Aishwarya Srinivasan

AI@Fireworks AI | Global Speaker(100+ talks)| EB1-A Recipient| 570k+ Followers| AI Engineer| GenAI/LLM Inference| LinkedIn Top Voice| Author-What's Your Worth?| Startup AI Advisor| Angel Investor| Ex-Google,Microsoft,IBM

𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗶𝗻𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀, 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗺𝘆 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗮𝘁 💌 partnerships@illuminate-ai.org

I write about:
- AI engineering
- Applied machine learning
- Generative AI Applications
- LLM/ LLMOPs (Training, post-training, inferencing)
- Fundamentals of Data science/ ML/ AI
- ML roles interview tips
- Learning roadmaps (beginner to advanced)
- Importance of personal branding for career growth

**All the posts reflect my own views and do not represent my employer.**

AI Advisor || Responsible AI Advocate || LinkedIn Top Voice - Data & AI  || Top 10 AI Influencer || EB1-A Receipt


Bio: 
Aishwarya currently leads the Developer Relations - Growth at Fireworks AI. She was previously at Microsoft for Startups as a Senior AI Advisor to help Y Combinator startups build machine learning solutions, leveraging core Microsoft/ OpenAI products. Prior to this, Aishwarya was working as a Data Scientist in Google Cloud and before that an AI & ML Innovation Leader at IBM Data & AI, where she was working cross-functionally with the product team, data science team and sales to research AI use-cases for clients by conducting discovery workshops and building assets to showcase the business value of the technology. She holds a post-graduate in Data Science from Columbia University. 

Aishwarya has been awarded Trailblazer of the Year by Women in AI in 2022 and Women of Influence by Business Journal in 2022. She was awarded EB1A - extraordinary ability visa for her contributions in the AI field.

She is an advocate for open-source technologies, and was an open source Developer Advocate for Deepchecks and Lightning AI, and a contributor to Scikit Learn. 


She holds a Patent Award (2018) for developing a Reinforcement Learning model for Machine Trading.

She has over 500,000+ follower base on LinkedIn and actively organizes events and conferences to inspire budding data scientists. She has been spotlighted as a LinkedIn Top Voice 2020 for Data Science and AI, which features Top 10 Machine Learning influencers across the world. 

She is an ardent reader and has contributed to the scholastic community. To spread her knowledge in the space of data science, and to inspire budding Data Scientists, she actively writes blogs related to machine learning on LinkedIn and Instagram: www.instagram.com/the.datascience.gal

Besides being a data junkie, she is a fitness fanatic who is into martial arts (Krav Maga) and yoga.

Senior AI Advisor

As an AI engineer, LLM Twin is an important architecture to understand.

An LLM Twin refers to a system where a language model is designed to represent the knowledge, writing patterns, and decision logic of a specific person, team, or organization. The goal is consistency and reliability, not novelty.

At its core, an LLM Twin is built around how information flows. Think of it as 4 steps:

1️⃣ First, content is collected from real sources: blogs, internal documents, posts, code repositories, or knowledge bases. This data reflects how the person or organization actually thinks and communicates.

2️⃣ Next, the data is structured for two purposes.
One path prepares instruction-style examples that help the model learn how to respond.
Another path prepares retrieval data so the system can pull relevant context at inference time. This ensures responses stay grounded in real material.

3️⃣ Then comes training and evaluation. Models are fine-tuned where appropriate, tested against clear criteria, and versioned before deployment. This step looks very similar to traditional ML workflows, just adapted for language models.

4️⃣ Finally, at inference time, user requests are combined with retrieved context and passed through the deployed model. Monitoring is critical here: quality, latency, and cost all need to be observed continuously.

Where is this used in practice?

✦ Personal or creator assistants that help scale writing and communication
✦ Company-wide assistants that maintain a consistent product or brand voice
✦ Internal tools that answer questions based on code, docs, or prior decisions
✦ Support systems that reflect how experienced engineers respond to issues

Why should AI Engineers understand this?
This architecture reflects how GenAI systems are actually built and maintained. It forces you to think beyond prompts and focus on data quality, retrieval design, evaluation, and long-term system behavior.

My 2 cents 🤌
This is a GREAT topic to build a portfolio project around!! 

Credit: LLM Engineer’s Handbook by Paul Iusztin  and Maxime Labonne. I really like how this book breaks down AI engineering clearly and goes deep into different GenAI system architectures without hand-waving.

Over the past few months, Arvind and I've delivered seven deep technical workshops across agentic AI, RAG, context engineering, AI evals, MCP, vibe coding, and more.

