As technical practitioners advance to senior, staff, or principal roles, their decision-making landscape becomes increasingly complex. The diminishing number of peers available to challenge their reasoning makes the stakes even higher. Critical decisions—from architectural frameworks to AI infrastructure—become hard to reverse, necessitating a solid grounding in long-term technical direction and strategic trade-offs.
Recognizing these unique challenges, InfoQ has expanded its Online Certification Programs to provide a supportive environment dedicated to senior engineers, architects, technical leads, and engineering managers. These cohorts focus on facilitating real-world learning and decision-making, allowing participants to solve real issues they encounter in their work while drawing on insights gained from QCon talks.
The latest offering is the **InfoQ Certified AI Engineering Program**, specifically tailored for experienced practitioners engaged with technologies such as Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), AI agents, and AI platforms. This program not only addresses technical challenges but also deeper ethical considerations and infrastructure reliability.
Additionally, InfoQ has launched the **InfoQ Certified Organizational Architect Program**, which delves into the organizational strategies that influence how engineering efforts are structured. This program emphasizes team design, value stream architecture, and platform strategies that facilitate effective workflows.
A Shared Cohort Format
The cohort format is crafted for seasoned professionals with deep technical experience. It prioritizes advanced decision-making over introductory content, enabling participants to tackle complex scenarios where trade-offs are crucial and often difficult to reverse.
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Each program follows a structured five-week format broken down into practical sessions:
- Independent Preparation: Participants begin by watching a curated QCon talk at their convenience.
- Live Workshop: Engaging in a four-hour weekly live workshop, participants collaborate with both the facilitator and their senior peers.
- Real-World Application: The cohort collectively applies learned frameworks to active decisions participants are facing, discussing the necessary trade-offs in a confidential setting.
- Apply at Work: Participants walk away with actionable strategies, analysis, or framing techniques that they can implement during the week.
These cohorts facilitate not only individual growth but also foster valuable connections, allowing participants to benchmark their approaches against other senior peers across various industries. This collaborative environment cultivates confidence in articulating decisions and trade-offs to stakeholders.
Upcoming Online Cohorts and Certifications
Software Architecture
This program dives into the sociotechnical elements of architecture, offering insights into distributed systems, resilience patterns, decentralized decision-making, and the integration of AI into architectural practice. Participants will benefit from the expertise of:
- Facilitator: Luca Mezzalira, a principal solutions architect and O’Reilly author of Building Micro-Frontends.
- Starts: Wednesday, June 10, with options for BST or EDT cohorts.
- Syllabus: For a detailed week-by-week overview, view the full syllabus.
Starts June 10, 2026. Reserve your place now!
Organizational Architect (New)
This new addition explores the non-technical elements crucial to the adoption of technical strategies. Key topics include leadership communication, value stream architecture, architecting for flow, and managing cognitive load, among others. The details include:
- Facilitator: Manuel Pais, co-author of Team Topologies and director of the Team Topologies Academy.
- Starts: Friday, June 19, 2026, at 9:00 AM CEST.
- Syllabus: View the full week-by-week overview for more details.
Starts June 19, 2026. Reserve your spot now!
AI Engineering (New)
Focusing specifically on the challenges associated with deploying AI systems in production, this cohort will cover topics such as AI-native engineering, RAG and context pipelines, agent design, and platform infrastructure. Participants will gain insights from:
- Facilitator: Hien Luu, Senior Engineering Manager at Zoox and author of both MLOps with Ray and Beginning Apache Spark 3.
Starts July 25, 2026. Reserve your space now!
Program Details
Commitment for these cohorts typically requires four hours of live session time each week, along with an additional two hours allocated for time-boxed homework. Many companies support professional development initiatives, and InfoQ offers “Convince Your Boss” templates to assist participants in articulating the value of these programs to their organizations.
Stay informed as new topics are continuously added, ensuring relevancy for all participants. If the current offerings don’t align with your expertise, don’t hesitate to explore the complete lineup of upcoming cohorts.
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