Week 24 Master Guide

Week 24: Month 6 Capstone, Master Portfolio & The Senior AI Engineer Interview Gauntlet

Week 24 Daily Breakdown (7 Days)

Day 1

Day 1: Capstone 6 Fine-Tuned Open Model Engine Architecture

1 code file(s) • 3 Q&A
Day 2

Day 2: Master Portfolio Repository & Multi-Capstone Synthesis

1 code file(s) • 3 Q&A
Day 3

Day 3: Mock Interview #1 — Python, SQL & Data Structures for AI Engineers

1 code file(s) • 3 Q&A
Day 4

Day 4: Mock Interview #2 — ML, Deep Learning & Fine-Tuning Math

1 code file(s) • 3 Q&A
Day 5

Day 5: Mock Interview #3 — RAG, Vector DBs, Agents, MCP & Evaluation Systems

1 code file(s) • 3 Q&A
Day 6

Day 6: Mock Interview #4 — End-to-End Production AI System Design

1 code file(s) • 2 Q&A
Day 7

Day 7: Final Graduation, Portfolio Sign-Off & Senior Career Launch Playbook

1 code file(s) • 1 Q&A

Week 24: Month 6 Capstone, Master Portfolio & The Senior AI Engineer Interview Gauntlet

Welcome to Week 24—the culmination of your 6-month, 24-week journey from zero to a production-grade, Principal AI Engineer! You have traversed:

  • Month 1 (Weeks 1–4): Terminal, Git, Advanced Python, SQL Internals, AsyncIO, and the SRE Runbook Copilot CLI.
  • Month 2 (Weeks 5–8): Deep Learning Math, Attention Mechanics, Tokenization, Prompt Engineering, LLM-as-a-Judge, and the Automated LLM Evaluation & Regression Suite.
  • Month 3 (Weeks 9–12): Embeddings, Vector Databases, Chunking Strategies, Dense vs Sparse BM25, Cross-Encoder Rerankers, and the Enterprise Hybrid RAG Engine.
  • Month 4 (Weeks 13–16): ReAct Loops, LangGraph State Machines, PydanticAI, Model Context Protocol (FastMCP), Multi-Agent Teams, Guardrails, and the Agentic MCP Infrastructure Server.
  • Month 5 (Weeks 17–20): High-Concurrency FastAPI, Server-Sent Events (SSE), Redis Chat Memory, OpenTelemetry, Langfuse, Semantic Caching, LiteLLM Cascades, Docker, Next.js Web Chatbot, and the Production FastAPI MLOps Microservice.
  • Month 6 (Weeks 21–24): LoRA Matrix Math, QLoRA NF4 Quantization, DPO Preference Alignment, vLLM PagedAttention, GGUF/Ollama Serving, the Public Educational Web Platform, and Capstone 6: Fine-Tuned Open Model Serving & Benchmark Engine!

1. Master Portfolio Matrix (All 6 Capstone Projects)

Architecture Flow Diagram
Month 1: SRE Runbook Copilot CLI<br/>(AsyncIO, Pydantic v2, Token Cost Auditor)
Month 2: Automated LLM Evaluation Suite<br/>(LLM-as-a-Judge, G-Eval, Regression CI/CD)
Month 3: Enterprise Hybrid RAG Engine<br/>(BM25 + ChromaDB + Cross-Encoder Reranker)
Month 4: Agentic MCP Server<br/>(LangGraph State Machine, FastMCP, Prompt Injection Defense)
Month 5: Production FastAPI Microservice<br/>(SSE Streaming, Redis Memory, OpenTelemetry, Semantic Cache)
Month 6: Fine-Tuned Open Model Serving Engine<br/>(LoRA Adapter, vLLM PagedAttention, 4x Cost Reduction)

2. Week 24 Structure: Capstone 6 & The 4 Mock Interview Gauntlets

DayTopicArtifacts & Code
Day 1Capstone 6: Fine-Tuned Open Model Serving Engine Architecturecapstones/month06_finetuned_open_model_engine/ (train_lora.py, serving.py, evaluate.py)
Day 2Master Portfolio Repository & Multi-Capstone Synthesisday02_master_portfolio_repository_and_multi_capstone_synthesis/
Day 3Mock Interview #1: Python, SQL, Concurrency & Data Structuresday03_mock_interview_python_sql_and_data_structures_for_ai/interview_questions.md
Day 4Mock Interview #2: ML, Deep Learning, Transformers & Fine-Tuning Mathday04_mock_interview_ml_deep_learning_and_finetuning_math/interview_questions.md
Day 5Mock Interview #3: RAG, Vector Databases, Agents, MCP & Evalsday05_mock_interview_rag_agents_mcp_and_eval_systems/interview_questions.md
Day 6Mock Interview #4: End-to-End Production AI System Designday06_mock_interview_end_to_end_production_ai_system_design/interview_questions.md
Day 7Final Graduation, Portfolio Sign-Off & Career Launch Playbookday07_final_graduation_portfolio_signoff_and_career_launch/README.md
Week 24: Week 24: Month 6 Capstone, Master Portfolio & The Senior AI Engineer Interview Gauntlet | 24-Week AI Engineer Academy · DataArena