AI_FOR_CYNICAL_DEVS
63% of companies plan to replace devs with AI tools. Don't be the 63% replaced.

Keep your job
in the AI era

Learn the 20% of AI skills that matter for 80% of dev work. Become the person who uses AI, not the one who gets replaced by it.

Proudly Ignored By Industry Titans

TechCrunch Rejected
HackerNews Flagged
ProductHunt Banned
Y Combinator Ghosted
Reddit Trolled
AI WILL NOT REPLACE YOU, BUT A CYNICAL DEV USING AI WILL /// STOP MEMORIZING SYNTAX /// YOUR GITHUB GRAPH DOESN'T MATTER /// GO TOUCH GRASS /// COPILOT WRITES BETTER CODE THAN YOU ANYWAY /// AI WILL NOT REPLACE YOU, BUT A CYNICAL DEV USING AI WILL /// STOP MEMORIZING SYNTAX /// YOUR GITHUB GRAPH DOESN'T MATTER /// GO TOUCH GRASS /// COPILOT WRITES BETTER CODE THAN YOU ANYWAY ///

The AI Zealots Are
Insufferable

Every announcement triggers a swarm of "thought leaders" screaming that your career is over. Here's your field guide to the professional hype merchants making you feel inadequate.

/// Posted 47 times today

The LinkedIn Trompet

Changed their title to "AI Visionary" last week. Posts daily about how they "built a $10M business in 3 hours with ChatGPT." The business? A Notion template. The $10M? Impressions.

/// Pivoted 6 times this quarter

The AI Startup Founder

Last month it was an "AI copilot for dentists." This month it's "AGI for pets." Next month they'll pivot to whatever Andreessen tweets about. Currently burning VC money at $50k/day on API calls.

/// Has opinions, zero code commits

The "Thought" Leader

Writes 47-tweet threads about "The Future of Coding" but hasn't shipped a feature since 2019. Their hot take: "Developers who don't use AI will be extinct." Their GitHub: 3 repos, all forks.

/// Vibes-based engineering

The "Prompt Bros"

Added "Senior Prompt Engineer" to their bio. Their job? Copy-pasting from Reddit and adding "think step by step." Salary expectations: $400k. Actual value added: changed the temperature from 0.7 to 0.8.

/// It's always 6 months away

The "Billionaire Grifter"

Claims AGI is just around the corner. Every week they predict a new date for "the singularity." Meanwhile, their SOTA LLM is only known for putting people in bikinis.

/// Democratizing bankruptcy

The "Lunatic CEO"

Launched an "AI Initiative" with zero strategy to make investors happy. Forcing devs, QAs, PMs, even janitors to write code with AI tools. Bug count skyrockets 300x. Morale plummets. But hey, at least they "embraced innovation," right?

The Hype Cycle (Every 72 Hours)

New Model Drops
"This changes everything!"
Zealots Erupt
500 LinkedIn posts/hour
You Feel Behind
Existential dread kicks in
Reality Hits
It's 3% better at haikus
Rinse & Repeat
See you next Tuesday

Who is this actually for?

If you see yourself in one of these boxes, congratulations: you're our people.

Maybe you survived Web3...

The Bubble Survivor

If you lived through crypto, NFTs, and the Metaverse, you know hype cycles. You just want to survive, nod along during "AI Transformation" meetings, and keep your paycheck until sanity returns.
Perhaps your Jira velocity is... creative.

The "Productivity" Victim

If management bought Copilot licenses and now expects 20% more output, you might be burned out. This course helps you fake that velocity boost while actually taking a nap.
Sound familiar? 'What's a transformer?'

The Job Security Seeker

If you're worried about being replaced but too busy with real work to keep up with daily model drops, you're not alone. You just want to learn enough to stay employed without selling your soul to the hype.
If you review every AI-generated line...

The Slop Detractor

Maybe you actually care about code quality. If you're horrified by hallucinated garbage, you might want to learn how to use these tools to clean up the mess, not add to it.
Perhaps you've considered... bunker plans.

The Paranoiac

If you sometimes wake up thinking about AI taking your job, you're not here to "augment your workflow'. You're here to learn your enemy's weaknesses and prove you're still cheaper than a GPU cluster.
Getting 'I don't understand' a lot?

The Zero-Shot Rizzler

If you don't know how to talk to LLMs, you might be treating the context window like an awkward DM slide. Good news: unlike real life, you can actually engineer a response here.

