Editorial: Growing the Software Community

There is a saying that is growing in popularity in business: "every company is a software company". If salaries and job opportunities are a good gauge for the truth of this statement, then it is indeed true. Infact the 10 jobs with the greatest expected salary gains are all related to software development and computer science. As a result enrollment is also up significantly for Computer Science degrees, but this will not be enough to sate the industries demand. This means that growing the software field provides a huge opportunity to grow the middle class in our nation which is facing wage stagnation across most other industries. 

To truly grow the software community and to unlock this amazing employment opportunities the industry must accomplish three main things:

1. Demystify Software
2. Improve Diversity
3. Create More Entry-Level Positions

1. Demystify Software

Software is not magic. It is no different from accounting or being an auto-mechanic. There are certainly people who are predisposed to all of these jobs, but anyone can learn to program in the same way that anyone can learn accounting or how to work on cars. This mindshift is fundamental and there is huge resistance to the concept both inside and outside of the industry, so I will repeat myself: anyone can learn to program.

2. Improve Diversity

While there are certainly some very compelling moral reasons for improving diversity and there is evidence that diverse groups make better decisions than homogenous ones, my argument here is purely about the numbers. Our industry is most broadly made up of, and the most welcoming to white or asian males with college degrees between the ages of 29 to 39. Looking at the demography of the United States and the total population of around 300 million people, that's about 2.75% of the total population and roughly 23% of the employable work force:

Starting number: 8.5 million people

+50% correct gender gap

+60% allow non-college grads

+31% racial/ethnic inclusion

+29% age-based inclusion

---------------------------

36.5 million people

All in, that's a potential increase of more than 300% to the potential employment pool.

3. Create More Entry-Level Positions

Perhaps the most practical change to make, is the creation of more entry-level positions. The friendliest workplace to under represented people will not matter if there are no entry-level jobs. Based on our experience and my observations, it takes about between 3 to 5 years for someone to ramp up from zero (computer literacy) to staff-level programmer. That means we need to create an environment where people can ramp in, while still allowing employers to see a profit. I believe that any software company can provide 3 entry-level positions per year for every 5 developers they employ. For us as a 50 person company, we're providing 30 entries to the industry per year. I believe the key is to provide a foot in the door, and allow the industry at large to fill in the gaps.

Editorial: A Vocational Track to Tech Jobs

I recently read an article written on the craft of software development and that got me thinking about how we as a society prepare our citizens for their careers. The gold standard for getting into a great career has been our university system for decades, if not centuries. This has been a good path for many people, myself included, but with underemployment and unemployment growing among all young people - even those with a college degree - it may be time to reexamine the paths we should be making available for people considering entering the workforce.

Silicon Valley Mogul Peter Thiel has been railing against the low return on investment of college for years, and has even been paying people to drop out of college. His basic argument, that the time and money invested in college would be better spent building a business works for some people, but there are some issues with it: 

1. available funding for business building vs. education and
2. many people may not be ready for or ever want to start their own business.

So what other options are out there?

I'd like to propose looking to vocational training across both blue and white collar jobs as a viable alternative to people looking to start their career, especially those who may not be predisposed to succeed in a four year academic environment or those for whom educational funding is not available or impractical. Further compounding this need is the fact that many colleges already reject the majority of their applicants.  For the most prestigious universities rejection may be as high as 95%, so vocational training provides an alternative path to a career.

There is nothing new about vocational training, but funding for these programs has being cut significantly over the past decade and graduates from these programs still face a stigma in this country which discourages many people from pursuing this option. My challenge to the people of the United States of America is to put these notions aside and look at expanding the types of vocational education that are available. My personal endeavor in this arena focuses on creating an ecosystem for technology jobs, but this philosophy can and should be brought to bare across many industries.

Turning to focus our lens on the software industry we currently have a talent shortage and, because the traditional educational system has not seized the opportunity that exists to increase capacity, the private sector has. Code bootcamps, or vocational programming schools have popped up all across the country with a wildly varying degree of cost and curriculum. While these schools do provide a good initial boost in requisite skill areas, they alone cannot solve the problem.  For that to happen we, in the industry and society at large, need to do two important things:

1. Create more entry-level jobs
2. Start technical education earlier

1. Create more entry-level jobs

Significantly increasing the volume of entry-level jobs is both an immediate and ongoing requirement. We must provide jobs that are a match for graduates of vocational programs that creates an onramp into the industry, or face a glut of semi-educated workers with no way in.