One theme kept coming up: you want something more structured. Not just standalone sessions, but a clear end-to-end roadmap from A to Z.

So that’s what we’re building.

A structured, comprehensive course for:
- Hands-on builders: software, AI, and ML engineers
- AI product managers
- Tech leaders and CXOs looking to upskill meaningfully

Before we finalize it, I’d love your input. I’ve created a short survey to understand where you are, what you want to learn, and your career goals.

It takes under 10 minutes.

As a thank you, you’ll receive an additional 10% discount when we launch the course soon 🫶

Survey: https://lnkd.in/gQYeBCRP

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Here’s my honest pattern with almost every AI tool I try.

I end up using a lot of tools, usually early access. After repeating this cycle enough times, I realized my reactions are almost predictable.

👉First hour
There’s real excitement.
I’m clicking around, testing odd prompts, trying things that used to fail. No strategy yet, just my curiosity and momentum.

👉Next few hours
I start comparing.
Where would this actually fit in my work?
What would I stop using if I kept this?
Is this clearly better, or just new?

👉Later that day
I experiment without guidance.
I skip the docs and examples on purpose. I try incomplete ideas, messy workflows, prompts I would never put in a demo. This tells me more than any tutorial ever could.

👉Day two
Then I look at the examples the team shared.
They usually work smoothly. They’re polished. They show the tool at its best, which is exactly what they’re meant to do.

👉After a few days
This is where the real understanding kicks in.
I start tweaking those examples. Changing assumptions. Using it in ways that feel realistic, not ideal. That’s when the boundaries show up. Not frustration. Just clarity.

Here’s the takeaway I’ve learned the hard way:
If you haven’t noticed limitations yet, you probably haven’t pushed the tool very far.

And honestly, if I use something consistently for three days and still can’t find a meaningful flaw, that’s rare. That earns real respect.
I haven’t experienced that yet.

Curious how others see this.
Are there tools you’ve used deeply where the limits still haven’t shown up?

Just a couple of weeks ago, Arvind and I hosted an in-person AI meetup with The Hub Bengaluru.

Over 300 people showed up in person.

Every single one of them was either already working in AI or actively trying to break into the space. The energy in the room was unreal. It genuinely felt like a room full of builders, practitioners, and people who are curious enough to go deep.

During the event, we rolled out a small challenge. We asked attendees to share a recap of what they learned, and we said we would pick one winner.

Really excited to share that Suraj V is that lucky winner 🎉
Suraj gets free access to all the The Gen Academy workshops we have hosted so far.

Huge congratulations, Suraj V!! 

Building The Gen Academy has always come from a very real observation that Arvind and I see every single day in our work. The adoption of generative AI and LLMs is moving incredibly fast, but the depth of AI engineering skills needed to build reliable systems is not keeping up.

There is a very real skill gap in AI engineering right now! There are so many curious souls who want to become AI engineers- but they aren't able to get those opportunities; and there are so many companies out there who  want to hire, but aren't finding the right talent. 

Our mission is to bridge that skill-gap!

As people who are deeply involved in this space, we felt a responsibility to help bridge that gap. Not just for people who are already experienced, but also for entry-level folks who want to build strong foundations the right way.

That is why our workshops are intentionally designed to be both intuitive and practical. We focus on theory that actually helps you reason about systems, and we pair that with hands-on demos where you build real things using modern toolkits and frameworks.

So far, we have hosted 6 workshops, and the response has been incredibly encouraging. We have trained 1500+ people already ❤️ 

Our next workshop is coming up on February 15th, and it will be focused on AI evaluations (link in comments)

Do follow The Gen Academy to stay updated on all our upcoming workshops.

Six months ago, Arvind and I started The Gen Academy with one simple goal- to create workshops that are deeply-technical, practical, cuts through the ton of noise out there, and that provides people clarity on building productive-grade AI systems.

So far we have trained 2100+ people. We’ve hosted 7 workshops, and consistently we’ve had 300–400 builders join us live.

The audience has been incredible.
- Software engineers moving into AI.
- AI engineers building LLM systems in production.
- Product leads thinking about reliability and evaluation.
- Directors and VPs from top tech and Fortune 500 companies who want to truly understand what’s under the hood.
- Even people from non-tech background who wanted to strengthen their technical fundamentals 

Recently, we hosted a workshop on AI Evaluations.

And this one felt especially important.

Because evaluating non-deterministic generative systems is fundamentally different from traditional ML evaluation.

