Build LLMs From Scratch: A Beginner’s Guide to How AI Models Really Work

What Will You Learn?

• Understand what tokenization is and how LLMs break down text before processing it.
• Explain how LLMs decode and interpret user prompts step by step.
• Understand the full training pipeline used to build a large language model.
• Build a basic LLM architecture from scratch, piece by piece.
• Apply core AI vocabulary correctly in conversations, interviews, and further learning.
• Identify the key components that make up any modern LLM.
• Understand why tokenization and decoding directly affect how "smart" a model feels.
• Recognize the skills that top AI companies are actively hiring and paying premium salaries for.
• Use this foundation to guide your next steps into deeper AI or ML learning.
• Explain, in simple terms, how a model goes from raw text to a working system.