Java + AI Engineering Handbook
Introduction
This handbook is intended for Java developers transitioning into AI and Generative AI engineering.
It focuses on enterprise application development using Java, Spring Boot, Spring AI, LangChain4j,
LLMs, vector databases, RAG, AI agents, cloud deployment, and interview preparation.
Chapter 1: AI Fundamentals
Artificial Intelligence is the broader field of creating systems that perform tasks requiring human
intelligence. Machine Learning is a subset of AI. Deep Learning is a subset of Machine Learning.
Generative AI creates new content such as text, code, images, and audio.
Chapter 2: Large Language Models
LLMs are transformer-based neural networks trained on massive datasets. Important concepts
include tokens, context windows, inference, temperature, hallucinations, fine-tuning, embeddings,
prompt engineering, and evaluation.
Chapter 3: Prompt Engineering
Learn zero-shot, one-shot, and few-shot prompting. Use role-based prompts, structured outputs,
chain-of-thought style decomposition, and output validation. Design prompts that are deterministic
and testable.
Chapter 4: Spring AI
Spring AI simplifies integration with AI providers. Core concepts include ChatClient,
PromptTemplate, Advisors, Memory, Embeddings, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation pipelines.
Build chatbots, assistants, and knowledge systems using Spring Boot.
Chapter 5: LangChain4j
LangChain4j provides abstractions for chat models, embeddings, memory, tools, retrieval, and AI
agents. Learn service interfaces, tool calling, structured outputs, and RAG implementations.
Chapter 6: Embeddings
Embeddings convert text into vectors. Similar meanings produce nearby vectors. Embeddings
power semantic search, recommendations, classification, clustering, and retrieval systems.
Chapter 7: Vector Databases
Study Qdrant, Pinecone, Weaviate, Milvus, and pgvector. Understand indexing, similarity search,
metadata filtering, hybrid search, scalability, and performance tuning.
Chapter 8: Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
RAG combines document retrieval and LLM reasoning. Pipeline: Document Ingestion -> Chunking
-> Embeddings -> Vector Database -> Retrieval -> Prompt Augmentation -> LLM Response. This is
one of the most demanded enterprise AI skills.
Chapter 9: AI Agents
Agents use LLM reasoning combined with tools. Examples include travel planners, customer
support assistants, financial assistants, and workflow automation systems. Learn tool calling,
memory, planning, and orchestration.
Chapter 10: AI Microservices
Build AI as independent services. Use Spring Boot, REST APIs, Kafka, Redis, PostgreSQL, API
Gateway, Service Discovery, and Observability. Design scalable and fault-tolerant systems.
Chapter 11: Cloud and Deployment
Deploy AI applications using Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. Learn
autoscaling, secrets management, CI/CD, monitoring, and logging.
Chapter 12: Security
Protect prompts, APIs, user data, and model outputs. Understand prompt injection, jailbreaks, data
leakage, authentication, authorization, encryption, and auditing.
Chapter 13: Production Monitoring
Track latency, cost, token usage, hallucinations, retrieval quality, user satisfaction, and system
reliability. Use observability platforms and evaluation frameworks.
Chapter 14: Portfolio Projects
Project 1: Chatbot API. Project 2: Resume Analyzer. Project 3: Meeting Summarizer. Project 4:
PDF Knowledge Assistant. Project 5: Customer Support Assistant. Project 6: Banking Knowledge
Agent. Project 7: Multi-Agent Enterprise Platform.
Chapter 15: Interview Questions
Explain LLMs, tokens, embeddings, vector databases, RAG architecture, Spring AI, LangChain4j,
AI agents, tool calling, prompt engineering, and production AI systems. Prepare architecture
diagrams and project walkthroughs.
Chapter 16: 90-Day Study Plan
Month 1: AI fundamentals, LLMs, Spring AI, chatbot development. Month 2: Embeddings, vector
databases, RAG, semantic search. Month 3: Agents, production systems, deployment, interview
preparation.
Recommended Resources
Spring AI Documentation, LangChain4j Documentation, OpenAI Documentation, Qdrant
Documentation, Kubernetes Documentation, and cloud provider learning paths.
Career Roadmap
Java Developer -> Senior Java Developer -> Spring AI Developer -> AI Application Engineer ->
GenAI Engineer -> AI Architect. Focus on building production-ready applications and strong
portfolio projects.