We covered:

✦ How to evaluate non-deterministic generative AI systems
✦ How to think about benchmarks and what they actually tell you
✦ How to design your own evaluation dataset
✦ How to choose the right metrics for qualitative and system-level evaluation
✦ How to combine human evals, code-based evals, and LLM-as-a-judge
✦ A hands-on walkthrough so this isn’t just theory

If you’re building LLM applications, RAG pipelines, or agentic systems, evaluation is not optional. It is the difference between a demo and a reliable product.

If you missed the live session, we’ve shared the recording here: https://lnkd.in/gzMdbfWH

We’ll continue building these workshops for engineers who want to go beyond experimentation and into production.

More coming soon, so do follow us & The Gen Academy to get updates on our next workshops.

5 days to go! 
Arvind and I are super excited to be hosting an AI evals hands-on workshop on February 15.

It’s a 90-minute session where we’ll cover the fundamentals of AI evaluations and then actually do it together. You’ll walk away having built and reasoned through real evals yourself. 

If you’re aspiring to be an AI engineer or planning to upskill for AI roles in 2026, understanding how to evaluate LLM applications is critical.

Building an LLM app is often the easy part. Knowing whether it truly works in production is where most teams struggle.

LLM evaluation is not just about correctness anymore. You are judging usefulness, safety, faithfulness to sources, consistency across runs, cost, latency, and real user outcomes across prompts, RAG pipelines, tools, and agentic workflows.

Because this is hard, many teams fall back to vibe-evals. If a few outputs look good, they ship. That approach breaks quickly when models change, prompts regress, retrieval fails, or user behavior shifts. Without evals, problems surface only after users complain.

Why learning evals matters:
✦ Evals turn LLM development from guesswork into engineering
✦ They help catch regressions as models, prompts, or tools evolve
✦ They are essential for scaling RAG systems and agentic workflows
✦ In 2026, strong teams use hybrid evals combining automated metrics, LLM-as-a-judge, and targeted human review

Evals are no longer optional. They are a core AI skill.

In this workshop, Arvind and I will walk through how AI evals are done in real systems, with hands-on exercises so you build intuition.

This is designed for AI engineers and tech leads building systems, and even business leaders who want intuition for what “good” really means in production. Even if you are a beginner, don't worry, we will give you the foundations for you to understand everything comprehensively, and enough resources that you can review at your own pace.

If you want to level up your AI skills for 2026, register here:
https://lnkd.in/dQSR7yhU

Evaluation Resources

Fine-tuning is going to be one of the biggest focus areas for AI engineering teams this year.

We’re past the stage where calling an API is enough. The teams creating real leverage are the ones adapting models to their own data, workflows, and edge cases. Out-of-the-box models are powerful, but they are generic. Fine-tuning is where enterprises unlock meaningful efficiency gains and build real differentiation.

If you want to upskill in AI engineering, this is a topic you cannot skip.
Arvind and I are hosting a deep, hands-on workshop on Fine-Tuning LLMs.

In 90 minutes, you’ll learn:
✦ When fine-tuning makes sense and when it does not
✦ How SFT, RLHF, and DPO fit into real-world pipelines
✦ An end-to-end, code-based demo from raw data to a specialized model
✦ How to evaluate true performance improvements and avoid production pitfalls

This session is designed for software engineers, AI engineers, and data scientists, and it is equally valuable for product managers, solutions architects, tech leads, and executives working closely with model ecosystems.

If you want to move from using LLMs to actually optimizing them, this workshop will give you a practical framework to do it: https://lnkd.in/g-5gHrsY

In 2026, AI isn’t judged by a wow factor anymore.
It’s judged by whether it actually improves your workflows.

One of the most common questions I get from founders and teams I advise is how to automate go-to-market and sales properly. Real GTM automation needs deep ICP research, clear definitions, personalized messaging, and credible sources. This isn’t a one-prompt problem.

Normally, building a solid GTM or sales report would take me several hours, even with existing AI tools helping with research.

I recently got early access to Airtable’s new Superagent, and what impressed me was the approach. It didn’t treat my request as a single task. It broke it into ~16 steps, ran multiple agents in parallel, did deep research per subtask, cited sources, and stitched everything together into one structured output called a Super Report.

I used it to build a technical, informational report on AI for GTM/Sales in minutes. No fluff. No hallucinations. Just deeply researched content I could actually use with business leaders.

If your work involves building reports, decks, or MVP websites that need accuracy and depth, this feels less like “AI that makes things pretty” and more like AI that does real work.

