Module 5: Are You an AI Engineer Yet?

The 21-Skill Self-Assessment

Every lesson in this course ended with one line: you have this skill when. Here they are as a single scorecard, grouped by Ng's four areas. Mark each one honestly. Nobody is watching, and a generous score helps nobody.

Seventeen or more, and you are operating at the level the top job postings describe. Eleven to sixteen, and you are solid on one or two areas with a clear gap to close. Under eleven, you now have a project, a repo, and a list, which is further than most people get.

You have this skill when: you can point at the lowest area and say what you are doing about it this month.

Your Next 30 Days

Take your lowest-scoring area and spend the month there. Do not spread across all four. Four areas at 25 percent effort each produces four half-finished projects and no new skills.

• Weak on building AI applications. Rebuild the eval loop from 1.4 and 1.5 on a second project. That skill transfers more than any other on the map. Ng's own short courses on evals and RAG are where to go deeper.
• Weak on software fundamentals. Take Triage through the scale trigger in ARCH.md for real. Split the classifier into its own service and feel where the data layer breaks.
• Weak on coding agents. Work through modules 2 to 5 of our agentic coding guide on the Triage repo. It is built to be done in order.
• Weak on shaping the build. Send the proposal from 4.4. The skill is in the sending, and reading about it a second time will not help.

Then come back and re-score. The map will change, and Ng has said he will keep updating it. This course will be updated when he does.

You have this skill when: your next 30 days are committed to one area, in writing.