Cursor for Software Engineers
Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc.
How to boost your productivity with generative AI
Course outcomes
- Understand how Cursor works and the importance of good human input
- Review vulnerabilities and risks that should be accounted for when using Cursor
- Learn 10+ software development use cases for Cursor that can save 50% or more of your time
Course description
Millions of software engineers are already leveraging AI tools to extend their capabilities and increase their output. Now, Cursor AI has introduced a new paradigm: the AI-native IDE, which is already being used by many thousands of software engineers every day.
Join expert Sergio Pereira to discover specific tasks and use cases where Cursor can help you save tremendous amounts of time. This hands-on course includes examples that any software engineer will recognize and exercises that will prepare you to use Cursor the next day to streamline your workload.
What you’ll learn and how you can apply it
- Apply Cursor to 10+ software development use cases
- Leverage Cursor’s functionality in a way that won’t break your company’s security/compliance requirements
This live event is for you because...
- You’re a software engineer.
- Your daily work consists of writing software code or managing a team that writes code.
- You want to become a more productive software engineer and move up to a leadership role.
Prerequisites
- A computer with the Cursor IDE installed (optional to participate in exercises)
- Familiarity with software development IDEs
- Some software development experience
- An understanding of concepts such as software boilerplate, frameworks, algorithms, code comments, unit tests, regular expressions, etc.
Recommended follow-up:
- Take Fundamentals of Machine Learning for Software Engineers (live course)
- Explore Software Development Superstream: Generative AI to Improve Software Development (on-demand Superstream)
- Read Generative AI for Software Development (book)
Schedule
The time frames are only estimates and may vary according to how the class is progressing.
Introduction (15 minutes)
- Presentation: How Cursor works and how to set it up
Cursor risks and vulnerabilities (15 minutes)
- Presentation: Risks and vulnerabilities and how to avoid them
Cursor use cases (105 minutes)
- Presentation: 10+ use cases for Cursor
- Hands-on exercises: Generate code chunks from comments and user’s code; generate debugging logs from user’s code; generate documentation for code; review user’s code; improve code performance; fix bugs in code; fix code from console errors; solve leetcode-type challenges; brainstorm implementation trade-offs
- Break
Cursor versus Copilot and ChatGPT (15 minutes)
- Presentation: Use cases and comparison of each tool’s performance and convenience
Wrap-up and Q&A (30 minutes)
Your Instructor
Sergio Pereira
Sergio Pereira has been a software engineer and CTO for 14 years, building products for several fast-growing startups such as Bulk MRO, StudentFinance, and Candidly. For the past eight years, he’s built software products for the fintech industry under strict compliance requirements. He’s responsible for creating processes to help software development teams deliver high-quality software in a timely manner for clients. Sergio was an early adopter of Cursor and has been a thought leader on the topic of AI tools for software development, sharing his knowledge for the benefit of the community.
Skills covered
- Coding Practices
- Robotics