Do check it out here: https://lnkd.in/gDkfSSG2

PS: You can get 2 months free for @Superagent, using code: AISH2FREE

#SuperagentPartner, #ad, #SuperagentbyAirtable

Ranked by Favikon as:
↳ #1 AI Creator on LinkedIn India 
↳ Top 10 AI Creators on LinkedIn Globally 

Featured in Forbes and Wired

For 14 years, I've been obsessed with a single question: how do we teach machines to truly see and understand our world?

This quest began at Qualcomm. My 3D reconstruction technology landed in Forbes, and the object tracker I co-designed was used in millions of mobile devices. When someone casually used my work in their palm, I glimpsed what's possible when research meets reality.

At Intel Labs, I immersed myself in creating AI systems that bridge the gap between theoretical potential and practical performance—systems that could deliver sophisticated intelligence within real-world constraints. Today at Valeo, I lead a team of AI experts developing computer vision for autonomous vehicles. We're teaching cars to go beyond simple object detection toward true scene understanding. Each breakthrough is a step toward fundamentally transforming how people and goods move worldwide. We are reimagining transportation.

Since 2019, I've guided teams at NASA's Frontier Development Lab as their Machine Learning Lead. We've tackled fundamental questions about our Sun and understanding it better. Our breakthroughs have since been published in conferences like NeurIPS. 

Along the way, I saw a problem I couldn't ignore.

I watched brilliant scientists—experts in physics and natural phenomena—blocked from leveraging AI. Not by ability. But by clarity. Incredible AI research remained locked behind jargon. 

There had to be a better way to get the message across. So, Gradient Ascent was born. In it, I break down complex AI concepts for engineers, product leaders, CEOs, and investors making critical decisions shaping our future. Their response has been humbling.

Outside the lab, I'm an award-winning nature photographer and enjoy illustration and music. These pursuits fuel my creative approach to problem-solving.

✍️ Subscribe to my newsletter for insights that transform technical AI jargon into actionable understanding: newsletter.artofsaience.com

———
Note: All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinions of my employer

Sairam Sundaresan

You don’t need 100 tutorials.
Just these 8 videos on AI agents:

1. LLM Introduction: 
https://lnkd.in/gN8sv7Q5
2. LLMs from Scratch: 
https://lnkd.in/gJt-SQj2
3. Agentic AI Overview (Stanford): 
https://lnkd.in/gk4GKdxa
4. Building and Evaluating Agents: 
https://lnkd.in/ghBiVjdF
5. Building Effective Agents: 
https://lnkd.in/g_m78sid
6. Building Agents with MCP: 
https://lnkd.in/gAzBzr3W
7. Building an Agent from Scratch: 
https://lnkd.in/g9GR9b9F
8. Philo Agents: 
https://lnkd.in/gnxRq9n9

♻️ Repost to help someone master AI
➕ Follow me, Sairam, for AI engineering that works

Want to learn the basics first? Check this out: https://lnkd.in/giV_N6KU

AI Engineering Leader | Author of AI for the Rest of Us | I help engineers land AI roles and companies build valuable products

6 books. 6 courses. 6 months.
Ship real LLMs without the wait or the tuition.

I've spent over 15 years in AI research and engineering.
Read hundreds of papers. Tested countless courses.
Shipped AI products to production.

Here's the truth:
You can get 90% of the practical LLM knowledge you need without spending $120K on a degree.

So, I put together a focused 6-month roadmap for you.
Each month, you'll read 1 book and complete 1 free course.
Just 60 minutes/day.

Here’s your roadmap:

🔸 Month 1: Python Basics

📘 Book: Automate the Boring Stuff with Python
✅ Automate repetitive tasks
✅ Write practical scripts
✅ Use real-world examples fast

🎥 Course: Python for Everybody (Michigan)
✅ Core Python skills
✅ Solve real coding problems
✅ Build confidence through practice

🔸 Month 2: Practical Deep Learning

📘 Book: Deep Learning for Coders (fastai)
✅ Build neural nets quickly
✅ Learn PyTorch workflows
✅ Go from beginner to builder

🎥 Course: FastAI's Practical Deep Learning
✅ Train real models fast
✅ Solve real-world tasks
✅ Minimal code, big results

🔸 Month 3: NLP Mastery

📘 Book: Speech & Language Processing
✅ Core NLP foundations
✅ Deep neural NLP understanding
✅ Learn transformer theory

