About & history
Building engineers through real projects since 2020.
Web Surfing Studios has evolved significantly since the program began in 2020, changing structure, tools, projects, and processes several times as the community has grown. Each iteration has been shaped by what we learned along the way and by the contributions of the members who helped build the program.
- 2019
A contracting studio
Web Surfing Studios was established as a platform for our lead’s contracting work — websites for local shops through to e-commerce platforms for mid-sized companies.
- 2020
Short bootcamps
The program began as a series of short bootcamps: focused sessions on specific topics, ten one-hour sittings at a time.
- 2021–2023
From sessions to a platform
Ten hours could not produce mastery, so the format was extended across months and years — and the tooling grew into a real platform with CI, releases, and shared libraries.
- Today
An engineering organization
50+ active members contributing across 30+ applications, tools, and infrastructure projects, self-hosted source control, governed AI access, and infrastructure managed entirely in Terraform. Still free, still non-monetized.
Fun fact
The 2020 bootcamps were primarily for robotics and electronics.
Only during COVID did we switch permanently to software.
Humble origins
Web Surfing Studios began as a series of short bootcamps, where members attended focused sessions on specific topics. Teaching them was genuinely enjoyable — but ten one-hour sessions could never produce real mastery.
So the program was extended to span months, and in some cases years, allowing for a far more comprehensive and sustained education. Members gain many of the same skills, technologies, and process experience they would encounter in an enterprise software company.
Interested in joining?
Applications open in cycles throughout the year. Bring foundational software knowledge, a willingness to learn, and a few hours each week.