Python → AI + Django
A structured learning roadmap from beginner to production-grade AI systems
6 Phases ~50 Weeks 6 Projects 0 → Pro
FOUNDATION · Weeks 1–6
01 Python Core
Master the language itself
TOPIC WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
Syntax & Data Types Variables, strings, lists, dicts, sets, tuples
Control Flow Loops, conditionals, comprehensions, generators
Functions & Scope Args, kwargs, closures, decorators, lambdas
OOP Classes, inheritance, dunder methods, dataclasses
Modules & Packages pip, virtual environments, project structure
File I/O & Exceptions Context managers, custom exceptions, logging
MILESTONE PROJECT Build a CLI task manager with file persistence
Recommended Resources
– Python Official Docs
– Automate the Boring Stuff (Al Sweigart)
– Real Python ([Link])
INTERMEDIATE · Weeks 7–12
02 Data & Algorithms
Think computationally
TOPIC WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
NumPy Arrays, broadcasting, vectorized operations
Pandas DataFrames, groupby, merging, cleaning pipelines
Matplotlib / Seaborn Charts, distributions, heatmaps
Data Structures Stacks, queues, trees, graphs — implement from scratch
Algorithms Sorting, searching, recursion, dynamic programming
SQL Basics SELECT, JOIN, GROUP BY, subqueries
MILESTONE PROJECT Analyze a real dataset (Kaggle) — EDA + visualizations report
Recommended Resources
– Kaggle Learn
– CS50P (Harvard)
– LeetCode Easy → Medium
AI FOUNDATIONS · Weeks 13–20
03 Machine Learning
Teach machines to learn
TOPIC WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
ML Theory Bias/variance, overfitting, train/val/test splits, metrics
Scikit-learn Linear models, trees, SVM, pipelines, GridSearchCV
Feature Engineering Encoding, scaling, imputation, selection
Deep Learning Intro Neural networks, backprop, activation functions
PyTorch Basics Tensors, autograd, [Link], training loops
MLflow / W&B Experiment tracking, model registry
MILESTONE PROJECT Train a classifier — deploy predictions via a REST endpoint
Recommended Resources
– [Link]
– Hands-On ML (Aurélien Géron)
– PyTorch Docs
AI ADVANCED · Weeks 21–30
04 LLMs & Modern AI
Work with frontier models
TOPIC WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
Transformers Architecture Attention, self-attention, encoder/decoder
Hugging Face Pipelines, tokenizers, fine-tuning BERT/LLaMA
LangChain / LlamaIndex Chains, agents, RAG pipelines, memory
Vector Databases Embeddings, Chroma, Pinecone, pgvector
OpenAI / Anthropic APIs Prompt engineering, tool use, structured outputs
Fine-tuning & PEFT LoRA, QLoRA, RLHF basics
MILESTONE PROJECT Build a RAG-powered chatbot over your own documents
Recommended Resources
– Andrej Karpathy's YouTube
– LangChain Docs
– Hugging Face Course
BACKEND · Weeks 25–35
05 Django Backend
Build production systems
TOPIC WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
Django Core MVT, ORM, migrations, admin, forms, middleware
Django REST Framework Serializers, ViewSets, routers, permissions
Authentication JWT, OAuth2, django-allauth, session management
Celery + Redis Async tasks, scheduled jobs, task queues
PostgreSQL Deep Dive Indexes, transactions, select_related, prefetch
Testing pytest-django, factories, mocking, coverage
MILESTONE PROJECT Production-ready API with auth, background tasks, and rate limiting
Recommended Resources
– Django Official Docs
– Django REST Framework Docs
– Two Scoops of Django
PRO LEVEL · Weeks 35–50
06 Production AI Systems
Ship real AI products
TOPIC WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
AI + Django Integration Serve ML models, async inference, streaming responses
Docker & Kubernetes Containerize, orchestrate, health checks, scaling
CI/CD GitHub Actions, automated testing, blue/green deploys
Monitoring & Observability Prometheus, Grafana, Sentry, structured logging
System Design Caching layers, message queues, CDN, load balancing
Security OWASP, SQL injection, CORS, secrets management, audits
MILESTONE PROJECT Deploy a full AI product: Django API + LLM backend + CI/CD + monitoring
Recommended Resources
– Designing Data-Intensive Apps (Kleppmann)
– The Pragmatic Programmer
– GitHub open source contributions
Phases 4 and 5 overlap intentionally — learning Django while building AI gives you immediate context for backend decisions.