🎥 Course: Stanford NLP (CS224n)
✅ Master attention mechanisms
✅ Train SOTA models
✅ Work hands-on with BERT

🔸 Month 4: LLMs from Scratch

📘 Book: Build an LLM from Scratch
✅ Understand LLM building blocks
✅ Build your own GPT
✅ Learn training and inference

🎥 Course: Stanford LLM from Scratch (CS 336)
✅ Code LLMs from scratch
✅ Understand evals and scaling
✅ Learn alignment and reasoning

🔸 Month 5: Applied NLP

📘 Book: NLP with Transformers (Hugging Face)
✅ Understand transformer applications
✅ Fine-tune for Q&A, chatbots, more
✅ Apply SOTA NLP tools

🎥 Course: Hugging Face NLP Course
✅ Build transformer pipelines
✅ Understand reasoning models
✅ Deploy real NLP apps

🔸 Month 6: LLMs in Production

📘 Book: LLM Engineer's Handbook (Iuzstin & Labonne)
✅ Design LLM systems end-to-end
✅ Build RAG pipelines reliably
✅ Monitor and maintain in prod

🎥 Course: Stanford MLSys Seminars
✅ Real-world AI infrastructure
✅ Proven deployment patterns
✅ Lessons from top AI teams

That’s your 6-month roadmap to LLM mastery.
All it takes? Just 60 minutes/day of consistent learning.

Tag someone who’s learning AI.
This roadmap will save them months.
Or better yet, take the 6-month challenge together.

🔁 Repost and share this with them.
➕ Follow me, Sairam, to learn AI the right way.

–
Want to go deeper? Gradient Ascent has you covered. Join 24k+ readers from Google, Meta, Netflix, and over 160+ countries worldwide.

P.S: It's ok if you aren't able to finish this in 6 months. The goal is to start and build a habit of deliberate practice and learning. Good luck!

Stanford just made a $200,000 AI education free.
The same lessons that built Silicon Valley are now on YouTube.

📚 Here's your map to go beyond prompting and start building real AI systems:

1️⃣ CS221 – Artificial Intelligence
Foundations of AI: search, reasoning, planning, decision-making
🔗 https://lnkd.in/gM9ndUCf

2️⃣ CS229 – Machine Learning (Andrew Ng)
Supervised/unsupervised learning + deep dive into algorithms
🔗 https://lnkd.in/gDc9siUC

3️⃣ CS230 – Deep Learning (Andrew Ng)
Neural nets, CNNs, RNNs, and best practices for deep models
🔗 https://lnkd.in/guaavVdk

4️⃣ CS231n – Deep Learning for Computer Vision
Neural nets, CNNs, Generative Models, and VLMs
🔗 https://lnkd.in/gVJZ-xMq

5️⃣ CS229M – Machine Learning Theory
The math and proofs behind ML - for those who want to really understand
🔗 https://lnkd.in/gFBCyuCU

6️⃣ CS234 – Reinforcement Learning
MDPs, Q-learning, policy gradients, and agents that learn by doing
🔗 https://lnkd.in/gVvz87Hc

7️⃣ CS224U – Natural Language Understanding
Semantic analysis, dialogue systems, language meaning
🔗 https://lnkd.in/gRsWMfA6

8️⃣ CS224N – NLP with Deep Learning
Transformers, embeddings, and modern NLP architectures
🔗 https://lnkd.in/gQdFAZXM

♾️ New to AI? Start here:
 https://lnkd.in/gTQyc_fi

🎯 Why this curriculum matters:
• Not just tools, real understanding
• Theory and application from world-class professors
• Build instead of just using
• Go deeper than 95% of "AI experts"

You're one click away from learning real AI.
Which course are you starting with?

♻️ Repost to help someone learn AI the right way
➕ Follow me, Sairam, for AI engineering that works.

Join 26k+ learners from Google, Meta, Netflix, and other top tech companies and level up your AI skills for free at Gradient Ascent: https://lnkd.in/gZbZAeQW

This list will save you 100+ hours of research
19 courses on Agents, RAG, and real-world LLMs:

