Question 1

What technologies will I learn, and what is the focus of the program?

Accepted Answer

Our primary stack is .NET and C# with React on the front end, running on AWS. The program emphasizes core engineering principles and process over specific tools, and work ranges from debugging exercises to full-scale enterprise cloud applications.

Question 2

What is the structure and timeline of the program?

Accepted Answer

The program starts with a self-paced training phase. Once completed, you move into team-based project phases that resemble real-world development environments. The full timeline is flexible and depends on your pace.

Question 3

How long can I stay in the program?

Accepted Answer

As long as you would like. There is no fixed end date once you complete onboarding. Some members participate for a shorter period to gain experience, while others remain involved much longer, continue taking on projects, explore new areas of engineering, or help other members as they grow.

Question 4

What does a typical week look like?

Accepted Answer

We operate like a remote-first company with weekly sprint planning and refinement meetings. Outside of those, you are free to manage your schedule, collaborate with peers, and complete assigned tasks.

Question 5

How does code review work?

Accepted Answer

Pull requests on participating repositories run through CI quality gates and an automated AI reviewer that returns a grade, pass or fail, and line-level comments before human review. That means feedback on your code is consistent and specific.

Question 6

Are projects completed individually or as part of a team?

Accepted Answer

The initial phase is individual. Later phases involve collaborative projects where each member owns specific tasks that contribute to team goals — similar to a real workplace.

Question 7

How are mentorship and feedback handled?

Accepted Answer

Phase 1 is self-directed with community support. In Phases 2 and 3, we hold regular group meetings and offer one-on-one time with the program lead on request. Mentorship is modeled after a professional environment: guidance is available, but participants are expected to take initiative.

Question 8

How is progress tracked throughout the program?

Accepted Answer

We provide feedback during meetings and track individual progress through completed assignments, sprint tasks, and contributions to projects. Delivery metrics are also visible in our Insights dashboard.

Question 9

Can I move through Phase 1 faster?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Phase 1 is self-paced and represents roughly 40 hours of learning and hands-on work. Participants with more existing experience may move through it faster, while others may spread it over a longer period.

Question 10

Do I have to attend every meeting?

Accepted Answer

You are encouraged to attend the weekly 30-minute remote team meeting, but we understand that scheduling conflicts may prevent everyone from joining every week. Meetings are held later in the evening to accommodate as many time zones as possible. If you cannot attend, just stay engaged and communicate with your team.

Question 11

What happens after I complete Phase 1?

Accepted Answer

After completing Phase 1, you can join a project team of your choice and begin contributing to collaborative applications and infrastructure. From there, you work from the team's engineering backlog, participate in the development process, submit pull requests, receive code review, and contribute alongside other members.

Question 12

Can I choose which projects or technologies I work with?

Accepted Answer

Yes. You can choose the project you want to join and the types of tasks you want to work on within that project. Our work includes frontend, backend, databases, cloud infrastructure, automation, DevOps, testing, monitoring, CI/CD, and more. If it is the type of engineering work you would find at a larger software company, there is a good chance we have something similar available. You can specialize in an area you are interested in or move between different types of work to gain broader experience.

Question 13

What kind of work will I actually do?

Accepted Answer

Depending on the project and your experience, you might fix a production bug, build an API endpoint, create a React component, modify a database schema, add logging or monitoring, update Terraform infrastructure, write automated tests, improve a CI/CD pipeline, or implement a feature from an engineering ticket. The goal is not to simulate engineering work through isolated exercises. After onboarding, you contribute to the same applications, infrastructure, development workflows, and engineering backlogs used by the rest of the program.

Question 14

What happens after I apply?

Accepted Answer

All details about the current application process are provided in our Candidate Portal when applications are open. Our application cycles tend to move very quickly, so we recommend following the instructions and completing each step as soon as you are able.

Question 15

Do I need to know C# or .NET before applying?

Accepted Answer

No. You should already understand basic programming concepts, but you do not need prior professional C# or .NET experience. Phase 1 introduces the WSS stack and development workflow through roughly 40 hours of directly applicable, self-paced learning.

Question 16

Can I participate while I am in school or working?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The program is fully remote and designed to fit around school, a full-time job, and other responsibilities. Most members spend around 5–10 hours per week, and the program itself is run as an extracurricular initiative — including by the program lead, who also works full time. Some members choose to dedicate significantly more time and treat the program almost like a full-time learning experience for a period of time. That is completely optional and usually reflects a desire to gain experience and progress more quickly.

Question 17

Is the program suitable for someone with bootcamp experience or six months of coding practice?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The program begins with foundational material but is not beginner-level. Success depends on your commitment and your ability to independently learn and apply new concepts.

Question 18

Do I need to be enrolled in a school or university to participate?

Accepted Answer

No. This is an independent community program open to anyone, regardless of academic background.

Question 19

Can people outside the United States participate?

Accepted Answer

Not at this time. Participation is currently limited to people located in the United States.

Question 20

What equipment or software do I need?

Accepted Answer

A reasonably capable computer and a reliable internet connection. Windows, macOS, and Linux are all supported — there is no required operating system. There is no mandated IDE; most members use Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, or JetBrains Rider, all of which are free or have free tiers. You do not need your own AWS account or any paid cloud subscription — infrastructure and cloud access are provisioned centrally and shared platform accounts (LMS, SSO, Git, and related tooling) are set up for you after acceptance. WSS does not require you to purchase any software or licenses to participate.

Question 21

Is there a cost to participate?

Accepted Answer

No. The program is entirely free. We are a free, non-monetized software engineering program, and no one is paid or profits from participation.

Question 22

Does anyone profit from the program?

