Thread by @ssmusoke

Maybe the question is not only about #JuniorDevs but rather how do we grow the talent that organizations & the industry needs.

I am the proud product of an internship program that was started by a passionate returnee technologist who had worked at Bell Labs #DevDiscuss

https://twitter.com/ThePracticalDev/status/1044753246416490497

The model used was:

1. Identify bright young pre-college students

2. Embed them with full-time developers (employees) and find ways to develop their skills and harness their eagerness to learn by working on real-world client projects

#DevDiscuss

3. Focus on the hard skills, and the soft skills - time keeping, communication, team playing, learning, presentation skills in the same vein

4. During university a 30 min public transport ride away, they would work 16 hours a week plus (2 half days and Saturday)

#DevDiscuss

What we found was great synergies between the full-time and part-timers, we did not take them junior devs ;-) rather full-time employees in waiting.

There was learning by the full-time employees from the part-time as the two were almost inseparable.

#DevDiscuss

I am currently working with 2 new “devs” with amazing output production ready code, that we are using.

We are very agile in development, merging their outputs and opening new tickets for gaps identified to maintain velocity - “Always maintain a working codebase”

#DevDiscuss

However it is a tough demanding job for the me (and senior developers who have to support the new-comers).

Mentally I am leveraging advice I was given “Work yourself out of a job by empowering others to do it” which is the payoff

#DevDiscuss

In #Africa the concept is #PayItForward, grow someone today who will help the world tomorrow

Share your skills and knowledge by helping others grow to grow the industry we work in

Thats all folks …

Good morning & #GeekLove from #Kampala, Uganda the Pearl of Africa