A step by step guide on up leveling coding skills using AI
Up level your coding chops to build in the new era of AI.
I often get asked - “Do I need to know how to code to get into XYZ?” Replace XYZ with Cybersecurity, Privacy, Technical Program Management, etc.
Unfortunately, this is not a simple yes/no answer.
It depends on some factors like the role itself (some cyber roles don’t require coding skills at all) and your background (if you’ve ever been exposed to code or not either academically or in the real world).
For this post, I am going with an assumption that this question is more related to technical roles i.e. coding might not necessarily be a requirement but it might give you competitive advantage over others. Cybersecurity is a great example.
In my opinion - this question in 2025 should be replaced by - “How do I learn to code?” instead. My point being that there is no reason why you wouldn’t want to know how to code in this new era of building. And, to that, my answer would be - “Using AI”.
If you are wondering why would I, of all the people in this world, be qualified enough to answer that - I made my own website manually a few years ago by learning the basics of nextJS and React. Building this website from the scratch took me ~2 weeks working a few hours every night. There was no ChatGPT back then as we know it today. In contrast to that, I made my wife’s website from scratch in 1 night using AI. The guide below is written based on the lessons learnt from building my wife’s website in a fraction of a time than it would have otherwise taken me if I tried building it without using AI.
So, without further ado, below is a step-by-step guide on how to up level your coding skills using AI:
Step 1 - Learn the basics of a programming language
My recommendation - Learn Python
At the bare minimum, you should be able to read simple code without getting overwhelmed or intimidated by it. There are a ton of python courses - free and paid. Learning the basics should be more than enough to get started. Also, you should not spend more than a week on this. You may ask - Why is this important when there is AI? I am glad you asked!
The simplest explanation is that we are still not at a point where AI can be trusted blindly. And, because of that, copy pasting code generated from AI powered tools is a recipe of disaster, burning out and frustration. If you are able to make some sense of the code generated by AI and be able to make changes as and when necessary (you can think of this as the human-in-the-loop element), that will definitely set you up for success.
Step 2 - Find out what you want to build
My recommendation - Build your website, if you don’t have one already
If you need help figuring this out, think of something you do on a daily basis. It could be a personal project or a pesky little task at work that you hate doing and would rather have someone else do it or automate it. Try to break it down into simpler tasks. The smaller the task is, the better chances of success you’ll have.
If you consider yourself a techie, you should have your own website. In 2025, if you don’t have a website / portfolio easily accessible on the internet, this is a huge missed opportunity in putting yourself out there, in my opinion. If you aren’t discoverable, how are recruiters, potential co-founders and customers going to find you in the first place? How will others know what you have to offer?
For me personally, I keep a journal of ideas and pet projects that I’d like to build to make my life better. For example- I have a lot of small items to sell in our house. I hate putting ads on FB marketplace and OfferUp. I want this problem to go away so that I have one less thing to worry about in my life. It is a simple objective but it can be further broken up into smaller tasks such as - Taking a picture and uploading it somewhere, Doing some market research on how much similar things are getting sold for, gathering data about the item, deciding on a price, drafting a post, posting it, dealing with inbound leads, etc. You get the idea.
Step 3 - Break your goal into smaller tasks. Create a prompt.
In order to avoid getting overwhelmed, break your goal (from Step 2 above) down into smaller tasks and tackle them one task at a time. Create a prompt explaining the problem and the objective. In my case, this prompt could like below (NOTE - This is essentially what is referred to as prompt engineering in the AI/ML lingua franca. There are ways to get really good at it. I won’t dive into prompt engineering in this post):
PROMPT - I have a a lot of small items in my house that I would like to get rid of by either selling or donating it to those who might need it. It involves a lot of small tasks that I would like to automate. I would like to start by automating one task at a time.
To get started, can you please help me come up with some python code that would allow me to upload pictures to an application for further processing? Can you also please explain this code as if you were explaining it to someone who doesn’t have much coding experience and is looking to learn how to code.
See the screenshot below on how this might look like. This is the actual reply I got from ChatGPT with o1 model:
Step 4 - Use AI Chatbots to generate code
Using AI chatbots like ChatGPT/Claude, have them generate the code for you, explaining each and every step. See the screenshot above. These chatbots are extremely good at this. This is something that has been a huge shift in how AI is actually helping up level coding skills without any help from experts. I see this as one of the most groundbreaking things that has happened in the past couple of years. In my opinion, not taking advantage of this is a missed opportunity.
Step 5 - Learn how to run your code locally
Okay, so you have the code generated now. What next?!
The next step is to learn how to run it. Start by opening a terminal locally and running it there. Or, even better, use an AI Code Editor like Cursor (or Windsurf). Open the folder in Cursor and use the terminal within Cursor to run the code. Use the Cursor Composer functionality to ask follow up questions about anything in the code that you don’t understand or if you simply want to know how to run the code locally. This is where Cursor using Claude Sonnet 3.5 really outshines as a AI coding assistant and has been transformative in my learning. Check the screenshot below to see an example of how this works in action. Notice my chat with Cursor Composer on the right hand pane.
Having an abstract idea in my mind, being able to visualize it, build it block by block and finally seeing the complete end product in action is a very special feeling for me personally. It keeps me driven and wanting to keep learning and building more.
Step 6 - Learn how to deploy your code on the cloud
Once you are able to run it locally and test it out, the next step is to deploy it somewhere on the cloud so that you can access it from anywhere.
Consider using something like the Replit Agent to help out with this. If you are not comfortable doing that, a more traditional approach (something that I use) is to create a repository in Github/Gitlab and sign up for an account on Vercel, connecting your Github account to it. I make code changes from the Cursor IDE locally and push them to my repository on Github and from there, it gets picked up by Vercel’s deployment infrastructure and the changes are deployed automatically. I don’t have to do anything beyond making code changes locally and pushing it to Github. See this guide for more details.
I host both my wife’s website and mine on vercel’s infrastructure for free. I just use Namecheap to pay for our domains.
That’s pretty much it! There is no rocket science behind using AI to make one’s life more efficient or to up-level coding skills. And, if I can do it, anybody can do it.
Also, to get back to the original question of whether coding is required or not to get into XYZ, if it is not already evident by now, you don’t necessarily need to know how to code to get into XYZ. Just being aware and mindful of how you are using these AI tools and actually learning and up leveling your skills in the process of doing so, will not only get you into XYZ, but also bring you closer to realizing your true potential. Think about it.
The goal should be to up level your skills using AI, not replace them!
PS - A tip on working with AI coding assistants - You can go pretty far when it comes to copy pasting code generated by these assistants. But, I can guarantee that there will come a point where you will find yourself running around in circles, when updating a seemingly simple feature with the help of these assistants. What ends up happening is that you are likely not providing enough context and looking at the changes being made by the assistant. And, because of that, both the assistant and you are going to be confused about the changes and not being able to get to the root cause of the issue. This is essentially what is referred to as Hallucination in the AI/ML world. This experience can be extremely frustrating. Matter of fact, I have seen some YouTube videos where some folks start changing their tone from “Can you please help me fix this issue?” to “PLEASE FIX THIS” when they chat with Cursor Composer. It is quite diabolical and sad to see this happen.
Cursor has a functionality where you can go back to a previous checkpoint. If you end up finding yourself in this situation, just go back to a previous checkpoint where you were confident about the changes and restore to that. Then, start making small incremental changes and actually paying attention to the changes Cursor is making for you. This will save a lot of pain and suffering.
I hope you enjoyed this guide. I really enjoyed writing it. Please let me know if you have other ideas that you’d want to learn more about in the AI space.
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