (CLI) and Cursor, and automate boilerplate so we focus on architecture. Fork the starter repo, get GitHub Actions and Docker Desktop running, and wire up OpenAI, Anthropic, and LangSmith API keys.
01
System 1 · Truth GateWeek 1
AI-Assisted Velocity & The Retrieval Engine
RAG is easy. Provable RAG is hard. We build a system that cites its sources and blocks bad code via CI/CD.
- Tue
Live Build
Claude Code & The Engine
Stop typing boilerplate. Set up claude-code and Cursor, then build the ingestion pipeline on pgvector or ChromaDB.
- Thu
Live Build
The Generation & Citations
Wire the retriever to the LLM (FastAPI) and force exact document citations with structured outputs (Pydantic).
- Sun
System Design Gym
Whiteboarding RAG Architectures
When to use GraphRAG vs. vector search.
02
System 1 · Truth GateWeek 2
The Eval Gate
The senior skill: prove your system works, automatically, on every commit.
- Tue
Live Build
LLM-as-a-Judge
Write DeepEval or Ragas scripts. Create a golden dataset of 20 questions and test for Faithfulness and Answer Relevance.
- Thu
Live Build
CI/CD & Deployment
Wire the eval suite into GitHub Actions. If the eval score drops below 85%, the Docker build fails.
- Sun
Guest / Extra
How I pass AI System Design Interviews at NVIDIA/Amazon
An alumni or industry guest.
Must Ship
Proof Pack 1
03
System 2 · Ops AgentWeek 3
MCP & Stateful Workflows
Build an agent that interacts with the real world securely using MCP and human-in-the-loop.
- Tue
Live Build
Model Context Protocol (MCP)
Build an MCP server that connects the agent to local files and external APIs securely, with no messy custom tool wrappers.
- Thu
Live Build
LangGraph Orchestration
Build the cyclic graph. The agent reads an email, extracts a PDF, and decides which tool to use.
- Sun
System Design Gym
Multi-Agent Topologies
Supervisor vs. Swarm vs. Hierarchical patterns.
04
System 2 · Ops AgentWeek 4
Governance & Tracing
An agent you can trust, audit, and explain.
- Tue
Live Build
Human-in-the-Loop (HITL)
Add a pause-state in Postgres. The agent queues a database write, pings a human on Slack, and waits for Approve/Reject before executing.
- Thu
Live Build
Observability
Wire up Langfuse or Phoenix via OpenTelemetry. Trace every token, tool call, and latency spike.
- Sun
Guest / Extra
Prompt Injections and Enterprise Security Guardrails
How enterprises lock agents down.
Must Ship
Proof Pack 2
05
System 3 · Cost RouterWeek 5
Economics & Latency
Prove to a CTO that you won't bankrupt the company with API calls.
- Tue
Live Build
Semantic Caching & Fallbacks
Build a router: cached questions return in 50ms (free), simple queries go to Llama-3-8B (cheap), complex ones go to GPT-4o or Claude (expensive).
- Thu
Live Build
Load Testing
Use Locust or k6 to hit the Dockerized endpoint with 1,000 requests and generate a report proving p95 latency and cost-per-call.
- Sun
Guest / Extra
The Freelance Playbook
How to scope, price, and sell these 3 architectures to clients for $5k to $20k.
Must Ship
Proof Pack 3
06
System 4 · Capstone & DefenseWeek 6
The Crucible
You build your own IP. You defend it live.
- Tue
Live Build
Capstone Unblocking
No new lectures. Bring your industry problem (Finance, Healthcare, E-com) for rapid-fire 5-minute code and architecture reviews.
- Thu
Defense Day
10 minutes. Screen shared.
Show the live URL, the eval metrics, and the tracing dashboard. Alumni judges grill you: "Why no embedding cache here? What happens if this tool fails?" Survive and you get the recording.
- Sun
Graduation
Graduation & The Talent Studio
Onboard your verified profile into AITalentStudio and get access to the Lifetime Vault.
Must Ship
Proof Pack 4
DEFENSE DAY · THURSDAY DEC 10
10 minutes. Your system. Real questions.
Each member defends one Proof Pack in front of a panel of senior engineers and alumni. They ask what real interview loops ask: why this architecture, how you evaluated it, what it costs, what broke. You get the recording for your LinkedIn and your AITalentStudio profile.
Before Dec 10 you will have explained your work on video 6 times. Defense Day feels like the seventh.
Applications open in
Applications open October 20th, 11:59 PM IST
Pipeline
What happens after you ship
01
You build
4 production systems in 6 weeks, each with a live URL, an eval suite, and real users.
02
You pass the gate
I review your Proof Packs. Pass, and your profile goes on AITalentStudio.co with your numbers and your defense recording.
