Learn Retrieval Augmented Generation

A basic pipeline can be a weekend project... but good retrieval is much harder. This is an advanced-level course that builds search from scratch, starting with keyword search and ending with a full RAG pipeline.

A search engine for a movie dataset in Python. You'll implement TF-IDF and BM25 keyword search, semantic search with embeddings, chunking, hybrid search, LLM query rewriting, reranking, evaluation, and augmented generation.

No. The LLM lessons use free models on OpenRouter through the official OpenAI Python SDK, and embeddings run locally with open-source models.

This course takes about 40 hours. You'll work on your own machine with Python and the Boot.dev CLI, so you should already be comfortable writing Python.

Yes! It's free to create an account and start learning. You'll get all the immersive and interactive features for free for a few chapters. After that, if you still haven't paid for a membership, you'll be in read-only (content only) mode.

We use AI more than most tech companies - not just to build Boots and the Training Grounds, but also to assist us in our coding work... and we're still hiring developers! The demand for technical talent hasn't gone away. Companies need developers that are AI savvy and can modernize their codebases. The way developers work is changing rapidly, but the demand for developers who can build great software remains high. We teach software development skills for the modern AI assisted world, and also have some AI specific courses like how to build your own Agent.

It's completely up to you. The time it will take you to be "job ready" will depend on how much you already know, how often you study, and how long you study for. That said, the backend career path takes many people about 12 months.

• How long to become a backend developer

Absolutely! If you built it, use it. You'll build several personal projects while completing our curriculum, and our final course about finding jobs will show you how to construct a job-ready portfolio.

We're not a $10,000 bootcamp. We're not a $50,000 university degree. We are a self-paced, gamified online learning platform for learning back-end web development and computer science. You can learn with us for the price of a gym membership.

We focus on teaching backend-development and data-related skills, which is somewhat of a rarity in online learning. We're also focused on solving what we believe is the hardest problem with online learning: boredom. If you prefer coding rather than watching, and your struggle with online learning is staying motivated and engaged, we think you'll like learning with us.

• Read about our methodology