Building an internal tech team is full of gotchas. And to limit those new hires to "senior" folks leaves out thousands of exceptional junior and mid-level people. There's a better way, and we can help. So, let's build your team, together.
The Residency infuses a tried-and-true, principle-driven development process with a people-centric approach to talent development and company growth. This is accomplished through a tenured partnership between ZEAL, an established software development consultancy in the field, and LEARN academy, a prominent workforce skills education institution.
Through an efficient and effective onboarding process under the mentorship of ZEAL, residents begin project work immediately while being mentored and guided by expert consultants to ensure the best outcomes for companies. Additionally, LEARN academy provides expert educational mentorship opportunities to the residents to cement their learning, so that team integration and long-term growth is a success for both the resident(s) and the partnering organization.
For the duration of the 12-month Residency, an organization works directly with both LEARN academy and ZEAL.
Residents are employees of the company during the 12-month program period. Residents can be existing internal employees who the company is looking to level-up, or a newly hired junior or mid-level developer.
ZEAL pairs Residents with a ZEAL lead engineer, who works side-by-side on various internal company projects to ensure that the process is followed fully, the work is delivered completely, and the quality standards are met through the length of the program.
LEARN academy focuses on shaping the Residents ongoing career growth and professional development through educational mentorship and one-on-one coaching. LEARN supports the partnering organization with a replicable team management program to support the resident post-program and the companies long-term talent growth initiatives.
With a hefty focus on the path from junior- or mid-level to senior-level software developer, each Resident is paired with an experienced mentoring developer at ZEAL. Both the mentoring developer and the Resident are part of the same project team, working together on real world problems and delivering features.
One day a week, we turn the tables and the Resident becomes a mentor themself. Under the supervision and direct support of LEARN academy's instructor core, each Resident spends time with code school candidates mentoring them on the same habits, practices, and architectural decision they're immersed in throughout the week.
At gap, we have over 10 different web and mobile applications that are written in 6 different languages and use various different frameworks. It was quickly apparent to the gap prod development team that Emma's experience at LEARN and ZEAL gave her the comfort level needed to approach complicated business logic or new technologies with confidence. She also perfected her communication and collaboration skills due to the regular pairing she did at LEARN and ZEAL which is not a skill set that many developers offer.
The first step is to tell us about who you are and we'll reach out and schedule an appointment.
As pointed out in a recent Forbes piece, “The people creating this technology have the power to influence how it works, and that’s too big a responsibility for any single demographic to have full control. A lack of diverse ideas and representation could lead to further disparities between gender, race, and class.” Cultural diversity is at the heart of society, and it must also be at the heart of those technical teams reshaping the landscape of the world.
As pointed out in a recent Forbes piece, “The people creating this technology have the power to influence how it works, and that’s too big a responsibility for any single demographic to have full control. A lack of diverse ideas and representation could lead to further disparities between gender, race, and class.” Cultural diversity is at the heart of society, and it must also be at the heart of those technical teams reshaping the landscape of the world.
This internship has shown me the different parts of a tech company as well as the different roles within a development team. It has been a very warm and friendly environment to grow and learn in and I am so thankful for the time I got to spend with the Zeal community.
Everyday I’m exposed to new content. I’m participating in code reviews on a daily basis. Learning is accelerated through immersion, and I’m progressing exponentially faster than I would be trying to learn on my own.
Candidates for Residency are not new to software development. They are mid-level professionals (with typically 6-36 months of work experience) who demonstrate ambition, an eagerness to learn, and a high capacity to work. Candidates are vetted by ZEAL and selection is based on being a good fit for the program and partnering company. Most importantly, ideal Residents are professionals on a clear path to senior technical leadership and/or engineering management.
Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap,
but by the seeds that you plant.
Residents dedicate four days a week (32+ hours) to work on the partnering organization’s project, supported and guided by a senior engineer at ZEAL. Through direct mentorship on an organizations project(s), ZEAL's senior engineers work side-by-side with the resident and guide them through a real-world approach to building scalable software. Throughout the program residents will develop tangible replicable skills. Focus areas include:
How to run successful recurring planning meetings, daily stand ups, and reflection meetings
How to breakdown large features into small defined increments
What successful pair-programming strategies look like
How to communicate successes and challenges to less-technical stakeholders
How to present complex ideas to technical and non-technical people
How to adapt to changes in technology
How to craft quality code in a scalable and maintainable way
Residents spend one day each week (~8 hours) reinforcing their hands-on learning at LEARN academy through educational mentorship, ongoing professional development, and one-on-one career coaching. of developers-in-training within the classroom. Residents receive a significant amount of training and support to strengthen them as model professionals within their organizations including:
Professional One-on-One Coaching - 2 - 4 hours/month
In-Person Trainings on Self Management, Leadership, Communication, Team
Building/Relationship Development, and Documentation & Optimization Topics
Professional Development Plans (PDP) with Monthly Check-Ins led by the partnering organization
Mentorship of LEARN students (new developers)
Team Management Practicum - Managing the Development Process
Outside Learning Events - 1/month
Yes. The Software Residency is available to pre-existing teams of junior- and mid-level developers. If your team includes senior-level developers, we can adapt the program to incorporate them into the mentorship training portion, ultimately bettering the entire team.
We strongly believe designers are pivotal to a successful development experience; however, at this time, Residents are software developers. We can integrate an existing design team into the program as mentors and domain experts.
Due to COVID-19, LEARN and ZEAL will continue to operate remotely, as well as support residents throughout the US.
The order of operations for interviewing and hiring is a collaboration; however, we assume responsibility for all technical interviews, with the long-term intension to train your team on how to perform these technical interviews in the future. Depending on your company's process of interviewing new team members, we do multipart interviews that strive to understand these three characteristics: (1) alignment of values with a general desire to do this type of work, (2) technical abilities with a clear capacity and interest to grow, and (3) a collaborative communication style.
Yes, it's an option. Over the years of mentoring less-experienced folks while maintaining consistency in delivering code, we've found being too heavily weighted towards junior decreases the productivity of a more experienced person (more mentorship = less time writing code). It is an option, but we want to be mindful of a long-term imbalance.
Change and attrition are inevitable. First and foremost, two goals of the Residency are to develop a sustainable pipeline of new residency candidates and to establish a support system for those people on a technical team. With that, our first stop when attrition happens is to rely on our system to find new candidates. However, if there's a change in the first four months, we need to reflect on our collective hiring and support practices and look for what we missed that lead to a person moving on in such a short time. 10-months may reflect the high churn throughout the tech industry, which is also okay; however, we expect turnover to be much lower for people working to establish themselves in this industry.
This position is now closed. Submit this form to be notified about future Software Residency position openings.
