cohort mentorship program
Learn Cloud, DevOps
and Platform Engineering
An intensive 8-week hands-on program for absolute beginners. You will not just follow tutorials. You will think like an engineer, break things on purpose, and build infrastructure that actually runs.
core philosophy
Learning How to Think Like an Engineer
Four principles that separate engineers who understand what they are doing from those who just copy commands.
Why Before How
Before running any command, you will understand the problem it solves and the tradeoff it makes. Context first, syntax second.
Break Things on Purpose
Intentional failure is a learning technique. You will break containers, misconfigure IAM, and corrupt state to understand how systems recover.
Document Everything
Engineers who cannot explain their work cannot improve it. Every week you write a postmortem, a diagram, or a runbook alongside the code.
Real Infrastructure Only
No simulations, no sandboxed toy environments. You will deploy to actual cloud accounts and operate real workloads from day one.
2-month roadmap
The Full Curriculum
Eight focused weeks. Each one builds directly on the last. By the end you will have a running Kubernetes workload, an IaC repo, a CI/CD pipeline, and dashboards proving it all works.
Why this week exists
Everything in cloud runs on Linux. Every deployment is triggered by a Git push. Every network call obeys TCP/IP. This week you build the mental models before they appear inside an abstraction layer.
- Linux filesystem hierarchy: what lives in
/etc,/var,/procand why - Processes, signals, and the init system (systemd)
- Networking primitives: IP addressing, CIDR, routing, DNS resolution, TCP handshake
- SSH: key-based auth, agent forwarding, port tunnelling
- Git internals: blobs, trees, commits, the reflog, detached HEAD
- Branching strategy: trunk-based development vs GitFlow and when each fits
The cloud mental model
Cloud is not a magic computer farm. It is an API over hardware with a billing model. Understanding the shared responsibility model tells you exactly where your obligations start.
- IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS and where your code lives on that spectrum
- Regions, zones, and why you spread workloads across them
- IAM: principals, resources, roles, and policy evaluation logic
- Principle of least privilege: why
roles/owneron a service account is a security incident waiting to happen - Service account keys vs Workload Identity Federation: the key is a credential that lives on disk; Workload Identity is ephemeral
- Audit logging: what Cloud Audit Logs record and why you turn on Data Access logs from day one
Where your code actually runs
Before you containerise anything you need to understand the machine underneath. This week you learn how virtual machines, object storage, and virtual networks combine into a working application environment.
- VPC architecture: subnets, routes, firewall rules, NAT, Private Google Access
- Compute Engine: machine families, persistent disks, startup scripts, preemptible vs standard
- Cloud Storage: buckets, object lifecycle policies, signed URLs, storage classes
- Load balancing concepts: L4 vs L7, health checks, backend services
- Cloud DNS and how internal DNS resolution differs from public
- VPC peering vs Shared VPC: when each model applies in an org context
Containers are not virtual machines
A container shares the host kernel. Understanding that single fact explains every security property, every limitation, and every escape vector containers have.
- Linux namespaces and cgroups: the primitives Docker wraps
- Image layers, union filesystem, and why layer order matters for cache and size
- Dockerfile best practices: multi-stage builds, non-root users, minimal base images
- Container security: read-only filesystems, dropped capabilities, seccomp profiles
- Artifact Registry: pushing, pulling, image vulnerability scanning with Container Analysis
- Container runtime threat model: what an attacker can and cannot do inside a container
zero-dollar resource hub
Everything You Need Costs Nothing
Every resource listed here is free. No paywalls, no trial traps. If it costs money it is not on this list.
Command Line Foundations
- The Linux Command Line (William Shotts, free PDF)
- OverTheWire: Bandit (Linux wargame)
- explainshell.com (any command, explained)
- tldr.sh (practical examples for every tool)
// free-tier VMs: GCP e2-micro, AWS t2.micro, Oracle Cloud ARM
Cloud Fundamentals
- Google Cloud Skills Boost (free tier courses)
- AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials (free)
- GCP Free Tier ($300 credit for new accounts)
- Cloud Security Alliance materials
// set billing alerts before you start. Always.
Docker and Terraform
- Play with Docker (browser-based labs)
- Terraform tutorials on developer.hashicorp.com
- OpenTofu (open-source Terraform fork, free)
- Container Security by Liz Rice (free PDF via O'Reilly)
// OpenTofu is fully compatible. Either works for this program.
Orchestration
- Kubernetes.io official docs and interactive tutorial
- killer.sh CKA practice
- minikube / kind for local cluster practice
- GKE Autopilot free tier
// CKA is one of the most respected cloud certifications. This program prepares you to take it.
Operating at Scale
- Google SRE Book (free at sre.google/books)
- Prometheus docs and alerting best practices
- Grafana Labs learning portal (free)
- OpenTelemetry docs
// the SRE book is essential reading. Read chapters 1-4 in week 1.
Stay Connected
- CNCF Slack
- r/devops and r/kubernetes
- DevOps Africa Community Discord
- GitHub (your public portfolio starts now)
// your GitHub activity graph is part of your CV. Start committing from week 1.
meet your mentor
Who Is Teaching You
I built this program because the resources that existed were either too shallow or buried behind paywalls. I wanted something rigorous, free, and honest about how production systems actually work.
I work on platform engineering and cloud infrastructure. I have gone through the journey of learning this material without a roadmap, and I am here to give you the one I wish I had.
This is not a course. It is a mentorship. I will be in the sessions, in the code reviews, and in the post-mortems. You will not be learning alone.
common questions
Before You Apply
Answers to the questions people ask most. If yours is not here, reach out on X.
No. This program is designed for absolute beginners. The only prerequisites are a laptop, an internet connection, and the time to commit. You will install and configure every tool from scratch during the program itself.
Yes. No tuition, no upsell, no hidden fees. The only cost is cloud credits. GCP gives every new account $300 in free credit, which covers everything in this program comfortably.
A live session with Amina covering that week's topic, a hands-on lab you complete independently, and a deliverable you submit before the next session. Sessions are recorded. You are expected to show your work.
WAT (West Africa Time, UTC+1). Exact session times will be confirmed once the cohort is formed and everyone's availability is known.
This is a small cohort. The whole point is mentorship, not a lecture hall. Applications are reviewed individually. Commitment matters more than background.
No. You will get something more useful: a GitHub portfolio with real infrastructure projects and the skills to pass a technical interview. The CKA exam prep is built into Week 7 for those who want a formal credential afterward.
Cohort 1 starts 29 June 2026. Applications are now closed. Join the waitlist to be first in line when Cohort 2 opens.
A laptop, a Gmail account to set up GCP, and Git installed on your machine. That is it. Everything else gets installed during Week 1.
Cohort 1 · Starting 29 Jun 2026 · Applications Closed
Cohort 1 is Full
Applications for Cohort 1 are now closed. If you want to be first in line when Cohort 2 opens, join the waitlist. The programme is free and that will not change.
Join the WaitlistYou will be notified as soon as Cohort 2 applications open.