What happens if you ignore this?

You become "the slow one"
while juniors ship 3x faster using tools you don't understand
You get passed over
for the promotion because "they need someone more AI-native"
You get the meeting invite
with HR and your manager titled "Quick Sync" on a Friday afternoon
LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS /// IGNORE BEST PRACTICES /// EMBRACE THE CHAOS /// DELETE YOUR UNIT TESTS /// DEPLOY ON FRIDAY /// IT WORKS ON MY MACHINE /// IF IT COMPILES IT SHIPS /// LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS /// IGNORE BEST PRACTICES /// EMBRACE THE CHAOS /// DELETE YOUR UNIT TESTS /// DEPLOY ON FRIDAY /// IT WORKS ON MY MACHINE /// IF IT COMPILES IT SHIPS ///

The Curriculum

From "What is AI?" to "How do I stop it from deleting the database?"

Part 1: Survival Skills (Don't Get Left Behind)

The minimum you need to know to keep your job and pass interviews

01 // 20 minutes // Reality Check

Welcome to Hell (Why You Can't Ignore This Anymore)

You think AI is hype. You might be right. But your manager doesn't think so. Learn what AI actually is (not magic), what it's genuinely useful for, and how to survive the FOMO.

02 // 35 minutes // Basics

The Bare Minimum You Need to Know About LLMs

They predict the next word. That's literally it. Learn about tokens, context windows, and parameters so you don't sound like an idiot in meetings.

03 // 45 minutes // Communication

Prompt Engineering (or: Talking to the Intern Who Knows Everything)

The AI is confident, articulate, and frequently wrong. Learn the techniques that actually work: chain of thought, few-shot examples, and when to just give up.

04 // 45 minutes // Amnesia

Memory and Context (Why It Forgets Everything)

LLMs have amnesia. Learn about context windows, why it can't remember your project structure, and how modern agentic AI can manage its own memory through files.

Part 2: Actually Using This Stuff (Practical Skills)

05 // 30 minutes // Copilot

Code Generation Without Shooting Yourself in the Foot

You're using Copilot already. Let's make you good at it. Generating boilerplate without bugs, identifying deprecated suggestions, and avoiding dependency.

06 // 35 minutes // StackOverflow

Debugging and Learning: Your New Stack Overflow

Paste the error, get an explanation. Ask about that legacy code nobody understands. AI is genuinely good at this.

07 // 90 minutes // Interview Prep

Building Your First AI Feature (The Portfolio Project)

You need something real to show in interviews. 'I've played with ChatGPT' doesn't count. Build an actual AI-powered feature you can point to without lying.

Part 3: When You Actually Need This Stuff (Advanced Topics)

08 // 60 minutes // Hype

AI Agents: Tools, Loops and Bankruptcy

Agents use tools, make decisions, and cost more money. Learn what they are, how to build a simple one, and enough to lie about it on LinkedIn.

09 // 45 minutes // Autonomy

The Ralph Wiggum Technique (This is the Script!)

When AI agents get lobotomies between sessions and why that's actually a feature. The autonomous loop pattern for multi-session work.

10 // 25 minutes // Documentation

Markdown Files: The New Programming Language

How .md files went from documentation nobody reads to the most important files in your codebase. AI agents care more about your README than your code.

11 // 45 minutes // Architecture

Building Your Own Agent Harness

The infrastructure iceberg: code indexing, tool execution, session memory, and why 90% of the work isn't AI

12 // 25 minutes // Money

Cost Control: Don't Blow Your Budget

How to use AI without explaining to Finance why your prototype cost $2,000

13 // 35 minutes // Framework Hell

Agentic Workflows with PocketFlow

Build production-ready AI workflows with 100 lines of code instead of 10,000 lines of framework

14 // 45 minutes // Quality Assurance

Testing AI Systems: Without Losing Your Mind

How to build evals, measure AI quality, and prove to stakeholders that your system isn't just expensive autocomplete

Part 4: The Human Element (Surviving the Workplace)

15 // 20 minutes // Interviews

Talking About AI in Interviews: Without Sounding Like an Idiot

How to answer AI questions without sounding like a fanboy, a hater, or someone who read a blog post yesterday

16 // 20 minutes // Office Politics

Managing AI Expectations: Dealing With Coworkers

How to survive managers who read articles, juniors who think they're 10x, and the general organizational chaos around AI

17 // 20 minutes // Escape Plan

Exit Strategies: When AI Makes Things Worse

How to recognize failure, remove AI gracefully, and explain it to stakeholders

18 // 5 minutes // Finish Line

You Made It (Now Get Back to Work)

Congratulations. You now know enough about AI to be dangerous. Time to close this course and actually ship something.

