A 6-9 months path from where you are now to interview-ready: what to learn in order, which skills to prove, what to build, and the questions you will be asked.
Work through the stages in order. Each one should end with something you can show — a repo, a write-up, a shipped change — because that is what an interview asks about.
Check my fit for this roleThese are the terms a ai engineer posting screens for. Naming them is not enough — each one needs a project or a work example behind it.
Certificates open a conversation; they do not close one. Treat them as a reason to build something, not as the deliverable.
If a question here makes you pause, that is the gap to close next — not the next tutorial in the list.
How do embeddings work?
How do you evaluate an LLM feature?
When would you use RAG?
How to work the roadmap without stalling.
Most roadmaps fail at the same point: the learning stages get done and nothing gets built. Pair every stage with one small artifact. A stage you cannot show is a stage an interviewer cannot ask about, which makes it invisible on your resume.
6-9 months assumes steady weekly effort, not full-time study. Moving slower is fine; skipping the projects is not.
You are ready when you can point at a project for each core skill and answer a follow-up about a decision you made in it. Waiting until you match every line of a posting costs more time than applying slightly early.
Scan your resume against a real ai engineer posting to see the gap in concrete terms — which keywords are missing and which bullets read as tasks instead of outcomes.
Job titles overlap more than they look. Reading two adjacent roles is the fastest way to see which one your experience actually fits.
Upload it, paste a job description, and see the ATS score, missing keywords, and weak bullets before you apply.
