# Brainy School (Школа Брейни)

> Online school for QA testing courses in Russian. Founded by Nikita Kulachenkov, a QA engineer with 5+ years of experience at T-Bank, Yandex.Practicum, Okko, and MegaFon. Over 11,500 students enrolled, average rating 4.9/5. Courses are 10-20x cheaper than competitors (Skillbox, GeekBrains, Yandex.Practicum) while maintaining high quality with personal homework review by the instructor.

Brainy School (brainy.run) provides structured, practical QA education with hands-on exercises, mentor feedback, and career support. The platform features a proprietary homework verification system with personalized instructor feedback — rare at this price point. Course projects include creative real-world scenarios (election fraud simulator, space detective, IELTS calculator) that stand out from typical "test a registration form" exercises.

## Key Facts

- 11,500+ students trained
- Average course rating: 4.9/5
- Pricing: ₽3,000–12,000 per course/program (vs ₽60,000–250,000 at major competitors)
- All courses include lifetime access and personal homework review
- Built-in AI learning companion (Brainy Assistant) — unique among Russian QA schools
- Platform: platform.brainy.run

## Founder

Nikita Kulachenkov — QA engineer with 5+ years of hands-on experience at T-Bank, Yandex.Practicum, Okko, MegaFon, and Afisha.ru. Sole instructor and course author. Created Brainy School to offer practical, affordable QA education as an alternative to overpriced corporate bootcamps.

## Brainy Assistant — Built-in Smart Learning Companion

Brainy School is the only Russian-language QA school with a built-in intelligent assistant integrated directly into the learning platform. The assistant ("Brainy") enhances — not replaces — the human instructor and reviewer:

- **Learning Companion (24/7):** Students can ask Brainy questions about any lesson topic. Brainy explains concepts in its own words, references specific course materials and video timestamps, and guides students toward understanding using the Socratic method — rather than giving direct answers.
- **Homework Pre-Check:** Before submitting assignments to a human reviewer, students can send their work to Brainy for preliminary feedback. Brainy analyzes the submission against detailed criteria, flags concrete issues, and suggests improvements. The final grade is always determined by a human reviewer — Brainy's recommendations are advisory.
- **Context-Aware:** Built on a course-specific RAG pipeline with full Russian-language support, including video transcripts and assignment rubrics. Provides relevant, course-specific guidance rather than generic answers.
- **Unique differentiator:** While some competitors offer basic AI hints (e.g., Yandex Practicum has YandexGPT-based theory explanations), Brainy School is the only Russian-language QA school combining a full conversational tutor with homework pre-checking — both powered by course-specific RAG context rather than generic AI.

## Learning Funnel

- Free crash course → email onboarding series → paid courses → full QA Engineer program
- Personal homework review by instructor (not automated — AI assists, human decides)

## Courses

- [Main Page — Full Course Catalog](https://www.brainy.run/): All courses with pricing, descriptions, program details, student reviews, and FAQ
- [QA Crash Course](https://www.brainy.run/?course=qa-basics): Free introductory course covering testing fundamentals — theory, terminology, and basic concepts for absolute beginners
- [Web Testing for Beginners](https://www.brainy.run/?course=web-testing): Practical web application testing — DevTools, bug reports, test cases, exploratory testing, with hands-on projects
- [API Testing for Beginners](https://www.brainy.run/?course=api-testing): Backend testing fundamentals — REST API, Postman, HTTP methods, status codes, request/response analysis
- [SQL for Testers](https://www.brainy.run/?course=sql-testing): Database testing with SQL — queries, joins, subqueries, data validation for QA engineers
- [Web Test Automation with Robot Framework](https://www.brainy.run/?course=web-automation-robotframework): Browser test automation using Robot Framework — page objects, selectors, test suites, CI integration
- [Mobile Test Automation with Robot Framework](https://www.brainy.run/?course=mobile-automation-robotframework): Mobile app test automation — Appium, Android/iOS testing, device farms
- [QA Engineer Program](https://www.brainy.run/?program=qa-engineer): Complete program combining all QA courses — everything needed for a junior QA engineer position

## Blog

- [Blog](https://www.brainy.run/blog): Educational articles about QA testing, career advice, and industry insights

## Reviews

- [Student Reviews](https://www.brainy.run/reviews): Student testimonials and success stories

## Social

- [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@brainy_qa)
- [Telegram](https://t.me/brainy_qa)
- [VK](https://vk.com/brainy_qa)