Accepted Answer

No. Web Surfing Studios is an LLC, but the program itself is completely free and non-monetized. Participants are never charged to join or participate, and no one profits from the work members contribute. Participant work is not sold, licensed, or used to generate revenue for Web Surfing Studios or the program lead. Our public-facing applications are also free to use, so we do not charge the people using the software either. It is intentionally a no-money experience from end to end. Projects exist for learning, experimentation, internal program operations, or as free public applications that give members experience building and maintaining real software. Fun fact: the program actually costs the program lead money to operate. Infrastructure such as servers, hosting, Git, deployment systems, databases, domains, and other development tools is paid for personally so members can work with professional tooling without having to pay for it themselves.

Question 23

Is this employment or an internship?

Accepted Answer

Web Surfing Studios is not employment. It is an educational software engineering program built around hands-on professional experience, and many members choose to describe their WSS experience as an internship on their resumes. On a personal note, in all the years we have run the program, I have not heard of a member receiving pushback from an employer for describing their experience this way. In practice, the experience is about as real as an internship gets: you work on real applications, collaborate with a team, use professional development processes, submit code for review, and contribute to software that is actually deployed and used. Because we are not tied to revenue or corporate priorities, we can also move faster and give members opportunities to work on more interesting projects. Instead of spending months making minor page updates and waiting on a slow corporate process, you can take on meaningful engineering work and progress as quickly as your skills and motivation allow.

Question 24

Can I showcase my work on GitHub or in a portfolio?

Accepted Answer

You cannot publish WSS source code because projects contain shared proprietary code, but you can absolutely use the experience professionally. You may list WSS on your resume, link to public applications, describe your contributions, discuss your work in interviews, and potentially receive a professional reference verifying your contributions.

Question 25

Does WSS issue a certificate?

Accepted Answer

We do not issue a formal certificate because we treat the program like any other software engineering experience. A traditional software job or internship does not typically end with a certificate — the value comes from the experience, skills, projects, and professional references you gain along the way. For eligible participants, we can verify your participation and provide professional references based on your work and contributions to the program.

Question 26

Can program participation count for academic credit?

Accepted Answer

Possibly. While rare, we are happy to share our syllabus with your school so they can decide whether to award credit.

Question 27

Does WSS provide job placement?

Accepted Answer

No. WSS is not a staffing agency or job-placement service. The goal is to help you build stronger engineering experience, better interview stories, real project contributions, and—when eligible—a professional reference you can carry into your own job search.

Question 28

Are there networking or career support opportunities?

Accepted Answer

We offer internal networking through our member directory and frequent discussions around career development. However, we do not host external events or job placement services.

Question 29

How many people are currently involved, and what projects are underway?

Accepted Answer

We have over 50+ active members working across 30+ applications, tools, and infrastructure projects — public-facing products, internal platform tools, and the infrastructure that runs them.

Question 30

Is WSS a company or nonprofit?

Accepted Answer

Web Surfing Studios is structured as an LLC for liability and operational reasons. The program itself operates as a free, non-monetized educational community; participants are not employees and member work is not monetized. We would love to operate as a 501(c)(3), but establishing and maintaining nonprofit status comes with additional cost and administrative overhead. Since the program is already self-funded by the program lead and does not rely on donations or outside funding, nonprofit status would provide relatively little practical benefit to how we operate today.

Question 31

How much time am I required to commit?

Accepted Answer

Most members spend around 5–10 hours per week. Rather than tracking hours, we measure participation based on completed engineering stories. Members are expected to complete a certain amount of work each month to remain active in the program. That may mean completing one larger story or several smaller stories depending on the work you choose. Stories are sized with the expectation that the monthly requirement can be completed within roughly 5–10 hours per week.

Question 32

Can I leave and come back later?

Accepted Answer

Yes. You can leave the program whenever you would like. Once you have completed our onboarding process, you are welcome to step away and return later. While you are actively participating, however, you are expected to meet the program's monthly participation requirements and stay engaged with your team.

Question 33

Who owns contributed code?

Accepted Answer

Code created as part of the main Web Surfing Studios program is owned by Web Surfing Studios, LLC, just as work created within any other organization is typically owned by that organization. Because our projects are collaborative and often rely on shared internal libraries, infrastructure, and proprietary systems, source code cannot be redistributed. An NDA is required before joining collaborative project work. The NDA exists to protect our internal systems, shared code, program applications, and the work of other members — not to commercialize participant contributions. Work contributed through the WSS program is not used for monetary gain. We also have many members who share and work on their own personal projects within the WSS community. Your personal projects remain yours. The NDA and ownership requirements apply to WSS program applications and shared internal systems, not to independent projects you bring into the community.

Question 34

Can I list WSS on my resume?

Accepted Answer

Yes. You can list Web Surfing Studios as a program you participated in and describe the applications, technologies, and workflows you worked with. We can verify participation for employers who ask.

Question 35

When can I receive a reference?

Accepted Answer

Professional references are available for eligible participants who have demonstrated consistent contribution, reliable communication, and meaningful project work over time. Ask the program lead when you feel ready.

Question 36

How selective is admission?

Accepted Answer

WSS reviews every application personally. We look for foundational programming knowledge, but we care just as much about motivation, consistency, willingness to learn, realistic availability, and whether someone is ready to contribute in a collaborative environment. You do not need to be the most technically advanced applicant. The program is designed around a simple idea: you bring the motivation; we help provide the skills, structure, and experience.

Question 37

What does a strong application look like?

Accepted Answer

Strong applicants demonstrate motivation, a willingness to learn independently, realistic availability, and some evidence that they have already started building software. That evidence could come from coursework, a bootcamp project, personal projects, self-study, or existing development experience.

Question 38

What happens if I get busy?

Accepted Answer

Life happens. If you need to step back temporarily, communicate with your team and the program lead. Extended absence without communication may mean pausing project access until you can meet the monthly participation requirements again.

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