Work through engineering problems.
Debug a program, investigate a cloud configuration, test an AI assistant or review a software release. Build your skills across coding, infrastructure, AI and delivery.
Go from beginner to AI Engineer.Python Developer.Software Engineer.Cloud Engineer.DevOps Engineer.AI Agent Developer.
Designed for complete beginners and career changers, this hands-on AI Engineering course takes you from curious beginner to building practical AI solutions.No experience required. Just curiosity and a healthy suspicion of robots.
The Code Nexus product map
Eight products, one team, and you're on the rota.
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Code NexusProducts, people, and AI systems
Your learning path, in three steps
No coding experience needed. Start with the foundations and build towards AI. Each season is a group of connected episodes: guided problems you work through in your browser.
- 1
Seasons 1–3
Write your first programs
Start with computer basics. Use Python, a programming language, to write small tools and keep a history of your work.
The skill you buildA small program you can run, change and explain. - 2
Seasons 4–6
Understand AI assistants
Learn about online computing, find information in documents and check AI answers.
The skill you buildAn answer you can check against its source. - 3
Seasons 7–9
Check changes and set limits
Practise checking and sharing software, handling simulated failures, and limiting what an assistant may do.
The skill you buildA decision you can explain: proceed, fix or ask a person.
See the topics inside each step
Seasons 1–2: Write your first useful programs
Start with files, accounts and safe computer habits. Learn Python, a programming language, to calculate values, organise information and handle repeatable tasks.
Season 3: Keep track of changes and work with others
Use Linux to work with files and commands. Use Git and GitHub to keep earlier versions, explain changes and practise reviewing someone else's work.
Season 4: Understand where software runs
Explore cloud services: computing you rent online. Compare running costs, access and responsibilities in Azure and AWS practice scenarios.
Seasons 5–6: Understand AI and check its answers
Learn when AI is useful, find information in supplied documents and practise the parts of a support assistant: answers, tools, quality checks and safety boundaries.
Seasons 7–8: Practise sharing and maintaining software
Learn how software is packaged, checked and released. Work through simulated service failures, updates and recovery decisions.
Season 9: Give AI tools and set limits
Explore assistants that take steps towards a goal. Practise tool requests, cooperation between assistants and decisions that need human approval.
Learn to build, test and run AI systems.
Start free. Build towards certification.
Choose Core programme for the full programme, or Certification prep for certification practice and study guidance. External exams and vouchers are separate.
Learn on your schedule.
Work through episodes at your own pace on a tablet, laptop or desktop with internet access. Examples, hints and feedback help you get started.
01
Read the brief
Who needs what, by when, and why it matters to the team.
02
Learn the one idea you need
A key idea and a worked example from the teammate who uses it at work.
03
Try the task
Use a Python workspace or a simulated terminal, Git workflow or cloud console. Check the supplied result.
04
Explain yourself
Finish with a tested change, a decision record or an incident note you can defend.
Evidence in the real world
Big companies break things too. They just write it up afterwards.
Outages, bad inputs and misleading metrics happen at every scale. Code Nexus lets you practise the same kinds of decisions where a mistake costs a retry, not a public incident report.
The Code Nexus team
Meet the team behind your next challenge.
Seven people and one AI assistant who will question your assumptions, read your evidence and ask what happens in production.
Maya Chen
Senior AI Engineer · Your mentor
Calm, precise and quietly dry. Starts you on checklists, then takes them away. "It runs. Now show me what happens when the input is wrong."
Kabelo Mokoena
Platform and DevOps Engineer
Linux, containers, pipelines and incident recovery. Writes his best runbooks right after something breaks. "It worked on my machine. I've updated the runbook to say why that wasn't enough."
Amara Okafor
ML and Data Engineer
Data quality, evaluation and responsible AI. Sceptical of any result that looks too good. "The accuracy improved. Which group did we leave out?"
Priya Naidoo
Cloud Architect
Azure, AWS, architecture and resilience. Warm, and suspicious of unexplained spend. "Azure will provision it. Finance will ask whether we needed it."
Lydia Roe
Security Engineer
Identity, least privilege, secrets and incident control. Deadpan about boundaries. "Nobody will guess the URL is not an access control."
Leo Martins
Product Manager
Requirements, priorities and stakeholders. Arrived asking "can we add AI?" and now brings constraints. "I brought a reason and a success measure this time."
Jax Rivera
Creator Partnerships Lead
The voice of Code Nexus's creators: user impact, accessibility and unusual tickets. "Nobody uses it that way? I have twelve screenshots."
8-BIT
Code Nexus Internal AI Assistant
The team's internal AI assistant. Helpful, fast, and occasionally too sure of himself, which is why his work always comes with something you can verify.
8-BIT has an answer for everything. Checking it is your job.
The Code Nexus curriculum
9 seasons. 72 episodes. A learning route from the basics.
Start with files, accounts and your first code. Progress towards AI assistants, software delivery and simulated agent workflows. Explore each season for its tasks, tools and practice projects.
- 018 episodes
Season 1
Welcome to Code Nexus
Get comfortable with files, accounts and error messages, then write your first small programs.
The badge works. Let's see what else does.
