👨💻 About Autonate AI
The Story
Most programming courses start with syntax.
print("hello world"), a few loops, maybe a project if you're lucky.
But the world doesn't need more people who can follow tutorials.
The world needs builders who understand:
- How thinking works
- How systems behave
- How to use AI as an extension of their own mind
💡 The Problem
I graduated from the University of Michigan with a Computer Science degree. I've shipped software as a consultant, built AI agents, run a critical thinking academy, and come up from a background where nothing about this path was guaranteed.
On the way here, I realized something simple but brutal:
Traditional CS education was never designed for the world we live in now.
It was built for a world before:
- Large language models
- Autonomous agents
- Companies expecting "software engineer" to also mean system designer, AI wrangler, product thinker, and self-directed researcher
The old model:
"Learn to code, get a job, do your tickets."
The new reality:
"Understand systems deeply, or get automated by the systems you don't understand."
🎯 The Solution: Autonate AI
Autonate AI is how I'd redesign CS education if I could start from scratch.
It's built on three pillars:
1. Evergreen Courses
A complete CS curriculum rebuilt with:
- Cognitive science - How humans actually think
- Systems thinking - How complexity emerges
- AI-native workflows - How to build with AI, not fear it
12 courses from "How Humans Think" to "Applied AI Agents"
2. Hackathon Lab
Weekly live-fire training where we:
- Analyze real hackathons like senior consultants
- Design systems-level solutions
- Build portfolio-worthy projects using AI + templates
- Ship functional work in 5 days
3. Autonate Starters
Battle-tested templates for rapid deployment:
- One-click deploys
- Best practices baked in
- Evergreen concepts implemented
- Proven in competition
🧠 The Philosophy
Big-O, Cognitive Load, and Why This Curriculum Exists
In computer science, Big-O notation tells you how fast an algorithm grows with input size.
In real life, your brain has a Big-O too.
You feel it when:
- You're juggling too many tools, tickets, and tabs
- You're "following along" in a tutorial but can't generalize
- You can build something once… but not again from first principles
Most courses pretend this doesn't exist. This curriculum doesn't.
The Nathan-Core Evergreen Curriculum treats you like the system you are:
- With working memory limits
- Long-term memory structures
- Graph-like concept maps in your head
- Real cognitive load that needs to be managed, not ignored
We connect:
- Big-O to cognitive load
- Data structures to how you organize thoughts
- Graph theory to how you store relationships in your mind
- Databases to long-term memory
- Algorithms to the mental procedures you run every day
You don't just learn how data flows through a machine.
You learn how information and energy flow through you, and you design your work around that.
That's what makes this evergreen: it's not bound to one framework or one trend. It's bound to how humans and computers actually work.
🚀 From Busywork Dev to Systems Engineer of the AI Era
Right now, there are two kinds of software engineers:
Type 1: Still being trained like it's 2012.
They write code, move tickets, wait for instructions, and hope AI doesn't eat their job.
Type 2: Quietly leveling up.
They understand systems, model complexity, speak both human and machine, and use AI to:
- Think through designs
- Explore problem spaces
- Compress research
- Prototype ideas in hours instead of weeks
This curriculum is built for the second group—and for anyone ready to join them.
👨💻 About Nathan Baker
- Education: University of Michigan, Computer Science
- Experience: AI R&D engineer, software consultant, critical thinking educator
- Mission: Build autonomy through software, education, and systems thinking
I've taught autonomy, built AI agents, and helped students go from "I can follow tutorials" to "I can architect systems."
Autonate AI is my answer to the question: "How would I teach programming if I could design it from scratch?"
🎯 Who This Is For
This is for you if:
✅ You're tired of feeling like a code monkey in an AI world
✅ You want to move from "Do this task" to "Design the system that decides which tasks matter"
✅ You feel the gap between what you were taught and what your job (or ambitions) now demand
✅ You want software engineering that respects your mind, your time, and your potential—not just your output
It's also for people one or two hops away from you:
- The friend who wants to learn to code but is scared of math
- The junior dev who's great at tutorials but lost in real projects
- The mid-level engineer who knows AI is shifting the ground beneath them
💬 The Tone Here
No hype. No gimmicks.
Deep, honest, modern computer science that treats you as a whole human.
🚀 Get Started
📧 Contact
Questions? Ideas? Want to collaborate?
- Email: nathan@autonate.ai
- Twitter/X: @autonateai
- Discord: community
Ready to think like an engineer who designs intelligence—human and machine?