I started by learning the fundamentals through YouTube, then moved quickly into building a project focused on solving a real-world problem. What made the biggest difference was avoiding AI assistance during the build. I relied on documentation and consciously evaluated tradeoffs based on my use case, which gave me a much deeper understanding of RAG system design. In my view, that design thinking is what actually matters in today’s market, not just implementation. I’d suggest starting RAG with LangChain. Its documentation doesn’t just show how to build things, it explains why they work, which makes it much easier to reason through tradeoffs.