1. Neural Networks Zero to Hero:
 https://lnkd.in/gPy8PCSg
2. Language Modeling From Scratch:
 https://lnkd.in/g84KRW96
3. HuggingFace's Agent Course:
 https://lnkd.in/gmTftTXV
4. MCP with Anthropic:
 https://lnkd.in/geffcwdq
5. Building Vector Databases with Pinecone:
 https://lnkd.in/gCS4sd7Y
6. Vector Databases from Embeddings to Apps: 
https://lnkd.in/gm9HR6_2
7. Agent Memory: 
https://lnkd.in/gNFpC542
8. Deep Learning AI's RAG course:
 https://lnkd.in/gy7HjASS
9. Building and Evaluating RAG apps:
 https://lnkd.in/g2qC9-mh
10. Building Browser Agents:
 https://lnkd.in/gsMmCifQ
11. LLMOps: 
https://lnkd.in/g7bHU37w
12. Evaluating AI Agents:
 https://lnkd.in/gHJtwF5s
13. Computer Use with Anthropic:
 https://lnkd.in/gMUWg7Fa
14. Multi-Agent Use: 
https://lnkd.in/gU9DY9kj
15. Improving LLM Accuracy:
 https://lnkd.in/gsE-4FvY
16. Agent Design Patterns:
 https://lnkd.in/gzKvx5A4
17. Multi Agent Systems:
 https://lnkd.in/gUayts9s
18. Berkeley Agent MOOC:
 https://lnkd.in/gqyKWE3A
19. Berkeley Advanced Agents MOOC:
 https://lnkd.in/gydt98kW

Bonus- Learn the basics first:
 https://lnkd.in/gTQyc_fi

Which ones would you add to this list?

♻️ Repost this to save someone 100+ hours of research
➕ Follow me, Sairam, for more hands-on AI resources
---
Join 26k+ learners from Google, Meta, Netflix, and other top tech companies and level up your AI skills for free at Gradient Ascent: https://lnkd.in/gZbZAeQW

IBM’s 34 free videos teach AI properly.
From fundamentals to deployment.

📚 Here's what's covered in this playlist:

1️⃣ Core AI Architectures
→ CNNs, GANs, Transformers, LSTMs, Autoencoders
→ How each works and when to use them

2️⃣ Language Models
→ LLMs, Zero Shot Reasoning
→ NLP vs NLU vs NLG
→ Build RAG systems with clarity

3️⃣ Training & Optimization
→ Backpropagation, gradient descent
→ Overfitting vs underfitting
→ Includes federated learning for privacy-aware systems

4️⃣ ML Fundamentals
→ Supervised vs unsupervised learning
→ Time series, Monte Carlo
→ Core patterns to solve real-world ML problems

5️⃣ MLOps
→ PyTorch inference, embedded + edge AI
→ Deploy and scale AI systems

6️⃣ Agentic AI
→ AI Agents, LRMs, LLM as a Judge
→ Covers AI bias & trust

🎯 Why this matters:
• Debug ML issues with confidence
• Build real AI, not just prompts
• Deploy models that work

🎥 Watch the full IBM AI playlist (34 videos):
🔗 https://lnkd.in/gwypBAMy

🔗 Learn System Design for GenAI: https://lnkd.in/gqTrvsuS

♻️ Repost to help someone learn AI the right way.
➕ Follow me, Sairam, for AI engineering that works.
-----
Want to go deeper? Gradient Ascent has you covered. Join 26k+ readers from Google, Meta, Netflix, and over 160+ countries worldwide: https://lnkd.in/gZbZAeQW

The easiest way to learn the basics of AI is this: https://lnkd.in/gTQyc_fi

Stanford's Transformer & LLM essentials distilled into one readable guide.

Modern AI evolves weekly. 

Stanford's CME 295 course has condensed them into a handy cheatsheet for professionals who need answers, not lectures.

Key concepts covered include:
🔸 Core Transformer architecture & self-attention
🔸 Crucial attention optimizations (Sparse, Flash)
🔸 Advanced LLM prompting & fine-tuning (SFT, LoRA)
🔸 Preference tuning fundamentals (RLHF, DPO)
🔸 Model optimization techniques (MoE, Quantization)
🔸 Building with RAG, agents, & reasoning models

Skip months of reading. Master what matters now. 

Many thanks to Afshine & Sherwine Amidi for creating this valuable course and cheatsheet.

