04-801-O2   AI for Programmers: Advanced Implementation

Course description

Building on foundational knowledge, this course offers hands-on experience in designing and coding agentic AI systems. Students will develop practical skills through projects and exercises focused on creating autonomous, intelligent agents while addressing challenges related to robustness, adaptability, and ethical considerations. This course will continue to focus on AI as a tool, not a replacement, for software engineers.

Learning objectives

The main objective of this course is to build on the foundational knowledge of using AI for software engineering and apply the technical skills to use agent AI to ethically and effectively create reliable, robust, and adaptable software engineering processes and deliverables.

Outcomes

1. Build agent AI workflows using LLMs and other tools to design and build AI agents capable of creating, debugging, and documenting software engineering projects.
2. Develop AI-powered applications that interact with APIs, databases and other external services, and development tools through function calling and agent frameworks.
3. Apply prompt engineering, contextual grounding, and structured output techniques to improve agent reliability, accuracy, and adaptability.
4. As a human software engineer, maintain an understanding of the software architecture, code, and systems that are generated.

Content details

Topics include setting up an agent AI workflow such as Claude; using it to build increasingly complex software systems; RAG; using AI for code review, testing, and documentation; accountability with AI software engineering; the effect of AI in the software engineering job market; ethical AI for programming.

Prerequisite

04-801-O1: AI for Programmers: Foundations