>_ the-dev-dispatch ~ real bugs, delivered monthly

> whoami
junior_backend_engineer # as of this morning

Real bugs.
Real logs.
Delivered monthly

Made for students, career changers and the self-taught: every month a struggling fictional tech company lands on your doormat - and in your terminal. A real Python codebase. A test suite with one red test. Customers complaining about something nobody can explain. You are the new backend engineer. Find it. Fix it. Ship it.

Join the founding 20 · £15/mo Read a sample case →

./is_this_for_me.sh

This is
for you.

Students. Career changers. The self-taught. Anyone at the very start of the road.

Can write a for loop? Start today. Never coded at all? The free Day Zero course gets you there first.

No CS degree. No bootcamp debt. A doormat. →

> ./is_this_for_me.shexit 0
checking profiles...
you've done some Python tutorials and wonder what's next[MATCH]
you're changing careers into tech[MATCH]
you're a student who wants to see a real codebase[MATCH]
you've never written a line of code in your life[MATCH*]
* the free Day Zero course gets you here - ~40 minutes
you're a senior dev with 10 years of scar tissue[NO MATCH]
(buy one for your junior. or your mum. she'd smash it.)
result: welcome aboard, detective

sprint board ★ case 001: a coffee startup

Three tickets.
One month. Your board.

No tutorials, no fill-in-the-blanks. You get a real backlog, printed and posted. The paper ticket in your hands matches the repo in your terminal.

And this is only Case 001. A new company, a new envelope, and new bugs land every month - skills building case on case. Browse the casebook →

// investigating2
PLAT-104BUG

Customers overcharged - cause unknown

Some orders are charged more than the price list. Rosa suspects the Cappuccinos. Rosa is wrong. Find the pattern in the logs.

priority: highevidence: enclosed
PLAT-1??BUG

[REDACTED UNTIL DISPATCH]

The second bug ships sealed. No spoilers - not even here.

priority: ???
// build1
PLAT-110FEATURE

End-of-day report

The founder sketched what he wants on a napkin. The napkin is in the envelope. Takings, costs, profit - build the page that shows it.

spec: 1 napkinstubs provided
// done1
PLAT-100FREE SAMPLE

Get the till running

Terminal, venv, git clone, pytest. Follow-along video included. Your finish line: 4 green, 1 red.

✓ closed by youday zero

cat manifest.json

Half the case
is off-screen.

The repo is real, but so is the paper. Evidence prints on actual thermal receipt paper. The ticket is a card you can pin above your desk. The hints are physically sealed - three envelopes, escalating shame.

Because you can't grep an envelope. →

case-001/manifest.jsonread-only
{
  "case": "001 - a coffee startup",
  "repo": "private, yours, clones like a real job",
  "envelope": [
    "printed ticket card (the case file)",
    "till receipts - some of them wrong",
    "employee ID + lanyard, QR clones repo",
    "3 sealed hints, escalating shame",
    "1x debugging duck (explain code to it)",
    "case-closed sticker for the laptop lid",
    "sealed post-mortem: open when green"
  ],
  "skills": ["reading logs", "git clone", "pytest", "dicts & ifs"],
  "postage": "tracked 48, first class" // yes, really
}

exhibit b ★ the doormat moment

It doesn't stay
on the screen.

Every case ships with evidence you can spread across the kitchen table - printed, stamped, signed, and posted first class across the UK.

Assembled by hand. Posted with a real stamp.

The printed PLAT-104 ticket on a clipboard, partially redacted, with a handwritten post-it note and a coffee ring
the case file (redacted until dispatch)
The ByteBrew onboarding letter held in two hands
your onboarding letter
A fan of printed ByteBrew till receipts
the evidence: real till receipts
A ByteBrew employee ID card held in a hand
your employee ID
The ByteBrew price list card
the price list. memorise it.

> open case_001_preview

Warning: mild spoilers ahead. The envelope is better in person.

choose your plan ★ cancel any time

Pick your desk.

plans/casework.yaml● active

The Casework

one case a month, everything included

£20£15/mo

# founding rate - first 20 members - locked forever

  • monthly case pack, posted + tracked (UK)
  • your own private GitHub repo per case
  • 2 bugs to find, 1 feature to build
  • free Day Zero setup course
  • subscriber Discord + sealed hint system
Claim a founding seat
plans/mentor_signoff.yaml● 20 seats

Mentor Sign-Off

the casework, plus real code review of YOUR code

£35/mo

# capped at 20 seats. that's all there is.

  • everything in The Casework
  • open a real pull request every case
  • line-by-line human review within 48h
  • from a backend engineer who taught for 14 years
  • your first code review, before your first job
Join the review queue

Tutorials teach you to type. The Dev Dispatch teaches you to investigate.

The companies are fictional. The codebases, the logs, the tests, the git history, the sinking feeling that the logs are lying to you - all real. Skills sequenced across 12 months, from your first clone to your first code review.