A brand-new 16-week training every month on what's actually changing in tech — plus a portfolio project built around your own career goals.
Your Vanguard Journey
Join the Vanguard
Start the program
New Training Monthly
A fresh 16-week program
Learn New Skills
Through live training
Build in Parallel
Portfolio project with mentorship
Excel in Your Career
Skills that compound
That is the whole package, and the two halves feed each other. Every month we launch a brand-new 16-week training on what's actually changing in the software industry — twelve a year, none ever repeated — and everything a training covers then gets built into a portfolio project that is yours. You don't just learn a new technology; you ship it into something you own. Buy a single training on its own and it costs $140; as a member you pay $60 a month for all of it.
One training on its own
$140
one-time
With Vanguard
$60
per month
That's 57% off every training — and the saving repeats each month a new one starts.
Prefer to pay for the year? $600 covers 12 months — 10 months' fee, so 2 months are free.
A brand-new 16-week program starts every single month — twelve a year, all covered by your membership.
Each training is 16 sessions of 2 hours, one every weekend — scheduled morning and evening so it fits around a job or a degree.
We never re-run a training. Each new program is built around what actually shipped in the industry since the last one.
Scoped from your CV and your goals, planned into tasks and milestones, then built iteration by iteration as each training lands — mentored throughout.
A new training starts every month and each runs 16 weeks, so four are always in progress at once. Your membership covers all four — sit in on as many as you want.
As each training finishes its 16 sessions, a brand-new one takes its slot. The next begins October 2026.
Your project is not a tutorial exercise. It runs end to end through all nine phases of the software lifecycle — the range employers actually ask for, and the ground a Forward Deployed Engineer has to stand on.
A simple, proven process to take you from learning to building
Your CV, your LinkedIn profile, and what you want in the short and long term. Real inputs, so what follows is actually about you.
A detailed written plan with a roadmap and milestones for both your short-term and long-term goals — and your weekend trainings are aligned to it.
From the accepted plan we create a portfolio project scoped to your goals — a commercial-grade product worth putting your name on.
Each training's new material becomes your next iteration, with a complete implementation guide for every step and AI to unblock yourself.
Finish with a deployed product and clean code on GitHub — something you can show and explain in your own words.
Before any training or any code, we work out where you are going. Everything after that — which sessions matter most to you, and what your portfolio project turns out to be — is decided by this plan.
Real inputs, so the plan that follows is genuinely about you and not a template.
Where you actually are today — what you have studied, built, and shipped so far.
How the market currently sees you, and the roles your profile is being read against.
The next thing you want — an internship, a first job, a switch, a specific skill by a specific date.
Where you want to be in a few years, so nothing you build in the meantime is wasted effort.
Not advice in a call you forget. A written, detailed plan with two roadmaps in it, broken into tasks and milestones you can see and tick off in your portal. You review it, we adjust it, and only once you accept it do we move on.
The next few months
The next few years
Four trainings run in parallel every weekend and your membership covers all of them — but your plan tells you which ones matter to you now and in what order. Sessions are mapped onto your milestones, so each weekend moves a specific part of your roadmap forward rather than adding another certificate to the pile.
Scoped from the same plan, a project of your own is proposed and built alongside the trainings. What you learn in each session goes straight into it, iteration by iteration, until it is a commercial-grade application — a real product, not a tutorial exercise, deployed and on GitHub with your name on it.
A learning experience designed for real-world success
Build something aligned with YOUR career goals
Never feel lost or overwhelmed
Create chatbots, AI assistants, and multi-agent systems using modern frameworks
Learn alongside your studies or job
A brand-new 16-week program every month — never a repeat
A project that grows with every training — deployed, with real code you can talk through
Learn Cloud, Full Stack, DevOps, AI, Security, or any tech you need for your dream role
One 2-hour live session every weekend — 32 hours per training
Message us when you are stuck — no scheduled slot to wait for
Learn the technologies that match your career goals
Can't decide? We'll help you choose based on your goals.
Join the Vanguard →Whether you're just starting or looking to level up, we've got you covered
Build the skills and the confidence to back them up
Build a commercial-grade product you can show and defend, not just tutorial projects.
Hands-on experience across the whole lifecycle — requirements through monitoring — on a stack chosen for your career goals.
You designed and built it yourself, so you can explain every decision in it — the thing most people never get practice at.
Our Agentic AI focus prepares you for the most in-demand tech roles
Plus many more:
Machine Learning Engineer • AI Integration Specialist • Conversational AI Developer • RAG Systems Engineer
One person builds every training, and mentors every project
Trainer & Consultant — Rathinam Trainers and Consultants
I have spent 26+ years in the software industry, and I now spend my days on one thing: tracking what is actually changing in technology and turning it into something you can learn and build with.
That is why a brand-new training launches every month, and why none of them are ever repeated. The syllabus follows the industry instead of a fixed catalogue — when something ships that genuinely matters, it becomes the next program. The same research feeds our consulting work, so what you learn is what companies are actually paying to have built.
