AI Engineer UnConference

​An evening crash course on becoming an AI engineer in 2026. Local builders, live demos, open Q&A — and a look at what's coming the rest of the week.

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​You've been hearing "AI engineer" everywhere. Maybe you've poked at the OpenAI API. Maybe you're a backend dev wondering if this is your year to make the jump. Maybe you keep seeing agents, RAG, evals, MCP fly past on your timeline and want someone to tell you which of those actually matter.

​Spend an evening with us at Stripe Singapore and we'll get you oriented.

​This is the UnConference — the warm-up to AI Engineer Singapore 2026. Four hours, designed for people who are new to the space and want a fast, honest ramp from local engineers who are actually shipping. You'll hear short talks from Singapore-based AI engineers, watch live demos of the tools and patterns we use day-to-day, ask us anything, and leave with a clear picture of what to do next — including how to make the most of the full conference May 16–17.

​No prior AI experience required. Bring curiosity and questions.

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​What the evening looks like

• ​5:00 – 5:30 — Doors, food, settle in. Grab dinner, find a seat, meet the people next to you.

• ​5:30 – 6:15 — Live demos. We walk through the core stack on stage: an agent doing real work, a RAG system answering questions over a real corpus, evals catching a real bug. You see the abstractions in motion.

• ​6:15 –7:30 — Open Q&A: ask us anything, we'll show you live. This is the heart of the night. Drop your questions — anonymous board, vote up the ones you want answered most. We answer with our laptops open: code on screen, real APIs, real bugs, real trade-offs.

  • ​"How does function calling actually work?" → we show you.

  • ​"When should I use RAG vs fine-tuning?" → we run both.

  • ​"How do I evaluate an agent?" → we write the eval live.

  • ​No question too basic. The point is for you to see how an AI engineer thinks through a problem in real time.

• ​7:30 – 8:30 — Local speakers: what AI engineering actually looks like in Singapore. Short, punchy talks from engineers building in the wild — what they ship, what broke, what they wish they'd known on day one. This is the "show me, don't tell me" hour.

• ​8:30 – 9:00 — What's next + the full conference. Your Monday playbook: what to build next, who to follow, what communities to join. Plus a walkthrough of AI Engineer Singapore 2026 — the talks, workshops, and people you don't want to miss over the next two days.

​What you'll leave with A mental map of the 2026 AI engineering stack — signal vs hype. Answers to the questions you've been too embarrassed to ask. A short list of what to build next week. A room full of people who'll be at the conference with you. And a much sharper sense of which sessions on May 15–17 are worth your time.

​Who this is for Builders new to AI who want a structured ramp. Career switchers. Recent grads. PMs and designers who want to understand what's actually possible. Indie hackers ready to go from "calling the API" to "engineering with AI." Anyone holding an AIE Singapore ticket who wants a strong on-ramp before the main event kicks off.

​Who this is NOT for If you've already shipped agents in production or run evals at scale, you'll be bored. Skip this and come straight to the main conference — or DM us about helping mentor.

​What to bring Yourself and your questions. A laptop is optional — you don't need to code along. We'll have a live question board open from the moment doors open, so you can drop questions throughout the night and upvote the ones you want answered.

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​Hosts

• ​Sherry Jiang — CEO @ Peek

• ​Yong Quan — City Lead @ AI Tinkerers Singapore

​Capacity

​150 seats. We're keeping it small to maintain mentor density. Waitlist will be honored in order.

​Part of AI Engineer Singapore 2026 (May 15–17, Capitol Kempinski). Conference pass not required for the UnConference, but highly recommended if you want the full week.