Private Software Engineering & AI Mentorship in Laos

From your first Linux command to your first application running in production. A structured 40-week engineering mentorship, about two hours of guided session per week, taught in English by Julien Mayer of SabaïDev, for students aged roughly 15 to 22 in Laos and internationally. Sessions are live and fully remote. Private one-to-one mentoring and deliberately selected small cohorts of four to six students. No previous programming experience required.

Students do not follow twelve unrelated mini-courses. They build one application across the whole year - adding an API, a database, authentication, a frontend, a container, a server and an automated deployment pipeline - and finish able to explain every layer of it.

The 40-week engineering journey

Engineering Foundations (Weeks 1-3)

Linux, the terminal, filesystem, processes, permissions, SSH and a real developer environment.

Git & Professional Workflow (Weeks 4-6)

Git, GitHub, repositories, commits, branches, merge conflicts, pull requests and documentation.

Programming (Weeks 7-11)

JavaScript then TypeScript: types, functions, asynchronous programming, errors, debugging and clean code.

How the Web Works (Weeks 12-14)

HTTP, requests and responses, status codes, JSON, REST, APIs, domains and DNS.

Backend Engineering (Weeks 15-19)

Node.js, TypeScript and NestJS: architecture, REST APIs, validation, error handling and configuration.

Database Engineering (Weeks 20-23)

PostgreSQL and SQL: schemas, relationships, constraints, indexes, data modelling and migrations.

Authentication & Security (Weeks 24-26)

Password hashing, authentication and authorization, JWT, roles, permissions, secrets and web security.

Frontend Engineering (Weeks 27-30)

React, Next.js and TypeScript: components, state, data fetching, forms, auth flows and responsive interfaces.

Containers (Weeks 31-33)

Docker: images, Dockerfiles, Compose, networking, volumes, development versus production.

Cloud & Production (Weeks 34-36)

Linux servers, VPS and cloud, SSH, domains, DNS, HTTPS, reverse proxy, logs, monitoring and backups.

DevOps & CI/CD (Weeks 37-38)

CI/CD principles, automated checks, GitHub Actions, pipelines, environments and releases.

AI Engineering & Final Launch (Weeks 39-40)

What LLMs are and are not, prompt and context design, AI APIs, reviewing generated code and responsible use.

Software engineering in the AI era

AI should amplify understanding, not replace it. Students learn when AI is useful, when it is confidently wrong, how to read and verify generated code, how to spot a hallucinated API and how to build with AI APIs - so that they can say what their code does and why, rather than that the AI wrote it and it seems to work.

What the year asks

About two hours of guided session per week across roughly 40 weeks, plus the student's own build time between sessions - realistically three to five hours a week if the project is going to reach production. Mentorship sets direction, unblocks and reviews; the building happens between sessions.

Who teaches it

Julien Mayer, a full-stack and infrastructure engineer based in Vang Vieng, Laos, with fifteen years across software, systems and infrastructure. SabaïDev is his studio, and the stack in this curriculum is the one he ships and operates for clients every week. Sessions are taught by him.

Working with students under 18: sessions are live video calls the parent has the link to; a parent or guardian may join any session, announced or not; there is no private one-to-one messaging with a student under 18, and anything about scheduling, progress or payment goes to the parent; a parent is copied on the account and can see the workspace and repositories at any time; sessions are not recorded by default, and any recording a family asks for belongs to them.

Frequently asked

Does my child need programming experience?: No. The programme starts from how a computer works and builds up. It does require curiosity and willingness to stay with a difficult problem.
What level of English is needed?: Enough to take part in a technical conversation in English. Technical English is itself one of the things the year develops.
Is this a coding course?: It is broader. The student also learns operating systems, networking, databases, security, infrastructure, deployment and how engineering teams work, and finishes with a product running in production.
Is the programme private?: Private one-to-one mentorship is available throughout. Some students are additionally invited into a small cohort.
How are cohorts formed?: Deliberately, on compatibility of level, maturity, pace and objectives, never on how many people enrolled. Cohorts are four to six students.
How are sessions run?: Entirely remotely, as live video sessions, which is what makes it possible to work with a student anywhere in Laos or outside it. Sessions are live, not pre-recorded.
Do students use AI?: Yes, deliberately and with judgement. The aim is a student who can use AI as leverage and still explain, check and debug what comes back.
Will my child actually build something real?: Yes. One application, growing across the whole year, deployed on the internet with a database, accounts, an interface and an automated deployment pipeline.
What does it cost?: Tuition is discussed during the introduction, once we know whether the programme fits and whether private or cohort format suits the student.

Admissions

Admission starts with a conversation with the student and a parent or guardian. Tuition is discussed during that introduction. Programming experience is not required; curiosity and persistence are.

SabaïDev - software, cloud and AI engineering studio, Vang Vieng, Laos.