Apprenticeship Programs on the Rise
A little over 3 years ago, I posted a call to action: A Call for Apprenticeship. At the time, there were only a couple other active formal apprenticeship programs that I was aware of beyond Obtiva. Nothing changed much in the years since. Companies that had apprenticeship programs continued apprenticing, with incremental improvements, but there wasn’t much uptake from other software shops until about a year ago. These are the shops I’m aware of…
Last year, Eden Development incorporated apprenticeship, along with many other principles of software craftsmanship, into their company structure after Enrique got involved. A few months ago, Edge Case spawned an apprenticeship program after they hired Matt Yoho. More recently, Relevance and Hashrocket have started their own apprenticeship programs.
It is amazingly gratifying to see these colleagues, friends, and competitors make apprenticeship a priority. If you look at these companies and the level of respect they have earned across our industry, this is a strong signal that they believe apprenticeship works, or is at least worth trying. I’m excited to see the results of the apprenticeships at all of these great companies. Please consider starting something at your company and let me know about it.
Apprenticeship works, if given the right culture and the right amount of structure. I’m practically surrounded by former apprentices from 8th Light and Obtiva everyday on my current gig at Groupon where Nate Jackson, Colin Harris, Colin Jones, Ethan Gunderson, Justin Martin, and Michael Hines are all making significant contributions on a challenging “web scale” project.
It’s certainly a great time to be a newbie! Stay tuned to this blog as I plan to write more about starting and evolving apprenticeship programs in the coming weeks and months.
