We have several development centers, and we are constantly looking for talented middles in the regions. Since 2013, we have been training developers - we hold meetups, hackathons, intensives. In the article we tell how studying helps to make friends with the middles, as well as who and why comes to external and internal internships.
Million IT people
According to the Internet Initiatives Development Fund, in Russia professionals working in the field of information technology. The share of "IT people" is only about 2% of the working population, while in the USA, Germany, Great Britain - 4,2%.
Russian universities and secondary educational institutions graduate up to 60 specialists a year. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications in the project for the development of the digital economy speaks of the need to train a million "IT people" by 2024. Developers are in short supply, especially experienced ones, and in IT regions the competition is the highest.
A vivid example is Ulyanovsk, which is called the Volga βSilicon Valleyβ: about 200 local companies work in the IT field. The main office of SimbirSoft is located in Ulyanovsk, and the demand for talented developers is always higher than the supply here. Educational institutions - first of all, Ulyanovsk State University and Ulyanovsk State Technical University - produce no more than 500 IT specialists per year. In total, no more than two graduates (not yet specialists!) per organization.
This is far from the real needs for personnel: for example, in 2018 we expanded the company from 450 to 600 people and opened branches in Samara and Saransk. We share our experience, how our educational project helps in this.
What are we doing
IT.Place is a platform where we help both students and experienced IT professionals learn for free. Our events include courses, intensives, hackathons, meetups, and quizzes. The program includes all major areas of development, including Java, C#, C++, Mobile, as well as QA, analytics, and design.
Our result for seven years is 4400 listeners. We invite the best graduates from each stream for interviews and internships.
There is an opinion that programming courses are for beginners. We do not agree with this stereotype. Developers come to us with different requests. Experienced IT people, as a rule, try themselves in a new direction, they need maximum practice. Intensive courses are popular among students and beginners.
We have many areas in the company - Backend, Frontend, Mobile, QA, SDET, analytics and others. Each of them has developed his own practice of how to teach beginners and help them "pull up" to the desired level. For example, Frontend and Mobile most often hold mini-conferences - meetups. In the meantime, quality assurance specialists try to give as much practice as possible - in the format of intensives or courses (from 5 to 15 lessons).
From courses to intensives
We started by providing development courses and lectures for everyone. The first listeners had different levels of training, even minimal.
Courses were held twice a week, from one to two months. As a result, teaching took a lot of resources, while part of the students were eliminated along the way.
Thanks to feedback, in 2018 we found a new format - intensive. This is a short "advanced" program of 4-5 lessons under the guidance of our mentors. Intensive participants perform a test task.
Who is Intensive for?
- those who are ready to study the theory on their own
- those who need practical skills
Benefits for listeners:
- only practice sessions
- theory can be studied at any convenient time
Benefits for us:
- better result in less time
- come those who are really ready to work.
Summer Intensive
You can sign up for intensives and courses throughout the year, but the Summer Intensive is the most famous - it takes place during student practice.
Summer intensive is, first of all, team development of an IT product. In just two weeks, participants in teams create full-fledged applications. Our specialists act as customers and mentors.
The Summer Intensive is attended by both students and accomplished professionals, including those who want to work with us. Every year we receive about 500 applications and give tests in Web Java, Android Java, Frontend (Java Script), C# Desktop, QA and analytics. We are gradually adding new areas, for example, test automation (SDET). With the help of test tasks, we select candidates who are ready for real project work in a team.
Results:
2019 teams participated in the Summer Intensive 17. At the defense of projects, we asked them to calculate how many resources were required for this. It turned out that each team worked on average more than 200 hours, wrote up to 3000 lines of code, and completed dozens of text cases.
One of the brightest projects this year is a travel app. It helps to plan a route, book a hotel or hostel, and even pack things for the trip, focusing on the weather forecast. Also among the projects are services for buying tickets and checking information about new movies, managing a hotel, tracking achievements in online games.
Summer intensive statistics
Get it done in one day: meetups and hackathons
Experienced developers, unlike students, are more focused on sharing experience rather than learning. For them, we hold one-day conferences and hackathons, experiment with entertaining quizzes.
Mitapa
Meetup is a synthesis of a lecture and a conference. During the evening, participants listen to 3-5 reports, ask questions, get acquainted and communicate. This format proved to be useful and in demand. Since the beginning of the year, we have already held nine meetings in Samara, Saransk and Ulyanovsk - in the areas of Backend, Frontend, QA&SDET, analytics, mobile development. In September there will be a meetup on β join!
Hackathons
Hackathons are popular with both beginners and experienced professionals. Participants work in teams and compete with each other. For them, this is an opportunity to learn new skills and just spend a day off to good use.
Last winter we held a Mobile Hackathon in Ulyanovsk. Participants wrote geolocation applications, tested them on city streets, and looked for virtual equipment to fight the winter cold (for example, fur coats and flamethrowers). The teams that completed the fastest were given thermoses and other warming prizes. In our group in Contact you can see .
For students, we held a RoboCat hackathon together with the Polytechnic University (UlSTU). The participants in the teams programmed virtual robots in Java to participate in the tournament, prescribed algorithms for behavior in battle, an attack and retreat strategy.
Presentation of diplomas to the participants of βRoboCat-2019β
Π‘ΡΠ°ΠΆΠΈΡΠΎΠ²ΠΊΠ°
Some developers want to get a glimpse into a company's internal "kitchen" before entering into an employment contract. In these cases, we conduct an internship. It is divided into two categories:
- internal - training with a mentor, on average from 3 weeks to 3 months, depending on the direction.
- external is a brief introduction to our development processes and can be completed remotely.
Both juniors and middles come for internships, and we sometimes invite graduates or senior students. For them, this is an opportunity to check whether a new profession suits them and what skills need to be improved.
Dmitry, project manager
FAQ
β What are the most demanded areas?
β Most of all interest in Java, C#, Frontend, mobile development, quality assurance (QA).
Do you accept students of all ages?
βEveryone who is ready to learn comes to us. Experienced, beginners and even people from other professions. We gladly accept the latter for QA and analytics courses. We build their training in such a way as to immediately consolidate all the acquired skills in practice. Yes, it is a little more difficult for adult specialists to memorize new information, but they have a more responsible approach to learning and further work.
- Are there online courses?
- So far, only external internships can be done remotely. If you live in another city and want to study, come visit us for meetups and intensives!
How will the site develop?
β We continue to study the feedback and wishes of the participants, conduct the most popular activities in all regions where SimbirSoft operates. This year we held the Summer Intensive in Kazan for the first time and were pleased with the result: almost three times more participants came than we expected! We involved our Samara colleagues in the organization, now we are planning an intensive course in Samara.
The big news!
In autumn we plan to rebrand IT.Place β we will announce a new name soon! We plan to expand the boundaries and become a universal educational platform for IT professionals from different cities. With us, every IT specialist will be able to study, learn new things, get acquainted and communicate on topics βabout ITβ. We want to develop the community and raise the level of not only our employees, but also the external audience in order to qualitatively improve the level of IT in the regions. We invite you to everyone who wants to develop and become better with us. Well, stay tuned!
Thank you for your attention! We hope that our experience was interesting and useful for you.
Source: habr.com