We love this program for a few reasons. We have a team of experienced developers who are eager and ready to teach. The apprentice program provides opportunities for our developers to support and mentor junior talent, as well as the opportunity for new developers to test the waters at an exciting (and growing!) product company.

It’s important to us, here at Social Tables, to support the DC tech community. Beyond our involvement hosting events, we also are committed to developing local talent because we believe the entire community benefits when the talent pool in our area grows.

The Program

From day one, apprentices are fully embedded members of their squad contributing to their team’s product or objective. Apprentices are not assigned to work that nobody else wants, or to a separate project. Apprentices have a weekly huddle that may include a workshop delivered by a senior engineer, a code review session, or a deep-dive into various Social Tables products.

Apprentices are set up with two people who are integral to their success. First, an on-boarding guide who is responsible for supporting the apprentice in getting their development environment up and running, and for being their first stop for all questions as they begin taking on work. The second person is an engineer from a different team who is meant to support the apprentice’s acclimation into the engineering department and the company as a whole.

In addition to regular feedback and weekly one-on-ones with their manager, apprentices will be assessed on their progress after one month, and, after two months, are eligible to receive full-time job offers. While we hope every apprentice to whom we extend an offer stays, this is an opportunity for mutual evaluation!

The Apprentice Program lasts three months and pays a biweekly stipend commensurate with a junior software engineering role’s salary. Our hope is that after three months every apprentice will transition into a full-time engineering role. So far, we’ve had a 100% conversion rate for apprentices to full-time software engineers.

Who Should Apply?

Anyone who’s looking to build their career in software development! Folks from underrepresented groups in technology are especially encouraged to apply. Our engineering team is comprised of people with a wide range of past experiences and educational backgrounds. We believe this diversity is a major asset. Former apprentices have joined after completing a coding bootcamp, graduating with a computer science degree, teaching herself to code with support of a mentor, and many have left other careers to start working in tech. Most apprentices have not been professionally employed as developers before joining, but this isn’t a rule.

A few rules do apply; apprentices must be able to work from Social Tables Headquarters (STHQ) in Washington DC full-time for all three months of the program. But, with a fridge packed with LaCroix, Friday happy hours, and a dope snack spread at your disposal, this shouldn’t be a tough sell. Plus, we have a very flexible work from home policy, and the engineering department has deemed Thursday its team-wide work from home day. Up to you if you want to participate, or come in for an extra quiet day at the office!

Apply today and/or pass along to any aspiring software engineers in your network who may be interested in learning more about what we’re up to! Applications are due by July 29 and require submission of a code challenge.

We’re proud of this program and the talent that has come through it. For more companies with apprenticeship opportunities, check out https://apprenticeships.me/.

By the way, if you’re a more experienced developer and interested in joining our team, we’re hiring!

Launch Your Engineering Career at Social Tables! was originally published in Social Tables Tech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Three months ago I joined Social Tables as an Engineering Apprentice after completing a web development bootcamp. Today, I’m excited to be writing this post as the newest official Software Engineer on my team. I really couldn’t be happier with where I’ve ended up and am writing to share some of the (less obvious) factors that contribute to what has, so far, been an amazing start to my foray into building software. For me, the portion of my journey that kept me up at night was not succeeding in a new career; it was securing the first step. I felt confident that I was prepared to take on the day-to-day learning and struggle of not knowing wtf I was doing, but was less sure that someone would be crazy enough to pay me to do so. It’s my belief that what employers should (and, perhaps, in many cases do) seek in a ‘junior’, ‘entry-level’ or ‘apprentice’ engineer is not someone with a mastery of a particular skillset, but instead someone who is wholly un-masterful and excited to learn everyday. So, now that you’ve convinced someone you’re worth the investment, how can you determine that the organization will fit your working style and developmental needs?

1. What’s the deal with feedback? Is it shared regularly? And how?!

Something I’ve really appreciated about working in a team environment is the access to feedback on an almost-daily basis. On my team, every pull request (PR) is reviewed by at least one member of the team before merged in, and it’s up to you to assign your PR to someone from whom you’d like feedback on your code. This is great, because it allows organic feedback streams between all teammates (rather than strictly top-down), on everything from indentation, how to simplify a function, or where to remove an unneeded semicolon. Using this feedback to constantly improve your work makes you a better developer and teammate, and everyone wins! This process also empowers the team to shape the codebase and product as we see fit, given leadership and guidance from a Technical Lead and Product Manager.

2. Who’s on my team?

Software engineering, like many professions, can get get a bad rap for attracting only a certain ‘breed’ of human, but this doesn’t have to be a case. As someone coming straight from a bootcamp, I wouldn’t have necessarily wanted to join a team of folks who’d all graduated with Computer Science degrees and I love that my team is made of of people with a wide variety of previous work experiences, hobbies, lunch preferences, language skills, and go-to La Croix flavor. Diversity in backgrounds means diversity in perspectives, and I believe this helps us shape a better working environment for ourselves and product for our users.

3. Am I prepared to be embarrassed by my weak Github skills?

Is this personal and specific? Yup!!! But here’s my point: working on a team has a greater effect on your day-to-day working style than you might originally anticipate. Unlike how you may prefer to work on personal projects, spending a few days hacking away on thousands of lines of code across files committed to github with a message like “working” or “just some shit”, your work may be divided into smaller chunks to make PR review less arduous, testing easier, deploying less risky, and changes more easily understood to an outside observer. This all may take some getting used to.

4. Is learning valued and encouraged, and how?

Sure, no two engineers are alike and I’ve made plenty mention to how great it is that engineers can come from everywhere, but I do also believe the one commonality amongst us is an intrinsic interest and commitment to continued learning. As a new engineer, you’ve likely taken your own continued learning into consideration while exploring new opportunities. But, what’s even better than individuals being committed to their own learning and improvement, is working somewhere that’s invested in helping all employees reach their career development goals. Here are a few of the indicators of this at my new gig:

• A continuing education budget for all employees to cover anything from conference speaking and/or attendance, coursework, books, etc.
• Weekly team lunch & learn sessions
• Other examples of less-systematized mentorship and teaching, including a series of node lessons being delivered for any engineers who want to deepen their back-end javascript skills
• General openness to playing around with new technologies and not being afraid of failure AND general openness to talking about said failure if and when it occurs

5. Similar to the above, what will I be working on, and what opportunities will I have to expand my knowledge and expertise?

A role may be front or back-end specific, but that doesn’t mean your interest in the ‘other side’, so to speak, won’t be piqued at some point. Try to find out if you’ll have opportunities to test your chops on other portions of the stack! Starting a new job is exciting, and can be overwhelming, so while it might seem crazy to immediately start thinking about work outside of your original scope, it’s great to try and get a sense as to whether or not you’re at risk for getting pigeon-holed into a really specific type of work from the get-go, if at all possible.

5. What’s the snack spread?

JK!

5 questions you may want to ask yourself before accepting your first web dev job was originally published in Social Tables Tech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.