03
You get pitched
AITalentStudio pitches you to companies hiring AI engineers. You pay nothing for placement.
04
You keep coming back
Every future cohort is free for you. Keep building, keep reviewing, keep your stack current.
Placement is an introduction, never a guarantee. You still pass the interviews.
The Vault
On Day 1, you get the code for 10 systems
Full source for everything Cohorts 1 and 2 built. Compare your code to working code when you get stuck.
After Cohort 3, the vault grows to 13.
3.7K+ stars on the open AI Engineering repo.
Proof of Work
What alumni built
Built by working engineers, reviewed line by line, deployed.
Neural Vault
Offline-First RAG system for sensitive documents. Runs entirely on-device, no data leaves the machine.
ChromaDBllama.cppOllamaFastAPI
Built by Surjit Choudhury
Sr. Data Architect · Envision Pharma Group
Source code in the vault on Day 1 →
DevFix Auto-Agent
Self-healing coding agent with stateful agentic loops and Dockerized sandbox execution.
LangGraphDocker SDKGPT-4Python
Built by Saravanan S
AI Engineer · Tejis.AI
Source code in the vault on Day 1 →
Echo Negotiator
Real-time full-duplex audio streaming server with sub-500ms latency using WebSockets.
FastAPI WebSocketsOpenAI RealtimeSilero VAD
Built by Meena Chokkalingam
Data Engineering · Amazon
Source code in the vault on Day 1 →
Graduate Stories
Real Transformations, Documented
Full breakdowns of what happened, why it was hard, and what changed.
Graduate Story · AI Engineer HQ
Zero AI experience → 2 paid freelance projects
From zero AI experience to paid freelance AI work
2 paid freelance AI projects before his portfolio was even finished - a funded public-project proposal system and a healthcare records deployment on AWS.
Alex Ariza Herrera · AI Engineer & Freelance Developer · Colombia
Read →SJ
Graduate Story · AI Engineer HQ
12 yrs no spare time → structured clarity + GitHub + Cohort 2
From 'I don't know where to start' to a 30-day roadmap she built herself
Built her own 30-day AI engineer roadmap with Claude, pushed her first personal GitHub, and re-enrolled for Cohort 2 - in 30–60 minutes a day.
Sireesha J · Broadcast Support Engineering · 12 Years Experience
Read →Applications open in
Applications open October 20th, 11:59 PM IST
Enterprise Case Study
We build for enterprises too
We automated 50 daily sales workflows for Hector Beverages (Paper Boat) in 6 weeks, and trained a non-technical team of 5 to 10 to own it.
Your Instructor
Microsoft
MVP
100+
AI projects delivered
10,000+
Professionals trained
30,000+
People follow his work
Himanshu Ramchandani
Founder & AI Advisor, MasterDexter & Dextar
Himanshu Ramchandani is an AI engineer, Microsoft MVP, and the person 50,000-plus AI builders follow for engineering content that skips the theory and shows the actual build.
He has trained over 10,000 engineers, built and shipped production AI systems through his consulting practice, Dextar, and holds a graduate research background in knowledge tracing, the same discipline behind adaptive learning systems, which is part of why Build30's daily structure is built the way it is, calibrated pacing, not just a curriculum dump.
He created the PILOT framework, the five-step build loop behind every day of this cohort, and has kept a public build practice for years, teaching in public rather than only teaching from a stage.
Applications open in
Applications open October 20th, 11:59 PM IST
“Himanshu emphasizes building, testing ideas, and connecting AI to actual problems, not just following the latest tools and trends.”
HamadSenior ManagerWhat 6 weeks gets you, compared
| University master's | Generic bootcamp | AI Engineer HQ | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Curriculum | Mostly theory | Demo apps | The 2026 production stack |
| Instructors | Academics | Mixed | An architect who ships AI for enterprises |
| Output | A thesis | A portfolio of tutorials | 4 deployed systems with Proof Packs |
| Time | 2 years | 3 to 6 months | 6 weeks |
| Code review | Rare | Peer review | AI + alumni + instructor at every gate |
| Investment | Varies widely | Varies widely | $1,499 |
| What you walk away with | A degree | A certificate | Measured proof and a recorded defense |
Am I ready? A 30-minute check
Before Day 1, you should be able to do these 6 things. If you can do 4, the Week 0 catch-up will get you there.
- 1.Clone a repo and run it locally
- 2.Write a Python function that calls an LLM API and returns JSON
- 3.Open a pull request and get CI green
- 4.Build and run a Docker image
- 5.Call an endpoint with curl
- 6.Read a failing test and fix it
Applications open in
Applications open October 20th, 11:59 PM IST
PRICING
Choose how you want to build
“An exceptional AI leader, developer, facilitator, and coach.”
