How a Senior Oracle Engineer Uses Educative to Stay Ahead of AI

As AI reshapes what it means to be a software engineer, staying current requires more than just keeping up with the news – it requires deliberate, hands-on learning. Nishal Pattan is a Senior Software Engineer at Oracle's OCI Enterprise Engineering org, where he's building AI agents to power enterprise-wide knowledge search and IT troubleshooting. He's also been an Educative learner since his college days. We caught up with Nishal to hear how he's navigating the AI era, what he looks for in an online course, and where he's heading next.

Can you tell us about what you're working on at Oracle?

I'm currently working with OCI's Enterprise Engineering org, where I'm leveraging AI agents to support enterprise-wide knowledge search and to help employees troubleshoot IT issues they face day-to-day.

You've taken several courses at Educative, including Mastering OpenAI Codex for Agentic Coding and MCP Fundamentals for Building AI Agents. What drew you to those specifically?

When I learned that I would be working more on building AI agents, I relied on these Educative courses, which really helped me nail down the basics of AI agents, MCP servers, building skills, and plugins. These courses are more hands-on, which is what I want, as I always prefer learning by doing rather than all the boring theory.

How do you decide what's actually worth learning versus what's just hype?

AI-related tech is being updated at an exponential pace these days. Sometimes I face decision paralysis about what to learn, so I refer to Educative courses that other engineers use to upskill. I also read Educative newsletters to stay up to date and relevant. They really help me to make decisions and choose skills that I need to learn.

You already had a strong engineering career before picking up these AI-focused courses. What motivated you to go deeper on agents and agentic coding?

I have been using the Educative platform to upskill since I was in college. I believe Software Engineering is a vast topic and like to stay relevant. I liked how Educative content is simple to navigate and gives me more hands-on experience. I started learning more about how AI agents work, and it helps me with real-time examples that, as a software engineer, I can relate to.

Looking back, what skills or experiences helped you grow into more senior roles?

These are some of the skills that helped me grow in my career: system design, problem solving, digging deeper into the tech I'm working with, and a curiosity to keep learning – especially with AI tech that's constantly evolving these days.

How do you think AI is changing expectations for software engineers? Is it a productivity boost, or does it fundamentally change the role?

AI is changing the way software engineers are going to work – it's no longer just a productivity boost, it's a default in day-to-day work. The emphasis is no longer just on writing clean code; it's more on architecting systems, developing with clarity about what's needed and what's not, applying a zero-trust principle to how AI builds things, and doing deep reviews. AI has made us think more deeply. Personally, I feel it gives us the ability to solve more problems, but the trade-off between quality and velocity is something a good software engineer can navigate.

You've also taken courses at Springboard and DataCamp. Why Educative now, and what separates a great technical course from an average one?

A couple of things I like about Educative: first, I can customize exactly what I learn, and it's always hands-on – that's why I keep coming back. Second, it's decently affordable and I can learn at my own pace.

Did the courses include projects or exercises that felt directly applicable to your day-to-day work?

Yes, they are more hands-on and simulate real day-to-day work. For example, when I was working through a recent course on Agentic AI, I noticed quite a few examples and exercises that simulate real-world work.

Which course has had the biggest impact on how you work today?

For me, it was a system design course at the beginning of my journey on Educative, but recently I've found real value in the MCP-based and AI agent courses, which I find really engaging – and I look forward to more.

For readers who keep hearing "AI agents" but aren't quite sure what it means – how would you explain it simply?

The definition shifts quickly. In the beginning, it was more like a pair programmer for you. Now I feel it has gotten so good that you can delegate work to an AI agent. In simple terms: you come up with a cooking recipe and give it to an agent who is really good at following instructions and cooks the dish for you. But the catch is that if you're not sure about the recipe, an AI agent can help you brainstorm and put one together. An AI agent can be useful in multiple ways – from summarizing all your emails daily to building production-ready code.

How important is it for engineers to still deeply understand fundamentals like distributed systems, debugging, and architecture in the AI era?

There's more emphasis on fundamentals now than ever. Anyone can leverage AI agents, but if they don't have strong skills in distributed systems, architecture, and debugging, it impacts the quality of the software they build with AI. I still feel you should be able to architect and deeply understand the software you're going to build, at a much more granular level.

Did these Educative courses help with your most recent job search?

Yes, especially the system design and AI mock interview content – both helped me during my recent job search.

Is Educative worth it? Could you have learned all of this on your own for free?

I might end up with decision paralysis if I had to learn everything on my own with just a Google search. Having everything organized for me adds real value in learning the skills that matter most.

What are you most excited to learn next?

I'm looking forward to learning more about AI agents and the advancements happening in this space. More specifically, I'm planning to learn about how RAG-based systems work and multi-agent architectures.

Find out more and read Educative reviews on Course Report. This interview was produced by the Course Report team in partnership with Educative.