Expanding access to hands-on tech and AI upskilling on AWS with CodeSignal

Employers increasingly expect job candidates to demonstrate practical AI and cloud skills, but students in many regions lack access to experiential, industry-relevant training. This gap is especially pronounced in regions and communities where learners might not have exposure to enterprise-grade tools or opportunities to practice in real-world environments. CodeSignal, an AWS Partner, is bridging that gap with its AI-native skills platform that supports all learners, regardless of their professional or educational background. With scenario-based learning that features the same AWS tools that they’ll encounter on the job, the platform supports learners worldwide with on-demand practices, assessments, and a multilingual AI tutor.

When CodeSignal identified an opportunity to further scale its impact globally, particularly in underserved regions, it sought partners that shared its commitment to skills-first hiring and equitable access to skill building. “We saw an immediate alignment with the AWS team in terms of the need to connect skills that students build in the university setting to what employers require,” says Stéphanie Durand, vice president of strategic partnerships at CodeSignal.

The CodeSignal and AWS teams worked together to develop an experiential learning framework that combines curated online pathways with regional challenge events. “The idea was to expose students to relevant learning pathways for prompt engineering, machine learning, and generative AI development so that they could get access to lessons to fine-tune their existing skills—or learn new ones,” says Durand.

To support hands-on learning, the CodeSignal and AWS teams codesigned and cobuilt AWS-backed sandbox environments. These environments let learners experiment freely with real AWS services in a safe, risk-free setting, mirroring the tools and workflows used in professional roles.

In the weeks leading up to each challenge, students completed curated AI learning paths that helped them practice building and fine-tuning models, designing prompts, and developing generative applications. Learners used Amazon SageMaker AI to build, train, and deploy AI models; Amazon Bedrock to build generative AI applications and agents; and Amazon Bedrock AgentCore to accelerate agents to production. Throughout their learning journeys, students received instant guidance from Cosmo, CodeSignal’s multilingual AI tutor, which uses the Socratic method to prompt understanding rather than simply giving answers.

The AWS concepts that students learned in each course reappeared in the challenges completed during the events. This practical experience gave them the chance to apply their new skills in real-world scenarios, thereby reinforcing their knowledge. For many students, it was the first time that they could validate their abilities in an authentic cloud environment, helping to boost both their confidence and their excitement about learning.

During the events, students gathered either virtually or in person at local school campuses to complete assessments. After the assessments, CodeSignal identified the best scores and delivered the results at the end of each event, helping AWS field teams and employers immediately recognize emerging talent based on demonstrated skills rather than traditional credentials.

The events, which were available to more than 25,000 learners, resulted in almost 5,000 RSVPs across 13 countries, including Brazil, India, and the United States. “We’ve seen incredible engagement,” says Durand. With 15 hiring partners and more than 40 higher education institutions involved, the events connected students and employers within a skills-first development framework to surface talent from regions and backgrounds that are often underrepresented in traditional hiring pipelines.

A standout success story came from Colombia, where a female student with minimal prior coding training achieved the highest score in her region and gained visibility with participating employers—demonstrating how skills-based, experiential learning can remove traditional barriers and advance gender equity in tech. Her success highlights the role of inclusive, hands-on learning in broadening participation in STEM, surfacing underrepresented talent, and creating more equitable pathways to opportunity.

“We have an amazing learning platform, and we want more people to benefit from what we’re producing,” says Brian Genisio, director of technical content at CodeSignal. “Working alongside AWS has increased our reach in ways that I’m not sure we could have otherwise. And that’s really exciting.”

The events have resulted in ongoing participation on the platform, demonstrating that students are eager to continue learning when given access to high-quality, hands-on content that builds both skill and confidence. CodeSignal has seen over 2,000 course completions and approximately 50,000 exercise completions, with more than 72 percent of learners who signed up staying active on the platform. By contrast, typical online learning environments, such as massive open online courses, often see much lower engagement, with single-digit course completion rates. CodeSignal’s outcomes reinforce the value of experiential learning in sustaining engagement and supporting long-term skill development.

“It’s been incredible to see people returning after participating in the event,” says Durand. “They’re already really busy, and yet they make the time to continue learning.”