Practice before theory
Theory is introduced exactly when you need it — that's when it sticks.
a profession simulator
Automation AI Engineer
Ship like a team of one. Ralph-loop, TDD prompts, parallel worktrees, self-healing pipelines.
$799· from $33/moFree · Ch 17 chapters · ~9h
~60 min · works with any model runnerChapter 1 is free. You only pay when you decide to continue.
Task 2 of 7
You killed Sasha's loop and opened the backlog Mira left behind. The next ticket: 'Fix the broken Stripe webhook handler.' One file (~80 lines). You already have a failing test that reproduces the bug. How long should this sprint be?
Pick the loop length you'd set as the hard ceiling before you check on the agent.
A5 minutes
B15 minutes
C45 minutes
D120 minutes
Auto-check: correct
WhyBoth yes → 15 minutes. This is your default.
This isn't an online course with lectures — it's a simulator of real work.
80% practice · 20% theory×2 your hourly rate
- Chapter 1 free forever
- No card required
- Cancel any time
- Progress is saved
Approach
Why it works
Verifiable certificate
Proves your skills with a publicly checkable link — add it straight to your résumé.
Real market data
Salaries: remote-market medians and hh.ru / Habr Career — both markets shown.
Progress & streaks
Persist between sessions to keep you on track.
Flexible payment
Bank card · cryptocurrency.
The super-profession
The Automation AI Engineer is the super-profession of the AI era: one engineer plus a fleet of agents now ships what used to take a whole team. You stop being a pair of hands and become the operator of a workforce that never sleeps.
What you'll be able to close on your own
- Automate a department's routine end to end — intake, triage, follow-up — with agents instead of headcount
- Stand up a self-healing pipeline: Sentry → fix → ship without a human in the loop
- Run 3 parallel agents on 3 branches and merge in blast-radius order
- Replace a small team's manual work with one operator and a verification ladder
- Inherit a broken codebase under deadline and ship a defensible hotfix
- Spot a stalled or lying agent loop in 60 seconds and cut wasted runs to near zero
- Write TDD prompts that fail loudly before they fail silently
- Turn a one-line founder request into a shipped feature the same day
The AI-mastery scale
Where are you on the AI-mastery scale?
Most people never get past asking ChatGPT a question now and then. The top levels — automating your work and building AI systems — are rare, and that's exactly what makes them valuable. This is the band the school lifts you into.
Click a level to see the skills it unlocks
Percentages are an illustrative estimate of the market distribution, not hard data.
The problem this solves
Most engineers run an agent like a slot machine: type a prompt, wait, hope. When the loop silently stalls, they notice four hours and a burned context window later — and the bug is still open. On a team without enough hands, every hour an agent spins on nothing is runway you can't get back: missed releases, a demo you walk into empty-handed, a founder who stops trusting the tooling.
What changes for you
You walk out running agents the way a senior engineer runs a team: small sprints, loud failures, parallel work, and a 'done' you can actually trust. It's the closest thing to an internship on a strong AI-native team — except the crisis is real and you ship the fix yourself.
Who it's for
Engineers who already use Claude Code / Cursor but get burned
Stop babysitting a loop that lies. You'll spot a stalled or off-track agent in 60 seconds and cut your wasted-run time to near zero.
Solo founders and indie hackers shipping without a team
Run three agents in parallel without merge hell, and ship a week's worth of features in a day — with a verification ladder that keeps you out of production fires.
Tech leads introducing agents to a team
Get a shared vocabulary — sprint sizing, TDD prompts, the trust ladder — you can hand to juniors so the whole team stops re-learning the same mistakes.
Career-switchers aiming at the Automation AI Engineer role
Build a portfolio-grade reflex: inherit a broken codebase under deadline and ship a defensible hotfix, the exact thing this job interviews for.
Who it's not for
- People who want a tour of every agent tool on the market — this teaches one discipline deeply, not a survey.
- Anyone expecting copy-paste prompt templates; you'll build judgment, not snippets.
- Engineers who never touch a terminal or a diff — you don't need to be senior, but you do need to read code.
How the learning works
It's a simulator, not a course
You don't watch lectures about agents — you inherit NoteDrop's crisis on minute one and start making calls. Every screen is a real decision, not a slide.
Real cases, real consequences
Broken loops, stale agent folders, a 72-hour investor demo. The scenarios are the ones that actually burn engineers, reconstructed from real failure modes.
Answer first, theory after
You commit to a decision before any explanation appears. The 'why' is revealed only after you've put skin in the game — that's what makes it stick.
Theory arrives exactly when you need it
No 40-page reader up front. Each task hands you the ~150 words of theory the moment it becomes relevant, then sends you back to work.
Your pace, with a mentor track if you want it
Progress saves per step — walk away and resume anytime. Pick the solo track, or the mentor cohort where a real reviewer reads your capstone.
