GenAI Engineering Leader

Hire and build GenAI engineering teams, design team structures for GenAI, set engineering quality frameworks.

12 skill groups9 courses1063 goals~492 hrs

Verifiable skill graph

12 skill groups · each becomes a signed node on your graph.

Every lab you pass signs a W3C Verifiable Credential on your public skill graph. Completing the labs in each group below mints one node on that graph — the badge you walk away with is a cryptographic record of what you can ship, not a completion certificate.

Share the URL on your résumé or with a hiring manager. They click; they see the discipline, the labs you passed, and the verification signature. No honor system, no broker.

01
Python for Engineering Leadership

Production-grade Python literacy needed to lead AI teams: async/await, Pydantic, typing, pytest patterns — enough fluency to code-review and approve PRs.

02
Hosted LLM API Integration

Provider SDK literacy for technical oversight: OpenAI/Anthropic/Gemini patterns, multi-provider gateways, basic integration patterns to evaluate team work.

03
Hiring & Team Building

Hiring GenAI engineers, designing team structures for AI, career ladders for AI engineers, role definition, interview rubrics, talent strategy.

04
Engineering Culture & Onboarding

Onboarding AI engineers, building AI engineering culture, fostering experimentation, psychological safety for AI work, team rituals + ceremonies.

05
Eval-Driven Development Process

Engineering process for non-deterministic systems, eval-driven development, testing strategy for AI, prompt-as-code workflows, regression testing for LLMs.

06
Code Review & Quality Frameworks

Code review for AI systems, technical-debt management in AI systems, quality frameworks for AI, code-quality standards, review automation.

07
Velocity & Performance Reviews

Velocity metrics for AI teams, performance reviews for AI engineers, leveling/calibration, DORA-like metrics adapted for AI, growth planning.

08
Incident Management & Reliability

Incident management for AI, on-call practices for non-deterministic systems, post-mortem culture, runbook authorship, SLO ownership at team level.

09
Cost & Vendor Management

Managing AI costs, vendor management for AI (model providers, observability vendors), FinOps for engineering teams, budgeting + forecasting.

10
Org Design & Cross-Functional

Org design for AI functions, cross-functional collaboration (product, data, security, legal), AI guild + community-of-practice structures, stakeholder management.

11
Strategy & Roadmapping

AI strategy + roadmapping, technology bets, build-vs-buy decisions, AI capability portfolio management, leadership capstone projects.

12
Tech Depth: Agents + Ops + Safety

Sufficient technical depth in agent engineering, LLMOps observability + cost, and safety/governance to oversee technical decisions without being the implementer.

What you'll ship in production

Core responsibilities this discipline prepares you for.

  1. 1

    Hire and build GenAI engineering teams

    • Define GenAI-specific hiring criteria and design technical interviews for LLM and agent engineering roles
    • Build skill assessment frameworks and team composition strategies balancing generalist and specialist profiles
    • Write job descriptions, design interview rubrics, and evaluate candidates against GenAI competency matrices
  2. 2

    Define engineering processes

    for GenAI development — eval-driven workflows

    • Design GenAI-specific sprint planning with eval-driven development as the core feedback loop
    • Define evaluation metrics before writing code and measure GenAI team velocity with non-deterministic outputs
    • Build team workflows integrating Langfuse for evaluation tracking and Grafana for velocity metrics
  3. 3

    Manage quality and team performance

    for GenAI outputs

    • Define GenAI quality metrics and SLA management frameworks for LLM system reliability
    • Build team performance dashboards using Grafana with latency, quality, and throughput indicators
    • Construct performance dashboards and define quality standards for GenAI engineering deliverables
  4. 4

    Understand the technical stack

    deeply enough to unblock teams

    • Learn LLM fundamentals, LangGraph agent engineering patterns, and LiteLLM gateway operations
    • Monitor production systems with Langfuse and Prometheus to review PRs and debug incidents
    • Gain sufficient depth to make architecture calls, review designs, and unblock teams on technical decisions
  5. 5

    Operate and budget for GenAI infrastructure

    — FinOps and capacity

    • Build LLM cost attribution dashboards with capacity planning and budget forecasting models
    • Manage vendor relationships and optimize spend allocation across multiple LLM providers
    • Construct FinOps dashboards, set team-level token budgets, and produce monthly cost reports for leadership
  6. 6

    Design organization structure

    for GenAI engineering teams

    • Apply GenAI team topology patterns including on-call rotation design and knowledge sharing practices
    • Evaluate embed-vs-centralize tradeoffs for GenAI engineering functions across the organization
    • Design org structures for different company sizes with clear ownership boundaries and escalation paths
  7. 7

    Drive technical strategy

    — evaluate new tools and plan migrations

    • Apply technology evaluation frameworks with structured criteria for GenAI tool and platform selection
    • Build migration planning methodology and strategic roadmaps for technology transitions
    • Evaluate new tools against defined criteria, build migration plans, and present strategy to leadership
  8. 8

    Ensure responsible AI practices

    across your team

    • Design governance policies and safety review processes for GenAI system development and deployment
    • Build compliance workflows and team-level responsible AI standards with enforcement mechanisms
    • Create governance policies and integrate safety review checkpoints into the development lifecycle

Curriculum

9 courses · each builds on previous goals

15 goals unlocked for preview — click to read. Locked goals need a subscription.