Live cohorts, capped at twenty-four
Cadence is an online academy for people already doing the work. Six-week cohorts, live sessions twice a week, and a mentor who reads what you hand in rather than a grade generated by a rubric.
About Cadence
Cadence started in 2019 as a Tuesday evening session for eleven people in a borrowed room in Bristol. The same questions came up every week, the answers were the same every week, and none of the courses anyone could point to answered them in fewer than nine months.
So the format got written down: six weeks, two live sessions, one mentor who does the job on weekdays, and a cap of twenty-four because that is the largest group whose work one person can actually read. Six years later the format has not moved. The catalogue has.
How a cohort runs
The shape is the same across all four tracks, which is why someone who has taken one Cadence course knows exactly what the second one will ask of them.
Ninety minutes each, one teaching and one workshop, both recorded within the hour. Sessions run at 6pm UK time and again at 9am for the Pacific cohort.
Every submission gets written feedback from a mentor inside two working days. Not a score, not a checklist - notes on the specific thing you made.
Small enough that the mentor knows what you are building by week two, and that the person reviewing your work in week five has read your week-one notes.
Miss more than two weeks and you can take the next cohort at no charge. Life happens mid-cohort more often than anyone plans for.
Why Cadence
We could run groups of two hundred and the recordings would be identical. These are the four things that would stop being true.
Finish what they start
Across every cohort run in 2025, counted at the final submission rather than at the last login.
Get feedback inside 48 hours
Mentors mark on a rota, and a piece of work that waits longer than two days is escalated to the track lead.
Take a second course
Measured within a year of finishing the first one. It is the number we watch most closely.
By week three your mentor can name the thing you keep doing. That is the difference between feedback and marking, and it does not survive a group of two hundred.
87% of people who start a Cadence cohort finish it, counted at final submission. The industry figure for self-paced video courses sits closer to one in ten.
Advisors talk about half a dozen people a week out of a course. A refund six weeks later costs everyone more than a straight answer on the phone.
Every certificate links to the artefact you defended. A hiring manager can read the spec, the profile or the write-out instead of trusting a badge.
Starting soon
Cadence runs around thirty cohorts a year and caps every one at twenty-four people, which is the largest group a mentor can read properly.
Cohort starts 14 September
Six weeks on easing, choreography and restraint. You ship a motion spec for a real product surface and defend every duration in it.
4.8 out of 51,240 graduates
Course detail: Motion for InterfacesCohort starts 21 September
Generics, variance and the type-level patterns that keep a 400-file codebase honest. Built around refactoring an app that is already too loose.
4.9 out of 5980 graduates
Course detail: TypeScript at ScaleOpen enrolment, start any Monday
Tokens, naming and the argument for a component before it exists. The free entry course, and the one most people take first.
4.7 out of 53,610 graduates
Course detail: Design Systems FoundationsBefore you enrol
Three hours of live sessions and between three and five hours of work, depending on the course and how deep you go. People who try to fit it into under five hours a week tend to fall behind in week three, and we would rather say that now.
Recordings go up within the hour and the workshop brief is written out, so a missed week is catchable. Miss more than two and we move you to the next cohort at no charge rather than let you finish half-present.
For the Foundation courses, no. For Intermediate and Advanced, yes - they assume you have a real codebase, a real product or a real dataset to work on, because every exercise is applied to your own.
On its own, no certificate is. Ours links to the work you defended, which is the part that carries weight. We would rather you showed a hiring manager the spec than the badge.
Yes, and about two thirds are. We invoice in GBP, USD or EUR with 30-day terms, and the advisor will send a one-page summary written for a manager who has to approve it.
Full refund up to the end of week two, no argument and no form. After that we will move you to a different course instead, which is what most people actually want.