26+
Years in the industry
14
Domains covered
12
New trainings a year
Areas I work across
One subscription covers every new training we launch, plus your portfolio project. Pay monthly, or pay for the year and get 2 months free. Continue until your goals are met — and if the program isn't for you, your first month is refunded in full, no questions asked.
Select your currency:
per month
57% less than buying each training
Full refund, no questions asked
Don't like the program after enrolling? We refund your first month in full — you don't have to give us a reason. The refund covers the first month only; after that you can cancel any time with no further charges, so you are never locked in.
Got questions? We've got answers.
A brand-new training starts every month and runs for 16 weeks — 16 sessions of 2 hours, one every weekend, so 32 live hours per training. Because each runs four months, four trainings are always in progress at once, in four slots: Saturday and Sunday, 10:00 am and 8:00 pm IST. That is four live sessions and eight live hours available to you every weekend, and your membership covers all of them. As one training finishes, a brand-new one takes its slot.
No. We never re-run a program. The software industry moves too fast for that, so every intake is new material built around what has actually shipped since the last one. That is the point of staying subscribed — you keep pace with the industry instead of working through a fixed catalogue.
A single training bought standalone costs substantially more than a month of Vanguard, and a new one opens every month — so the saving repeats rather than being a one-off. The exact figures for your region are shown in the pricing section above.
Both plans give you exactly the same access — the only difference is how you pay for it. The yearly plan charges ten months' fee for twelve months, so two months are free, billed once up front and renewing each year. Monthly suits you if you want to keep the commitment small; yearly suits you if you already know you are staying past ten months. Cancelling a yearly plan mid-term is not a penalty: the two free months simply do not apply to a term you end early, so we deduct the normal monthly fee for the months you have completed and refund the rest.
They are one track, not two. Whatever a training covers gets built into your portfolio project as its next iteration, so you apply each new technology to something you own rather than to a throwaway exercise. Over a year that means your project keeps absorbing what the industry is actually adopting — and you finish with hands-on experience in all of it, not lecture notes.
Goal Planning — that is always the first step. We ask for four things: your CV, your LinkedIn profile, your short-term goals, and your long-term goals. From those we write a detailed plan containing two roadmaps, one for the short term and one for the long term, each broken into tasks and milestones so there is a concrete path rather than a vague ambition. Once you accept that plan, a portfolio project is created for you, scoped to those same goals — a commercial-grade product worth putting your name on. You then build it iteration by iteration, with a complete implementation guide for each step.
They are aligned to your goal plan. Four trainings run in parallel each weekend and your membership covers all of them, but your plan decides which ones matter to you now and in what order, mapping the sessions onto your milestones. So each weekend advances a specific part of your roadmap, and what you learn there goes straight into your portfolio project as its next iteration.
A Forward Deployed Engineer builds and adapts software alongside the customer rather than from behind a backlog — a role growing quickly as companies ship AI products that have to be shaped to each client. It demands range: you gather the requirements, design it, build it, secure it, deploy it, and keep it running. That is exactly the shape of the portfolio project here, which is scoped like a commercial build and runs through all nine phases of the lifecycle instead of stopping at code.
Your goal plan is broken into tasks and milestones, and you work through them in your own portal — so at any point you can see what is done, what is next, and whether you are drifting. Nothing here depends on you remembering where you left off.
No, you don't need any prior AI or machine learning experience. You'll learn everything on the go with step-by-step guidance. We start from the fundamentals and build up to advanced concepts.
Yes. Live sessions are on the weekend, and the project work is self-paced — build your iterations whenever you have time during the week.
It depends on your goals and pace. Some complete their portfolio project in 2-3 months, others continue for 6+ months and keep taking each new training as it launches. You're in control, and you can cancel anytime.
Then we refund your first month in full, no questions asked — you do not have to justify the decision to us. On the monthly plan that refund covers the first month only; after it you can still cancel at any time and will not be charged again, but later months are not refunded. On the yearly plan, cancelling later in the term refunds the months you have not used — we deduct the normal monthly fee for the months you have completed and return the balance. Either way you can stop whenever you want: no notice period, no cancellation fee, and no charge from the next cycle onwards. We would rather you leave satisfied than stay unhappy. Email rathinam@rathinamtrainers.com or message us on WhatsApp and we will handle it.
Every iteration comes with a complete implementation guide, so you always have a next step, and AI tools like Claude or ChatGPT will carry you through most problems — learning to unblock yourself with AI is a deliberate part of the program. When you need a person, message us on WhatsApp. That is our main support channel and where day-to-day mentoring happens, so you are never stuck waiting for a scheduled slot.
You choose! We cover Cloud Computing (AWS/Azure/GCP), Full Stack Development (React, Node.js, Python), DevOps, Security, AI & Machine Learning, Databases (SQL/NoSQL), and more. We customize your project to match your career goals and preferred technologies.
Yes. You'll finish with a real product you designed and built yourself — deployed, on GitHub, and yours to show. Because you made every decision in it, you can explain the architecture and the trade-offs behind it, which is the part most people cannot do. On top of that, a new training every month keeps your skills current instead of dating the moment the industry moves.