- 029 episodes
Season 2
The Python Team
Use Python to organise information, calculate results and turn repeated steps into reusable code.
Nobody expects the IndentationError.
- 038 episodes
Season 3
Welcome to Engineering
Keep a history of your work, recover earlier versions and practise making changes with a team.
Your code has colleagues now.
- 048 episodes
Season 4
One Company, Two Clouds
Understand rented online computing services and compare their costs, access and responsibilities in practice scenarios.
Scales to infinity and beyond. So does the invoice.
- 059 episodes
Season 5
The AI Proposal
Understand what AI can and cannot do, check the quality of its results and decide when it is appropriate.
"Can we add AI?" is the start of the meeting, not the end.
- 068 episodes
Season 6
Build Code Nexus Assist
Practise the parts of a support assistant: finding document passages, checking answers and limiting its actions.
Confidence is not a source.
- 078 episodes
Season 7
It Worked on My Laptop
Practise packaging software and keeping a service running through simulated checks and failures.
Kabelo has heard this one before.
- 088 episodes
Season 8
You Own the Release
Work through checking, approving and releasing a change, including what to do when it goes wrong.
The deploy button is not the ending.
- 096 episodes
Season 9
Autonomous Systems & Agent Engineering
Explore how AI assistants request tools, share work and ask a human before taking certain actions.
The agents have a plan. Check it.
Certification prep, minus the cramming.
Practise skills mapped to 11 external certification exams, from PCEP to AZ-400. Season checkpoints show what needs more work. Book each exam with its provider, which issues the certification.
How we map certification objectives
PCEP-30-02
Certified Entry-Level Python Programmer
PCAP-31-03
Certified Associate in Python Programming
010-160
Linux Essentials
GH-900
GitHub Foundations
AZ-900
Microsoft Azure Fundamentals
CLF-C02
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
AI-901
Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals
AIF-C01
AWS Certified AI Practitioner
AI-103
Developing AI Apps and Agents on Azure
KCNA
Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate
AZ-400
Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions
Stuck on a task? Ask a mentor.
Tell us what you have tried. A Code Nexus mentor replies privately and helps you work through the problem.
Get a personal reply
Tell a mentor which episode has you stuck, then keep the conversation going by message.
Meet on a progress call
Both paid plans include four 30-minute mentor calls each month, subject to availability.
A record of your work
Keep track of your progress.
Keep track of what you have completed and what to practise next.
Work you have completed
Write a Python tool, fix an access issue or explain a release decision.
Connected episodes
Return to the same team as their projects grow and new problems appear.
Season checkpoints
Find out which skills to revisit before moving on.
From the blog
All articles and certification guidesLearning by doing
Active Learning Statistics: Evidence and Limits
A sourced reference to active learning, retrieval practice and study methods, with a downloadable chart, research context and limits for each finding.
6 min read · Updated
AI engineering
AI, Jobs and Safety: A Beginner’s Questions
Questions about AI and work, with research sources and practical steps for checking tools and their results as you consider what to learn next.
4 min read · Updated
Learning by doing
Can You Learn AI Without Coding Experience?
Starting with no coding experience? See how to approach an AI engineering course, what equipment you need and how to judge your first practical steps.
4 min read · Updated
AI, work and your future
You can be curious about AI and worried about it. Understanding what it does, checking its output and knowing when a person must decide are part of the learning.
Will AI take my job?
AI can change tasks and disrupt work. The ILO's 2025 research suggests job transformation is the more likely overall effect, but exposure differs between occupations. It cannot predict what will happen to your job, and this programme cannot guarantee employment or income.
Read the ILO research on AI and workCould AI cause serious harm?
AI can produce misleading answers and be misused. Researchers also study future risks where people could lose control of advanced systems; experts disagree about their likelihood. Checking sources, limiting permissions and requiring human review help address particular risks, but do not solve every safety problem.
Read the 2026 International AI Safety Report summaryQuestions before you start?
- Can I start without coding experience?
- Yes. Start with files, accounts and safe computer habits, then learn to write small programs in Python. The programme builds towards AI engineering, so coding is part of the learning route.
- What is an episode?
- An episode is a guided engineering problem at Code Nexus. Read a short brief, learn the idea, try tasks in your browser and check your result. Scenes break the episode into smaller steps.
- What equipment do I need?
- Use a tablet, laptop or desktop with internet access. Episode workspaces need a tablet-sized screen or larger; you can browse the public course pages on a phone. Python tasks run in your browser.
- What is free and what do paid plans include?
- Start free. Core programme and Certification prep include the full programme. Certification prep adds certification practice. See pricing for current charges, subscription terms and support conditions.
- How long does the programme take?
- You work at your own pace. The time you need depends on your starting point, practice and study schedule. Paid access is available for your subscription period; there is no promised completion date.
- What could I do with these skills?
- You could work towards writing small tools for repeatable tasks, understanding how AI assistants use information and explaining how you checked their results. These skills can support further software and AI study, projects or a change of direction. Completion does not guarantee a job or income.
- Are certification exams included?
- No. External exams and vouchers are separate from every plan. Book an exam with its provider, which issues the certification. A Code Nexus completion record is separate from an external certification.
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