Inside our 500 hour Forward Deployed programme

Why we train our own people

The skills needed to deliver AI inside real businesses shift every few months. Courses struggle to keep pace, and a degree rarely teaches you how to work inside someone else's systems, with someone else's deadlines. So we built our own programme, run by AksharAI, our AI platform.

The shape of it

• 500 hours in total, as 3 months full time or 6 months part time.
• Fully remote, so it can sit alongside a job or studies.
• Two tracks. Forward Deployed Engineer for the technical side. Forward Deployed Strategist for the business side.
• Live projects with real deadlines, mentored by working professionals.
• A certificate that names the track completed.

It is open to people from both tech and non-tech backgrounds.

What a week looks like

Each week follows a set curriculum: concepts, annotated code libraries, lab work, troubleshooting drills and a real project brief. Trainees work on real problems from the first week.

Crossing between tech and business

Engineers also learn the client side: running discovery interviews, writing clearly and explaining trade-offs to people who do not code. Strategists also learn to build with AI coding tools, so they can prototype an idea themselves and hold their own in a conversation with engineers.

The delivery bar

Finishing the hours is not enough. Trainees join client work only after they clear our delivery bar, which tests real output, communication and judgment. Some trainees take longer to clear it.

Roles it prepares for

Deployment Lead, AI Solutions Consultant, AI Implementation Specialist, Solutions Engineer, Solutions Architect and AI Product Manager.

Why this matters if you are a client

Everyone on a Code Colonies project was trained, tested and mentored inside the same system, to the same standard, with clear accountability to you. It is also part of why our delivery model can be priced the way it is.