GenAI/LLM System Design for Production and Interviews
A guided, multi-course journey that builds this skill from the ground up. Work through the chapters in order, or jump to any lesson.
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From Product Ask to GenAI System ArtifactsWhat Makes GenAI Systems Different: Reliability, Cost, and SafetyTokens and Context Windows: Capacity, Truncation, and BudgetingGeneration Controls and Reasoning Models as Product ConstraintsEmbeddings: Similarity as a System PrimitivePrompts, Context Assembly, and Structured Output ContractsInference Performance: TTFT, Throughput, and Cost IntuitionA Repeatable GenAI Design Method: The First-Pass Drill
Reference Architecture and Service ContractsModel Selection and Routing as a Product DecisionInference Serving: Latency, Concurrency, and BackpressureCaching for LLM Systems Without Leaking DataOrchestration Patterns and Safe RetriesGuardrails as a Layered Safety PipelineTracing and Observability for LLM PipelinesEvaluation Loops: Offline Datasets, Online Metrics, and Regression Gates
What RAG Is (and Is Not)RAG Architecture: Offline Indexing vs Online Query PathChunking and Metadata: Building a Usable IndexSimilarity Search and ANN Tradeoffs (FAISS as a Reference)HNSW vs IVF: Picking an ANN ShapeImproving Retrieval Quality: Hybrid Search, Query Rewriting, and RerankingChoosing Between RAG, Prompting, and Fine-TuningRAG Failure Modes and Defensive Fixes
When to Use an AgentDesigning Tool Contracts: Schemas, Validation, and Error HandlingSafe Actions: Idempotency, Retries, and AuthorizationModel Context Protocol (MCP): Standardizing Tools and ContextMemory and State Boundaries for Tool-Using SystemsOrchestration Patterns: Planner–Executor, Orchestrator–Worker, and RoutingMaking Agents Reliable and Safe: Bounds, Sandboxes, HITL, and Observability
From Product Goals to Hard SLOs and BudgetsToken Economics: Context Discipline, Cascades, and Caching SafelyLatency Engineering: TTFT, Streaming UX, and Parallelism BoundariesThe Reliability Ladder for LLM Systems: Degrade GracefullyTrust Controls: Citations, Abstention, and Verification LoopsDefensive Design Against Prompt Injection and Unsafe Tool UsePrivacy, Logging, and Tenant Isolation as System ContractsLLMOps: Golden Sets, Joint Versioning, and Regression GatesCapstone Hardening Pass: Update the Assistant Architecture and Rollout Plan
Enterprise Document Q&A: Requirements, Permissions, and CitationsEnterprise Document Q&A: End-to-End Architecture and Rollout PlanSemantic and Multimodal Search: Retrieval and Ranking DesignSearch at High QPS: Serving, Caching, and SLO DecompositionCustomer-Support Assistant: RAG Plus Safe Account ActionsSupport Assistant Operations: Handoff, Monitoring, and Failure ModesTimed Mock: One End-to-End Interview Run-Through
AI Coding Assistant: Context Assembly and Mode BoundariesAI Coding Assistant: Evaluation, Cost/Latency, and RolloutTool-Using Research Agent: Control Loop and BudgetingResearch Agent: Source Reliability and Web Injection DefensesLLM Gateway Platform: Routing, Quotas, Fallbacks, and TenancyLLM Gateway Platform: Cost Attribution, Caching, and Safety HooksA Reusable Playbook for Unfamiliar GenAI Design PromptsPersonal Checklist: End-to-End Recap and Interview Execution