👉 The cheatsheet: https://lnkd.in/g52Y2HAx
👉 Bonus - learn the fundamentals of AI first: https://lnkd.in/gTQyc_fi

♻️ Repost to help someone land their dream job
➕ Follow me, Sairam, for more practical AI resources
—-
Want to go deeper? Gradient Ascent breaks down real-world AI systems every week. Join 26k+ readers across 160+ countries:  https://lnkd.in/gZbZAeQW

Transformer Cheat Sheet

The tech landscape just shifted. Again. 
Here are 50 resources to future-proof your career:

📹 Videos:
1. LLM Introduction: https://lnkd.in/gN8sv7Q5
2. LLMs from Scratch: https://lnkd.in/gJt-SQj2
3. Agentic AI Overview (Stanford): https://lnkd.in/gk4GKdxa
4. Building and Evaluating Agents: https://lnkd.in/ghBiVjdF
5. Building Effective Agents: https://lnkd.in/g_m78sid
6. Building Agents with MCP: https://lnkd.in/gAzBzr3W
7. Building an Agent from Scratch: https://lnkd.in/g9GR9b9F
8. Philo Agents: https://lnkd.in/gnxRq9n9

📚Books:
1. AI for the Rest of Us: https://lnkd.in/gTQyc_fi
2. Understanding Deep Learning: https://lnkd.in/g4xgvu_q
3. Building an LLM from Scratch: https://lnkd.in/g2YGbnWS
4. The LLM Engineering Handbook: https://lnkd.in/gWUT2EXe
5. AI Engineering: https://lnkd.in/gpfQSMCQ

🗂️ Repos
1. GenAI Agents: https://lnkd.in/gvfAc-9H
2. Microsoft's AI Agents for Beginners: https://lnkd.in/gK8MiVfv
3. Prompt Engineering Guide: https://lnkd.in/gJjGbxQr
4. AI Agent Papers: https://lnkd.in/gfKQ82Fs

🗺️ Guides
1. Google's Agent Whitepaper: https://lnkd.in/gFvCfbSN
2. Google's Agent Companion: https://lnkd.in/gfmCrgAH
3. Building Effective Agents by Anthropic: https://lnkd.in/gRWKANS4.
4. Claude Code Best Agentic Coding practices: https://lnkd.in/gs99zyCf
5. OpenAI's Practical Guide to Building Agents: https://lnkd.in/guRfXsFK

📜 Papers
1. ReAct: https://lnkd.in/gRBH3ZRq
2. Generative Agents: https://lnkd.in/gsDCUsWm.
3. Toolformer: https://lnkd.in/gyzrege6
4. Chain-of-Thought Prompting: https://lnkd.in/gaK5CXzD.
5. Tree of Thoughts: https://lnkd.in/gRJdv_iU.
6. Reflexion: https://lnkd.in/gGFMgjUj
7. Retrieval-Augmented Generation Survey: https://lnkd.in/gGUqkkyR.

🧑‍🏫 Courses:
1. HuggingFace's Agent Course: https://lnkd.in/gmTftTXV
2. MCP with Anthropic: https://lnkd.in/geffcwdq
3. Building Vector Databases with Pinecone: https://lnkd.in/gCS4sd7Y
4. Vector Databases from Embeddings to Apps: https://lnkd.in/gm9HR6_2
5. Agent Memory: https://lnkd.in/gNFpC542
6. Building and Evaluating RAG apps: https://lnkd.in/g2qC9-mh
7. Building Browser Agents: https://lnkd.in/gsMmCifQ
8. LLMOps: https://lnkd.in/g7bHU37w
9. Evaluating AI Agents: https://lnkd.in/gHJtwF5s
10. Computer Use with Anthropic: https://lnkd.in/gMUWg7Fa
11. Multi-Agent Use: https://lnkd.in/gU9DY9kj
12. Improving LLM Accuracy: https://lnkd.in/gsE-4FvY
13. Agent Design Patterns: https://lnkd.in/gzKvx5A4
14. Multi Agent Systems: https://lnkd.in/gUayts9s

📩 Newsletters
1. Gradient Ascent: https://lnkd.in/gZbZAeQW
2. DecodingML by Paul: https://lnkd.in/gpZPgk7J
3. Deep (Learning) Focus by Cameron: https://lnkd.in/gTUNcUVE
4. NeoSage by Shivani: https://blog.neosage.io/
5. Jam with AI by Shirin and Shantanu: https://lnkd.in/gQXJzuV8
6. Data Hustle by Sai: https://lnkd.in/gZpdTTYD

Don’t fear the agents replacing everyone else.
Learn to build them and own the advantage.

♻️ Repost to help someone master AI
➕ Follow me, Sairam, for AI engineering that works

Agents don’t improve by accident
They improve through intentional design.

To build better agents, you need structure.
Not just trial and error.

