Software foundations

Python from two angles, TypeScript on Node, React with Next.js, Postgres, and AI coding tools with production discipline.

The general-purpose software stack under platform and field work. This module covers Python from two angles (packaging, environments and testing for a platform; integrations, services and data transformation), TypeScript on Node.js, full-stack applications with React and Next.js, schemas, indexing and partitioning in Postgres, and shipping production code with Claude Code and other AI coding tools. Most of the glue between systems is written in this stack, so it has to be second nature.

Lessons (6)

• Python for platform engineering: packaging, environments and testing · Practice

  Python is the common language of ML teams, so platform tooling, pipeline components and SDKs are mostly written in it.

• Python for integrations, services and data transformation · Practice

  Python is the default language for field integration work because one language covers throwaway scripts, data transformation, HTTP services and the whole AI library ecosystem.

• TypeScript and Node.js for services and tooling · Practice

  TypeScript adds a static, structural type system on top of JavaScript and compiles away to plain JavaScript that Node.js runs on a single-threaded event loop.

• Full-stack customer applications with React and Next.js · Practice

  Customers judge an AI deployment by the screen their people use, so a forward deployed engineer is often expected to build that screen as well as the backend.

• SQL and data systems: schemas, indexing and partitioning in Postgres · Practice

  Almost every deployment ends up reading from or writing to a relational database, and Postgres is the one most often named.

• Shipping production code with Claude Code and other AI coding tools · Practice

  Agentic coding tools read a repository, run commands, edit files and iterate on test results, which changes the engineer's job from typing code to directing and verifying it.

Changes

• Version 1, 2026-10-14: re-cut from the role pathway groups into a topic module (site 2026.10.2); no lesson changed