National education and training heavyweight Kaplan Test Prep has teamed up with thoughtbot, a consulting firm that makes Web and mobile apps, to launch a Ruby on Rails immersive boot camp called Metis. The companies are entering a nascent and burgeoning niche market to produce the kind of high-level development talent designed to fill jobs across the country. “The current disparity between supply and demand for developer talent … means fluency in coding and software languages is a much-needed capability in today’s job market,” said Bernardo Rodriguez, Metis co-founder and chief digital officer of Kaplan Test Prep.

The 12-week course is designed as a new economy skills training (NEST) program and is aimed at individuals seeking job-ready development skills. It uses curriculum versed in Kaplan’s established science and assessment studies and is delivered by thoughtbot Ruby on Rails specialists. The application process is competitive, with no more than 30 qualified candidates being accepted. This inaugural course will run from Feb. 24 through May 16, 2014, at thoughtbot’s Boston headquarters. Students will have weekends off. Metis will train participants in HTML5 Erb, CSS Sass, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails and Git and show them how to independently create Ruby on Rails applications. The process culminates in a final “Hiring Day,” where graduates will be connected to potential employers. Thoughtbot plans to run the course three weeks longer than the San Francisco-based Dev Bootcamp, a comparable program which has seen significant success with job placements.