Who’s teaching
Mark
Darling.
Fifteen years building software. The last seven leading mobile engineering at Gymshark. Apps used by millions of people in the gym, every day. Left to teach this directly.
Mark Darling, 2026
Where I’ve worked
2025–
Founder, MarkD Limited (BUILD+SHIP)
Independent. Teaching, advising, and building. The cohort is the main thing.
2018–2025
Head of Mobile Engineering, Gymshark
Led mobile engineering for the apps used by millions of people, in the gym, every day. Built the team. Shipped the product.
2015–2018
Senior Engineer, multiple companies
Mobile and platform work across health, retail, and enterprise, including Next, Webex, Elsevier, and a long stretch of consultancy.
How I think about teaching
English is the new code.
The bottleneck has shifted from syntax to specification. The cohort teaches you how to direct the work, and how to know when the work is good.
Build, don't read.
Every session ends in something shipped. Reading about AI without building with AI is how most courses fail. We do the opposite.
Real production, not toy projects.
What you build is what working engineers build, scoped to four weeks. No fake CRUD apps, no contrived examples.
Calm wins.
I'm not going to hype you. I'm going to teach you a method, watch you use it, and tell you the truth about what's working.
In my own words
“The future of software isn’t about writing more code. It’s about writing better English, and knowing what good looks like.”
Mark Darling
From people who have worked with me
Mark gave me a chance when I knew nothing, and since then I’m excelling at a role and in a team that I love. A team that he largely helped build. He’s a supportive, pragmatic, and calm leader with many years of hard-earned experience.
Mark is not only one hell of a good developer he’s also a very talented ‘people person’. His ability to understand what a client requires, and empathise with them throughout the life-cycle of a project, are rare and true talents.
Mark has focused on delivering value for the business, hitting all of his deadlines whilst not compromising on quality. An excellent communicator and someone I trust to not just do a job, but to do a job well.