🎯 The Core Framework: 4 Adaptation Strategies
A 2x2 based on:
• What gets optimized (Agent or Tool)
• Where feedback comes from (Tool or Agent output)

🔹 A1: Adapt the Agent via Tool Feedback
• Agent uses a tool, sees failure, and updates
• Best for mechanics like APIs or SQL
• Eg: DeepRetrieval hit 65% vs 25% recall baseline

🔹 A2: Adapt the Agent via Self-Reflection
• Agent critiques its own output directly
• Best for logic, planning, and reasoning
• Eg: R1-Searcher beat GPT-4o-mini by 48%

🔹 T1: Adapt the Tool (Agent-Agnostic)
• Improve tools for any agent to use
• Flexible and transferable design
• Eg: Dense retrievers like Contriever

🔹 T2: Adapt the Tool to the Agent
• Freeze the agent, train tools for its quirks
• Tool learns to serve one fixed model
• Eg: R1-Code-Interpreter reached 72.4%

🎯 Why This Matters
As foundation models grow larger and more expensive to fine-tune, one path forward is to stop modifying the model.

Instead, train specialized tools that translate for that specific giant model.

🎯 Critical Trade-offs

🔸 Reliability vs Creativity 
↳ Training agents (A1/A2) risks catastrophic forgetting 
↳ Your coding agent might forget how to write poetry

🔸 Cost vs Control 
↳ Tool adaptation (T1/T2) is cheaper and lower-risk 
↳ But limited by the frozen agent's intelligence ceiling

🔸 Generality vs Specialization 
↳ T1 tools are robust and reusable 
↳ T2 tools are powerful but brittle to agent upgrades

The key insight: there is no single "best" strategy.
The choice depends on whether you can fine-tune the model and whether you have verifiable ground truth.

Paper 👉 https://lnkd.in/g3q-7Xuu
Repo 👉 https://lnkd.in/gjsjDDGg

Learn GenAI System Design 👉 https://lnkd.in/gqTrvsuS

Most teams building agents today are still guessing.
This framework gives you a structured way to decide what to optimize and how.

♻️ Repost to help someone building agents skip the trial and error 
➕ Follow me, Sairam, for AI from lab to production
-----
Join 25k+ readers from Google, Meta, Netflix, and over 160+ countries worldwide: https://lnkd.in/gZbZAeQW
Learn the basics first: https://lnkd.in/gTQyc_fi

Adaptation of Agentic AI

80% of ML system design interviews fail
On the same 7 question types.
Here are the traps and how to answer them right 👇

1️⃣ Predict Netflix Watch Times
Problem: New users and shows → sparse data
❌ Trap: Jumping straight to regression on watch hours
✅ Better: Use popular-show baselines, then layer personalization as data grows

2️⃣ ETA for Maps
Problem: Needs to run fast, at global scale
❌ Trap: Designing complex ML pipelines first
✅ Better: Start simple (distance ÷ speed). Add ML for traffic, incidents, freshness

3️⃣ Spotify Artist Recommendations
Problem: New artists lack data, heavy users skew results
❌ Trap: Relying only on collaborative filtering
✅ Better: Blend “users like you” with “songs like this one,” and plan for cold start

4️⃣ Detecting Bots
Problem: Bots adapt quickly, data is imbalanced
❌ Trap: Optimizing for accuracy and stopping there
✅ Better: Monitor drift, retrain often, include evolving signals

5️⃣ Fake News Detection
Problem: Text is noisy and easy to manipulate
❌ Trap: Using only text classifiers
✅ Better: Combine article content with who shares it and how it spreads

6️⃣ Instagram Feed Ranking
Problem: Ranking shifts user behavior long-term
❌ Trap: Optimizing only for engagement
✅ Better: Balance clicks with quality signals (reports, time spent, wellbeing)

7️⃣ Toxic Tweet Classification
Problem: Language is subjective and imbalanced
❌ Trap: Focusing only on a single metric (F1/accuracy)
✅ Better: Calibrate outputs, check bias, use human review for edge cases

💡 Pro Tip: These interviews aren’t about the “best model.” They test whether your design survives production.

👉 Learn ML System Design. Use FLASH40 for 40% off: https://lnkd.in/gqTrvsuS

♻️ Repost to help someone land their next AI role
➕ Follow me, Sairam, for AI engineering that works
---
Want to go deeper?
Gradient Ascent has you covered. Join 26k+ readers from Google, Meta, Netflix, and over 160+ countries worldwide: https://lnkd.in/gZbZAeQW
Learn the basics first: https://lnkd.in/gTQyc_fi

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The Battle

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Aishwarya Srinivasan's LinkedIn Performance

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