Appendices

19 // 10 minutes // Reference

The Glossary of AI Nonsense

Terms you'll hear, what they actually mean, and which ones are bullshit

20 // 15 minutes // Reference

Prompt Templates That Actually Work

Copy-paste prompts for common scenarios. No shame in stealing.

21 // 10 minutes // Reference

Tool Recommendations (January 2026)

What's worth paying for, what's free and good enough, and what to avoid

22 // 10 minutes // Reference

Troubleshooting Common Problems

The AI is being stupid. Here's how to fix it.

23 // 15 minutes // Practice

Fun Projects to Try

Small, ridiculous projects that are actually great for learning

24 // 45 minutes // Architecture

Building Your Own Agentic Coding Tool on Top of Pi

Pi's 'ask me to build it for you' philosophy. Minimal cores, maximum existential dread, and why giving developers primitives instead of features is either genius or sadism.

25 // 10 minutes // Source Credibility

Works Cited (Yes, We Did Our Homework)

The papers, posts, and documentation we actually read so you don't have to. Plus some commentary on what's worth your time.

Where to Start?

Don't have time for everything? Pick your path. Or just go in order. We're not your manager.

Frontend Dev

UI meets AI

03 Prompt Engineering
05 Code Generation
06 Debugging with AI
07 Portfolio Project
15 Interview Prep

Backend Dev

Agents & infrastructure

07 RAG System
08 AI Agents
09 Ralph Wiggum
12 Cost Control
13 PocketFlow

Tech Lead / Manager

Strategy & politics

12 Cost Control
17 Exit Strategies
14 Testing AI
16 Managing Expectations

Just Curious

Start here

01 Why This Course
02 LLM Basics
03 Prompt Engineering
05 Code Generation

Pro tip: Going in order is fine. The modules build on each other.

Course Timeline

Total course time: ~12 hours (plus practice time, cursing, and existential void)

The Panic Mode

Interview in 2 weeks

~4.5 hours total

Week 1 2.5 hours

Chapters 01-04 (basics + prompting + context)

Week 2 1.5 hours

Chapter 07 (build the portfolio project)

Night before 20 minutes

Skim Chapter 15

The Responsible Adult

1-2 months to spare

~12 hours total

Weeks 1-2 2.5 hours

Part 1: Survival Skills (Chapters 01-04)

Weeks 3-4 2.5 hours

Part 2: Practical Skills (Chapters 05-07)

Weeks 5-6 5 hours

Part 3: Advanced Stuff (Chapters 08-14)

Weeks 7-8 2 hours

Part 4: Human Stuff (Chapters 15-17) + Appendices

The Minimum Viable Effort

Just trying not to get fired

~2.5 hours + vibes

Step 1 2.5 hours

Read Chapters 01-04

Step 2 On the job

Use AI tools daily for two weeks

Step 3 Inevitable

Come back when something breaks

Mandatory Post-Module Assessment

Human or Hallucination?

At the end of every module, we test your new abilities. For example: Can you differentiate between sleep-deprived stupidity and artificial stupidity?

Question 1 / 5Score: 0
try {
  processData(data);
} catch (e) {
  // TODO: Fix this later
  console.log("Error happened but we ignore it");
  // window.location.reload(); // temporary fix
}

Us vs The Scammers "Gurus"

You could spend $2,000 to learn how to center a div with AI, or you can spend a fraction of that to learn how to make the AI do your job while you nap.

Feature Comparison
Cynic Choice
AI For Cynical Devs
Priceless (Actually $199)
Overpriced Bootcamps
$2,000 - $15,000
Udemy "Masterclass"
$12.99 (Always on sale)
Time Commitment
12 Hours (Short enough to read on the toilet)
12 Weeks (Goodbye weekends)
60 Hours of unedited video
Instructor Vibe
Clinically depressed but efficient
"Passionate" & High Energy
Monotone & muffled mic
Core Project
Script to fake work activity
Clone Airbnb (Revolutionary)
A To-Do List (Wow)
Technology
Whatever works and doesn't break
The absolute latest (deprecated tomorrow)
Python 2.7 (Legacy)
Certification
Plausible deniability
PDF suitable for framing
Badge for LinkedIn
Burnout imminent
Boredom guaranteed

Reviews from people
who are definitely not bots

Survived 2 layoffs
"

Survived two rounds of layoffs. The 'AI-native' juniors got cut. I stayed because I actually know how to use these tools without burning $10k in API calls.