What you'll learn
Read an agent loop
- Spot a stalled or off-track loop within 60 seconds of watching
- Tell a real heartbeat from a fake 'I'm working on it'
- Recover from an agent stall without losing the context window
Drive the work like a team
- Size sprints so a failure costs minutes, not hours
- Run 3 parallel worktrees and merge in blast-radius order
- Write TDD prompts that fail loudly before they fail silently
Trust, but verify
- Self-grade an agent's 'done' and reject the lie
- Build a verification ladder from cheap checks to expensive ones
- Wire a Sentry → fix → ship pipeline that heals itself
Ship under fire
- Triage 23 open alerts down to the one that matters
- Defend a hotfix line by line in front of investors
The career this opens
Roles you can work as
- AI Automation Engineer
- Agent Engineer
- AI Workflow Engineer
- Automation Lead
- Engineer-team-of-one (solo builder)
Where the profession is in demand
Examples of companies hiring AI engineers. Not affiliated with the school; employment is not guaranteed.
What the market pays
Median market salaries for this profession on the international remote market, 2026 ($/mo).
Junior+
$2 000 – 3 500 / мес
First roles after the course: automation, prompting, wiring agents into real workflows.
Middle
$4 000 – 7 000 / мес
6–12 months in: you own AI products and self-healing pipelines on your own.
Senior / Lead
$8 000 – 14 000+ / мес
AI-system architecture, closed-loop pipelines, leading a team of operators.
These are market salary ranges for the profession on the international remote market, 2026 — not what our graduates earn (we are a new school with no track record to point to) and not a guarantee. Your income depends on you.
7 chapters · ~9h
- Free
Inherit the crisis
60 minFirst 60 minutes at NoteDrop. Learn to see a broken loop before it burns 4 hours.
- Locked
Ralph-loop fundamentals
75 minSprint sizing, heartbeats, restart strategies.
- Locked
TDD prompts
75 minFailing tests first, implementation after — for agents.
- Locked
Parallel worktrees
75 minSpawn 3 agents on 3 branches without losing your mind.
- Locked
Verification and trust ladder
75 minWhen 'done' means done. When it doesn't.
- Locked
Self-healing pipelines
90 minSentry → fix → ship, agent-driven.
- Locked
Capstone — the demo
90 min72 hours up. Ship the hotfix in front of investors.
Who teaches this
Alexander Mihalkevich
Founder, mihalkevich.com
I build and ship products solo with AI agents every day. This course is the exact discipline I run on — no theory I don't use myself.
mihalkevich.com →Why now
Demand for AI- and automation engineers on the RU market is up ~250% in two years, and the supply of people who can actually run agents on production work is tiny. The window where this skill is rare and well-paid is open now — and it closes as the tooling becomes table stakes.
Pick how you learn
Start with Chapter 1 free. Pay only when you decide to continue.
Самостоятельно
from $33/mo
$799 one-time · or 24 payments
- Все главы курса
- Авто-проверка заданий
- Сертификат о прохождении
С ментором
Best valuefrom $54/mo
$1 299 one-time · or 24 payments
- Всё из «Самостоятельно»
- Проверка заданий ментором
- Личная обратная связь
- Чат когорты
С трудоустройством
from $83/mo
$1 999 one-time · or 24 payments
- Всё из «С ментором»
- Резюме и портфолио под конкретные вакансии
- Тренировка собеседований с разбором
- Не нашёл работу за 6 месяцев — вернём деньги
Payback: At a market Middle salary the uplift over a typical entry engineering role is several times the price of the course — so the course can pay for itself inside the first month or two on the new band. That is a framing, not a promise: it assumes you land the role and grow into it.
- 14-day refund if it's not a fit
- Employment tier — on written terms
- 1-on-1 mentor review
- Lifetime access
Launch pricing · seats in this cohort are limitedPrice rises after the cohort fills
Join the community on Telegram
New chapters and simulators, breakdowns of course tasks and discussion with other learners. Free.
What stays in your portfolio
- A shipped Ralph-loop fix on an inherited, broken codebase
- A self-healing Sentry → fix → ship pipeline you wired yourself
- A 3-worktree parallel run merged in blast-radius order without conflicts
- A verifiable certificate and a hotfix you can defend line by line
The certificate you'll earn
A real, shareable credential — issued the moment you complete the chapter. Add it to LinkedIn or send the link.
Pairs with
$39
Specification for AI
Write specs that an AI can't misread. PRD-as-tests, acceptance criteria, deterministic checks.
Try Lite free →$49I'm Agent Creator
Build agent folders end-to-end: pipeline, sub-agents, memory layers, conflict detection.
Try Lite free →$89AI Ops Analyst
Make the numbers honest. Interrogate metrics, audit triage agents, write reconciliation tests, brief AI that surfaces bad news instead of burying it.
Start Ch1 free →Still on the fence?
Chapter 1 is free and self-paced — no card, no commitment. If the first hour doesn't feel like the real job, you've lost nothing. If it does, you'll know exactly why the rest is worth it. The only way to find out is to do the first chapter.
Start Chapter 1 free →FAQ
Automation AI Engineer
Founder vanished. NoteDrop has 23 open Sentry alerts and a demo to investors in 72 hours. You inherit one junior dev and a stale agent folder. Learn the Ralph-loop or burn the runway.
Start free