AI automation & no-code
Automate legacy UI tasks with RPA (UiPath / Power Automate Desktop)
Record/replay bots, selectors, exception handling for desktop and browser tasks.
~15 focused hours·intermediate
Tools: UiPath Studio, Power Automate Desktop, selectors/recorders, exception-handling frameworks
Market relevance — share of job ads asking for this
What employers mean
You should be able to…
- Record and refine a bot for a repetitive desktop or browser task
- Use reliable selectors instead of brittle coordinate-based clicks
- Build exception handling so the bot doesn't silently fail on an unexpected screen state
- Schedule and monitor unattended bot runs
- Debug a bot that breaks when the underlying application's UI changes slightly
- Document a bot's scope and known limitations for handover
Needs first: Automate workflows with n8n / Zapier / Make
Learn — free, link-checked
The few resources that matter
Read · beginner · 20 min · uipath.com
What is RPA (Robotic Process Automation)?
Grounds RPA vs. API automation vs. AI automation in plain terms before you touch a tool. — UiPath
Read · beginner · 30 min · learn.microsoft.com
Introduction to desktop flows
Official docs for Power Automate Desktop, free and bundled with Windows — the lowest-friction way to try RPA. — Microsoft Learn
Course · beginner · 120 min · academy.uipath.com
UiPath Academy
Free, certificate-bearing courses on selectors and exception handling — UiPath is the RPA tool most JDs name. — UiPath
Practice
RPA bot for downloading and filing monthly bank statements
Build a UiPath (or Power Automate Desktop) bot that logs into a sandbox/test banking portal (or a mock local app), downloads a monthly statement, renames it by account and month, and files it into the correct folder — with exception handling for a failed login or missing statement, and a log file recording each run's outcome.
Done when
- Bot completes the download-rename-file sequence end to end on at least 3 test runs
- Exception handling exists for at least 2 failure scenarios (failed login, missing file)
- Bot uses element-based selectors, not fixed screen coordinates
- A run log records success/failure and timestamp for each execution
Prove it
Evidence a recruiter can check
- Exported bot workflow file (.xaml or equivalent) in a repo
- Screen-recording of the bot running including one handled exception
- Run log sample showing multiple executions
Interview
Questions you'll get asked
- Walk me through how you'd automate a repetitive data-entry task using UiPath or Power Automate Desktop.
- What's the difference between a coordinate-based selector and an element-based selector, and why does it matter?
- How do you build exception handling so a bot doesn't fail silently?
- How would you debug a bot that suddenly stops working after an application update?
- Tell me about a process you automated with RPA — what made it a good (or bad) candidate for RPA vs a proper API integration?