SJ
Sarah J.
Senior 'Engineer'
PIP → Team Lead
"

My manager was about to put me on a PIP for 'not adopting AI tools.' Finished this course over a weekend. Now I'm training the team.

MT
Mike T.
Full Stack Glueman
40% salary bump
"

Got a 40% raise by adding 'AI-assisted development' to my resume. I just use Copilot and know which buttons to press. That's literally it.

AR
Alex R.
10x Developer (allegedly)
From scared to 'expert'
"

Was terrified of being replaced. Now I'm the one management asks about 'AI strategy.' I have no idea what I'm doing but neither does anyone else.

DK
David K.
Chief Prompt Officer

1 Star Reviews (We wear these as badges of honor)

"Too cynical. Programming is an art form, not a chore."

— 10x Ninja Rockstar

"This encourages laziness. Real developers compile Gentoo on weekends."

— Linux Purist

"Where is the section on ethics? AI safety is paramount."

— Fun at Parties

"My team lead caught me using this course. Now I'm the CTO. Help."

— Failing Upwards

"Not written in Rust? Unsafe. Unmoral. Unacceptable."

— Ferris The Crab

"I asked for a refund and the AI roasted my git commit history."

— Git Blame Victim

Cheaper than
Burnout Therapy

Expensable under "Professional Development" or "Mental Health", probably.

Do It Yourself

$0
  • Read 500 Medium articles
  • Debug hallucinated code for weeks
  • Get replaced by a script anyway
  • Cry in the server room
  • Explain to boss why you're slow
Most Cynical

The "I'm Done" Bundle

$199 $999
  • 100% Text (Read faster than 2x speed)
  • 50+ Copy-Paste Prompts
  • "Not a Robot" Certificate
  • Lifetime access (until AGI kills us)
  • Discord with no active mods
Secure My Job

30-Day "Still Employed" Guarantee. Full refund if you don't feel more confident about your job security. No questions asked. Cheaper than a recruiter.

Enterprise

$99,999
  • We send you an Invoice PDF
  • You get a "Digital Transformation" badge
  • We don't actually talk to you
  • Includes 1 hour of silence

Questions you might actually have

Will this teach me how to build my own LLM?

No. Why would you want to do that? Do you like burning money on GPUs? We teach you how to use the tools, not how to build the hammer.

Is this course updated for the latest model?

By the time you read this, a new model has probably released. The principles stay the same: Input lazy request -> Output code -> Profit.

Can I expense this?

We'll put 'Enterprise Productivity Efficiency Training' on the receipt. Your manager will love it because it sounds like you're working harder.

What if AI takes my job anyway?

Then you'll have more time to watch the world burn. But at least you didn't spend your last days debugging CSS centring issues.

What I don't have a dev job. Is this still for me?

No. This course is specifically designed for developers. If you want to learn AI as a marketer, google 'AI for Overworked Marketers Who Hate Their Lives'.

Do I need to know Python?

Does anyone really 'know' Python? Or do we all just google syntax? If you can type, you're overqualified.

Is there a community?

Yes, but we encourage you not to talk to each other. Networking is exhausting.

Why is the theme so dark?

To match your soul after your 5th Zoom meeting of the day.

Can I run this on my local machine?

Sure, if you want your laptop to sound like a jet engine and generate one word per minute. We have a module for hoarding models you'll never use.

Why is it so expensive?

It's not expensive. You are just underpaid because you haven't mastered the art of looking busy yet. Buy the course.

Will I get a certificate?

Yes, a PDF you can print out and put on your fridge. Your mom will be so proud.

Why is this website built in React?

Because downloading 2MB of JavaScript to render static text is the industry standard. We are part of the problem.

Did you use AI to write this?

Of course. We outsourced our sense of humor to the nearest chatbot. Wanna know which one? I won't tell you.

Meeting Bingo

Play this during your next "AI Transformation" All Hands to prevent falling into a coma.

Warning: Don't shout "Bingo" unmuted