Sigma School Weekly Update: Week of 17- 21 Nov
Ethan Quar
26th November 2025
Hello Sigma community! This is the first edition of our weekly #buildinginpublic blog, so welcome!
Working at a relatively new startup that likes to stay lean and move fast is an incredibly dynamic experience. KPIs get changed overnight, quick updates turn into month-long projects, and interns think they deserve to get paid salaries because they’re “working overtime” and “need to feed their families” (annoying right?!). To keep the whole machine moving without burning down, Sigma School’s culture is built on extreme ownership, innovation, speed, and most importantly, trust. These weekly updates are part of our commitment to transparency for both our teammates and the wider community who supports us.
Without further ado, here is everything we shipped, improved, and moved forward this week, along with a few lessons we picked up along the way.
We made some important architecture decisions for the new LMS, focusing on tools and structures that will support long-term scalability.
Some of our LMS updates included:
Things are going smoothly now, but it was only a few weeks ago that we had to learn a long, arduous, and expensive lesson about the dangers of vibe coding… (Read about it here)
Jobier remains one of our most ambitious projects. For those who don’t know, it’s an AI-driven job platform that automates parts of the job search and intelligently surfaces relevant opportunities. We’re laying the foundation now so the launch experience is smooth once it’s released later this year.
Some updates on Jobier included:
We strengthened the learning materials by updating Module 1 and 2 slides and adding StackBlitz example solutions for all code-along sessions.
We’ve been pushing harder into the university space this week. New clubs and counseling centers were added to our outreach pipeline, and that opened the door to a meeting with Waiser to explore what collaboration could look like.
Around the same time, early conversations with Axiata began taking shape, adding another potential partner to the horizon. To top it off, Talentbank reached out and invited us to their upcoming networking session, giving us one more room to show up in as we build these relationships.
Our experimentation with content has finally paid off, as we published our most-viewed UGC video of the year (50k views!).
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been putting out weekly “office-culture” skits inspired by Cluely’s highly effective content approach. These skits require the participation of the whole in-office staff (and their questionable acting chops), so it’s great to see the efforts justified.
Some notable things we shipped last week include:
You’re currently reading the update! This building-in-public blog is an exciting step forward for us, so we welcome your thoughts and feedback. In general, we’re aiming to get back into regular blog posting, covering topics we believe bring value to techies everywhere.
What we’re doing:
For convenience and speed, one of our team members experimented with an AI-generated video, creating a quick B-roll shot of another team member using his laptop for an ad in which they were already featured. That ad was published for a moment before the featured team member saw it and had the scare of his lifetime. The issue was quickly communicated, and the video was taken down.
The lesson? Don’t waste AI-generated content on rendering a clip of someone using a laptop in some random cafe; at least put him on the moon or something!
On a real note, the incident was a reminder to us that as we continue to avidly search for areas for innovation, mistakes will inevitably be made; the key is learning from them and not losing ourselves in trying to maximize output. Sometimes we have to stop, think, maybe take a breath, then act.
This week, we’re spotlighting Nixon, who made one of the boldest pivots we’ve seen. After four years at Accenture, working with Google as a Platform Experience Associate, he realised he wanted something different: a skill that could withstand change and actually move his life forward. He spent a year wrestling with the decision before finally leaving his stable job, joining Sigma School, and learning full stack development from scratch.
He graduated in April and landed a software developer role at Property213 within about a month of actually applying. What unlocked the offer was the practical projects he built here, especially his React work, which became the exact skill that got him hired.
In the interview, he talked about how intimidating technical interviews were at first and how heavily he relied on the AI tools we taught him during his first few weeks on the job. Today, he’s three months into the role, growing fast, and finally finding his rhythm as a developer.
Check out our full conversation here!
On the 21st, our students reached a meaningful milestone as they completed their Module 1 assessment and presented the work they’ve been building over the past few weeks. It was a day that asked a lot from them, and they showed up with focus and a real sense of progress.
After the assessment, the mood shifted into celebration. We spent the afternoon playing games, sharing lunch, and even had a fully sponsored pickleball session.
What stood out most was how quickly the group has grown closer. People who arrived as strangers are now laughing together, supporting each other and creating the kind of community that gives purpose to everything we build here.
Check out the little post we made on IG dedicated to the special day!
Thanks for being part of the journey. We’ll keep building, improving, and sharing. See you next week.
