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Prashant Lakhera
Prashant Lakhera

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๐Ÿ“Œ Calling an LLM API Doesnโ€™t Mean You Understand How an LLM Works

One common mistake I see among people entering the AI field:

They make an API call to an LLM, get a response, build a small application, and think they understand how LLMs work.

But thatโ€™s only the surface.

The real learning starts when you begin asking:

โ†’ What is actually happening inside a neural network?

โ†’ Why are GPUs so important for AI?

โ†’ How does a Transformer work?

โ†’ What are attention and tokenization?

โ†’ How does training actually happen?

โ†’ How do you build and train a language model yourself?

These are also the kinds of fundamentals that can separate you in a serious AI/GenAI interview. Thatโ€™s exactly why I wrote:

๐Ÿ“• Building A Small Language Model from Scratch: A Practical Guide

Itโ€™s an 854-page practical journey that starts with the fundamentals: Neural Networks, GPUs, Transformers, tokenization, and attention, and gradually takes you toward building your own language model from scratch.

If you want to go deeper than simply calling an API, the book is still available:

๐Ÿ“˜ Gumroad: https://plakhera.gumroad.com/l/BuildingASmallLanguageModelfromScratch

๐Ÿ“˜ Leanpub: https://leanpub.com/buildingasmalllanguagemodelfromscratch

๐Ÿ“˜ Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Building-Small-Language-Model-Scratch-ebook/dp/B0G64SQ4F8/

๐Ÿš€ Looking for a structured interview-preparation path?

Iโ€™m also running a 3-month program:

Cracking the GenAI Interview for DevOps, SRE, Platform & Forward-Deployed Engineers

The program focuses on:

โ†’ Generative AI & LLM Engineering

โ†’ Python & DSA

โ†’ System Design

โ†’ DevOps/SRE Automation with AI

โ†’ Hands-on AI projects

โ†’ Interview-focused preparation

๐Ÿ“Œ Morning Batch: https://www.ideaweaver.ai/purchase?product_id=6827463

๐Ÿ“Œ Evening Batch: https://www.ideaweaver.ai/purchase?product_id=6827464

๐Ÿ“Œ Self-Paced Batch: https://www.ideaweaver.ai/purchase?product_id=6827466

๐Ÿ“Œ Complete Program Details: https://www.ideaweaver.ai/courses/cracking-the-genai-interview-for-devops-sre-platform-forward-deployed-engineers-morning1/lectures/66591133

Donโ€™t just learn how to call an LLM. Learn what is happening underneath it.

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