Course map
41 levels in 7 tracks, from “how does a click reach a server” to agentic AI systems, ending with building and leading projects with AI coding agents. Every lesson opens on a StayHub incident and ends with practice and recall.
Foundations
How software, code, browsers, servers and databases actually work.
- LEVEL 00
How Software Works
Follow a click from your finger to a database and back.
Fundamentals0/8 lessons - LEVEL 01
Programming Foundations
The building blocks every system is made of, and how fast they run.
Programming0/5 lessons - LEVEL 02
Frontend Engineering
From HTML to hydration: how the browser becomes an application.
Frontend0/5 lessons - LEVEL 03
Backend Engineering
APIs, business logic, and the work that happens after the response.
Backend0/4 lessons - LEVEL 04
Databases
Where truth lives, and why it's usually the first thing to break.
Databases0/6 lessons
Architecture & distributed systems
Structuring systems, designing them for scale, and surviving the network.
- LEVEL 05
Software Architecture
When and why to choose a structure, not which one is fashionable.
Architecture0/7 lessons - LEVEL 06
System Design
A repeatable method: requirements → estimates → design → trade-offs.
System design0/5 lessons - LEVEL 07
Distributed Systems
Everything that goes wrong once there is a network in the middle.
Distributed systems0/7 lessons - LEVEL 08
Networking
Packets, ports, handshakes, and the proxies in between.
Networking0/4 lessons
Infrastructure & delivery
Cloud building blocks, pipelines, containers and orchestration.
- LEVEL 09
Cloud Infrastructure
Generic cloud building blocks first, then AWS / Azure / GCP names.
Cloud0/4 lessons - LEVEL 10
DevOps
Shipping safely and often: pipelines, environments, rollouts.
DevOps0/5 lessons - LEVEL 11
Docker
Package the app with everything it needs so it runs the same everywhere.
Containers0/4 lessons - LEVEL 12
Kubernetes
A control loop that keeps your containers in the state you declared.
Containers0/5 lessons
Quality attributes
Performance, scale, reliability, observability, security, testing and cost.
- LEVEL 13
Performance Engineering
Measure, find the bottleneck, fix the right thing.
Performance & scale0/5 lessons - LEVEL 14
Scalability
Grow from 100 users to 100 million one bottleneck at a time.
Performance & scale0/4 lessons - LEVEL 15
Reliability
How many nines you need, and what each one costs.
Reliability0/4 lessons - LEVEL 16
Observability
Logs, metrics, traces, and the art of debugging production.
Observability0/3 lessons - LEVEL 17
Security
Think like an attacker, build like a defender.
Security0/5 lessons - LEVEL 18
Testing
Which test would have caught this bug?
Testing0/3 lessons - LEVEL 19
Cost Engineering
Two architectures, same traffic, 8× different bill.
Cost engineering0/3 lessons
AI engineering
From next-token prediction to secure, observable, cost-efficient agentic systems.
- LEVEL 20
AI Foundations
What an LLM actually does when it 'answers' you.
AI foundations0/5 lessons - LEVEL 21
LLM Engineering
Context engineering: deciding what the model gets to see.
LLM engineering0/3 lessons - LEVEL 22
Embeddings & Vector Databases
Meaning as coordinates, search as distance.
RAG & embeddings0/3 lessons - LEVEL 23
RAG
Ground the model in your documents instead of its memory.
RAG & embeddings0/4 lessons - LEVEL 24
AI Agents
When a model is allowed to act, not just answer.
Agents & tools0/4 lessons - LEVEL 25
Tool Calling
How a model asks your code to do things, and why your code decides.
Agents & tools0/3 lessons - LEVEL 26
MCP
A standard plug between AI applications and the world's tools and data.
Agents & tools0/2 lessons - LEVEL 27
AI Memory
What an assistant remembers, for how long, and what can go wrong.
Agents & tools0/2 lessons - LEVEL 28
AI Evaluations
Testing software that gives a different answer every time.
LLM engineering0/3 lessons - LEVEL 29
AI Security
Every piece of text the model reads is a potential instruction.
AI security0/4 lessons - LEVEL 30
AI Infrastructure
Gateways, routing, caching and GPUs: running models in production.
AI infrastructure0/3 lessons - LEVEL 31
Multimodal AI
Room photos and documents as model inputs, checked before anyone trusts them.
AI infrastructure0/2 lessons - LEVEL 32
Voice AI
Microphone → model → speaker, fast enough to feel like a conversation.
AI infrastructure0/2 lessons - LEVEL 33
AI Agent Architecture
The production runtime around the model.
Agents & tools0/2 lessons - LEVEL 34
AI Observability
Traces of thoughts, tools, tokens and costs.
AI infrastructure0/1 lessons - LEVEL 35
AI Cost Engineering
Tokens × price × volume, and the levers that cut it 10×.
Cost engineering0/2 lessons
Engineering judgment
Product thinking and the trade-offs that define senior engineers.
Building with AI coding agents
For vibe coders: let Claude Code write the code while you make the decisions and check its work.
- LEVEL 38
Vibe Coding Foundations
Claude Code types. You decide, and you know what good looks like.
Building with AI0/6 lessons - LEVEL 39
Shipping with Claude Code
Test, debug, secure, deploy and run what the agent built, without writing the code yourself.
Building with AI0/6 lessons - LEVEL 40
Leading Projects with AI Agents
Lead a big project where AI agents write the code: architecture, plans, rules, quality gates, people.
Building with AI0/7 lessons