The program
The mentoring program.
Six months inside the conditions of a real engineering team: structured coursework, bi-weekly 1:1 mentorship, team projects, and sprint delivery — building work you can show, and habits a team can rely on.
- Start
- Saturday, 3 October 2026
- Location
- Douala, Cameroon
- Duration
- 6 months
- Seats
- 10 seats
Who it's for
For engineers at the start of the climb.
The program is built for people who already have foundations and want the team layer on top: workflows, reviews, delivery, and judgment.
Profiles
Graduates
Engineering graduates from higher institutions and universities.
Final-year
Final-year engineering students completing their internship period.
Self-taught
Self-taught learners and career switchers with equivalent foundations — make your case in the application essay.
What you need
- Personal laptopYour own machine, set up as your daily workshop.
- GitHub accountYour work lives in version control from day one.
- Based in DoualaIn-person attendance, daily, for the full program.
- Real commitmentCoursework, team projects, sprints — six months of showing up.
The learning model
Six steps, from selection to transition.
Each step raises the standard: from foundations, to teamwork, to shipping work others can use.
- 01
Discover & select
We look for curiosity, discipline, foundational ability, and the willingness to learn by doing. Small cohorts, deliberate selection.
- 02
Prepare
Selected applicants complete assigned foundational learning and set up the tools and habits the cohort runs on.
- 03
Build foundations
Core engineering, product, and collaboration concepts — from version control to system structure.
- 04
Work in teams
Plan solutions, write user stories, define domains and APIs, work in sprints, review code, respond to feedback.
- 05
Ship projects
Build usable solutions to locally relevant problems. Show the work, the process, and the learning.
- 06
Transition
Move toward an internship, CSL BRANDS work, external employment, further specialization, or a founder path.
Curriculum
Capabilities, not a tool list.
Everything below is used together inside real team workflows — on projects, under review, in sprints. Nothing is taught as an isolated course and left on the shelf.
Foundations
Engineering
Systems
Delivery
Professional
Mentorship
A working engineer in your corner.
Every mentee is matched with a mentor for the full program — structured sessions every two weeks to review work, question decisions, and pressure-test thinking against real-world experience.
- Cadence
- 1:1 sessions every two weeks
- Who mentors
- Working engineers and practitioners
- What happens
- Work review, real-world context, guidance
Review the work
Code, decisions, and trade-offs get looked at by someone who ships professionally.
Add real context
How teams actually plan, disagree, recover, and deliver — beyond what coursework covers.
Guide the path
Career direction, specialization, and honest feedback on readiness.
The areas our mentors cover
We match pairs against each mentee's project and goals. These are the expertises drawn on across previous cohorts.
Backend & distributed systems
Go, architectures that hold under load, API contracts, and migrations without downtime.
Frontend & design systems
React, Next.js, accessibility, and components a whole team can evolve.
Data & product
Modelling, data pipelines, and turning an idea into a correctly framed problem.
DevOps & platform
CI/CD, infrastructure as code, observability, and deploys that wake nobody at 3am.
QA & application security
Testing, application security review, and the failures you only catch in production.
Career & architecture
Architecture review, interview preparation, and trading stability against speed.
Selection
Deliberate, in person, competitive.
Small cohorts — 10 seats — mean every seat is earned. The process itself is the first test of commitment.
- 01
Apply
Submit your background, your motivation, and the essay.
- 02
Selection
Application review, assigned prep work, and an in-person interview.
- 03
Piscine
A two-week sink-or-swim challenge — a test of passion, not skill.
- 04
Program
Six months of structured coursework, mentorship, and team delivery.
- 05
Internship
Six months inside real work — the bridge into industry.
Commitment
Know what you are signing up for.
The program asks a lot on purpose. This is the deal, in plain terms.
- Piscine
- 2 weeks, sink or swim — before the program
- Duration
- 6 months, structured
- Location
- Douala, Cameroon — in person, daily
- Cohort size
- ~10 mentees, selective
- Mentorship
- 1:1 sessions every two weeks
- Structure
- 4 months mentored training + 2 months team project
- Equipment
- Personal laptop + GitHub account
- After the program
- 6-month internship and industry transition
After the program
A pathway, not a promise.
The six-month phase leads into internship and industry transition pathways. Where each mentee lands depends on their work, the market, and the opportunities we open together.
- 01
Internship
A structured internship phase to apply the discipline in practice.
- 02
CSL BRANDS
Contributing to CSL BRANDS engineering projects where openings exist.
- 03
External employment
Introductions to employers who evaluate evidence, not certificates.
- 04
Specialization
Deeper study in the direction your project work pointed to.
- 05
Founder path
Building on your own idea, where the fit and support exist.
We don't promise jobs. We build the evidence — real projects, real workflow discipline — that earns them.
FAQ
Asked, answered.
Something we missed? Ask us directly — we respond to every message.
Q01Who is eligible?
Engineering graduates, final-year engineering students on internship, and self-taught learners or career switchers with equivalent foundations. In the last case, your essay has to make the case.
Q02How long is the program?
Six months — four months of mentored training, then two months of team project. Before that there is a two-week piscine and a preparation phase.
Q03How are mentees selected?
Application review, assigned prep work, an in-person interview in Douala, then a two-week piscine. Every applicant gets a response.
Q04What do I need?
A personal laptop, a GitHub account, and the ability to show up in Douala every day for six months.
Q05What does it cost?
The program is free. We exist because companies and sponsors fund it, which is what keeps selection strict. If you would like to sponsor a cohort, get in touch.
Q06Is it remote?
No. Daily in-person attendance in Douala is part of the commitment — it is what makes the mentoring and the team work real.
Next cohort — Saturday, 3 October 2026
Ten seats. Six months. Your move
Mentoring starts with a conversation. Tell us where you are and what you want to build — we respond to every message.