Dr Kulvinder PanesarAI LeaderPrices are set for your region. Checkout confirms your country.
Most Popular
AI Engineer HQ
$1,999$1,499
For engineers who want the portfolio, the network, and the guarantee.
Applications open in
Applications open October 20th, 11:59 PM IST
What's Inside
- 11 live Ship Day sessions in 3 time slots, plus 6 Sunday sessions
- 4 production systems, each with a full Proof Pack
- Evals and tracing in every build
- Sunday Interview Gym: 2+ AI system design mocks and a 4-hour take-home drill
- Defense Day on Dec 10, recorded
- Code review: AI first pass, alumni second, Himanshu at every gate
- A pod of 5 with an alumni captain
- The vault: code for 10 systems on Day 1
- AITalentStudio profile and pitch after you pass the gate
- Lifetime access to recordings and every future cohort
Application Only
Inner Circle: Executive Track
$4,997
For founders, directors, and enterprise architects who need speed and direct access.
Who's In The Room?
Currently mentoring executives in automotive, finance, and banking.
Apply to Inner Circle
Free to apply. We talk before you pay.
What You Get
- Everything in AI Engineer HQ, plus the Leader Track
- 4 one-on-one strategy and architecture calls
- A capstone on your company's real problem
- Executive profile, personally pitched to hiring partners
- Monthly executive roundtable with the other Inner Circle members
- A private Notion portal for async reviews
Two promises
Promise 1 · 7-day full refund
Join, open the codebase, attend the first sessions. If by Day 7 you feel this is not the best engineering training you have taken, email me and I refund 100%. No questions.
Promise 2 · Ship or I coach you
Ship all 4 Proof Packs and attend 9 of the 11 Ship Days (live, or the recording within 48 hours). If you still do not feel ready to defend your work in an AI system design interview, I will coach you one on one until you are.
Included with your enrollment
Bonus 01
AI Production Architectures Swipe File
14 tested architectures for RAG, voice, and multi-agent systems. Start every new project from a pattern that already works.
Bonus 02
Agentic Systems Blueprint
A step-by-step guide to structuring agents that finish their task and do not loop forever.
Bonus 03
AI System Design Playbook
How 18 production AI systems work, from Perplexity and vLLM to Cursor and Netflix.
Global schedule
3 live Ship Day slots every Tuesday and Thursday. Switch slots anytime.
APAC SLOT
8:00 AM
IST
India Morning · Singapore · Australia
INIndia
8:00 AMSGSingapore
10:30 AMAUSydney
1:30 PMEMEA SLOT
2:00 PM
IST
India Afternoon · UK · Europe
INIndia
2:00 PMGBLondon
8:30 AMDEBerlin
9:30 AMAMERICAS SLOT
7:30 PM
IST
USA · Canada · India Evening
INIndia
7:30 PMUSNew York
9:00 AMUSSan Francisco
6:00 AMSUNDAY · 9:00 AM IST
Interview Gym, guest sessions, office hours
Missed a session? Recordings are up within an hour. Times shown in IST, with city times from Nov 1 (after US daylight saving ends). Your calendar invite converts to your time zone.
Frequently Asked Questions
Applications open Oct 20 at 11:59 PM IST
6 weeks. 4 deployed systems. One recorded defense. The final cohort of 2026.
Applications open in
Applications open October 20th, 11:59 PM IST
Not ready yet? Start here, free
Cohort 3 expects Python basics, Git, and Docker. If you are not there yet, start with the free AI Engineer HQ starter stack and join a later cohort with the foundations in place.
Free download
AI System Design Playbook
How 18 production AI systems work, from Perplexity and vLLM to Cursor and Netflix.
Free download
AI Data Structures and Algorithms Handbook
30 AI-specific data structures and algorithms behind vector search, caching, and inference at scale.
THE FREE STARTER STACK
Build the foundations, then join the cohort ready.
- 30-day AI Engineer roadmap (Notion)
- The first 3 days of the roadmap, in full
- FDE Salary and Skills Guide (PDF)
- AI System Design Playbook (PDF)
- AI Engineer Starter Kit (Notion template)
- Free WhatsApp community
- AI Concepts in Plain English (mini course)
- Python for AI Engineering (mini course)
- Math You Actually Need (mini course)
- Terminal Is Not Scary (mini course)
Get the starter stack in your inbox
Subscribe to my newsletter and I will send it to you, plus the dates for the next AI Engineer HQ cohort.
Free. Unsubscribe anytime.
Already comfortable with Python, Git, and Docker? Run the 30-minute readiness check, then join Cohort 3.