2. Start technical education earlier

Part of the shortfall of vocational technical education, is a gap in our primary and secondary educational systems to expose kids to technology. If we start exposure to technology early and often kids could graduate from high school with a huge head start.

Editorial: When There is a Skills Gap, Industry Needs to Fix It Themselves

A number of industries are going through a skills gap crisis - or are looking down the barrel of one.  In manufacturing, an aging workforce means that in the next 10 years retirement will free up 3.5 million jobs - and because of the skills gap, 2 million of them will likely go unfilled.

This scenario is not limited to manufacturing and yet the root cause is the same.  These industries have not managed their workforce pipeline with a long term plan.

The software industry would do well to learn from these other industries and start better talent pipeline management now.  As an industry we are facing a skill shortage crisis because the demand for software is simply outstripping the ability of our universities to educate people.  The solution to this shortage is not to simply pay more money to draw existing workers away from other employers.  To avoid the challenge of cultivating new talent is to set ourselves up for failure.  We - and other industries - need to do a much better job at on-ramping people into careers, consistently and into perpetuity.  Apprenticeship and internships are not just "feel good" programs, there are the lifeblood to our continuing prosperity.

We cannot wait for government or the university system to do it for us.  We must as a collective create a career ecosystem that provides entry points and stepping stones to the next career opportunity or face severe consequences, whether it be in the next 10, 15 or 50 years from now.

Bringing More Magic to the PATH

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting with Aaron Bridges, Abby Miles and Toto Vo.  We sat at lunch to talk about something that all four of us are passionate about: creating jobs in the tech industry.

After a great conversation around our attempts both successful and otherwise in getting people started in our industry, we talking about getting OpenSesame onboard with the tech apprenticeship model that Metal Toad, Postano and Manifest Web Design have signed onto.  The program is supported by both Worksystems, Inc. and the Technology Association of Oregon and here's an outline:

1. Apprentices are drawn out of vocational programming schools.  Carving out the time to attend a code schools for 3 to 4 months and spending $3K to $5K of someone's own money shows commitment to the industry and grit.  This is precisely what will propel people to exceed in their career.Apprenticeships focus on QA.  Starting a software career in QA means early exposure to ticketing systems (Jira, Redmine, etc) and focuses people on finding and describing bugs, which leads to better software thinking.
2. Apprentices are embedded on teams.  They are not isolated, and as such benefit from the experience of the teams they are a part of.  They also benefit from the experience of veteran developers along the way.
3. Apprenticeships are finite.  Our model calls for a 4 month stint, which gets early programmers past the catch-22 that exists in the industry: you need job experience to get a job.
4. Apprentices are paid minimum wage.  Aside from the obvious financial incentive this provides to encourage more companies to participate, this means even at individual companies, more opportunities can be offered. It also means that the bar for performance from apprenticeships can be low - and it should be low. No one working in software today is proud of code they wrote in the first 8 months of their professional experience, because if they are, they haven't learned much since then.

We're currently waiting to hear if we'll be getting funding from the State of Oregon to kick our program into high gear, but with or without that we're still looking for more partners so we can continue to provide entry level opportunities to as many people as we can.

PATH Supports the TechHire Initiative

Following the President's State of the Union Address, the US Department of Labor announced the TechHire Grant Competition - a $100 million dollar grant to support innovative approaches to moving lower skilled workers into information technology and high growth jobs.  For the software industry, with is overflowing with these types of jobs, this represents a beacon of governmental support for providing an onramp into the industry that is sorely needed.

Together with Oregon-based Worksystems, Inc., PATH is signing on to TechRise PDX - Portland's response to the TechHire Grant.  We believe this grant response will ultimately not only be good for Portland, but for the national software industry as well.

We are bringing two of our core innovations to the table:

1. Our apprenticeship model
2. Mentorship Saturdays

The first, our apprenticeship model, has allowed us, a small business of under 50 people, to commit to providing 96 apprenticeships over the next three years.  On a relatively basis, I don't know a single company in the country who is committed to making that kind of impact.  Rather than treating this as secret sauce, we will be bundling up our program as an "apprenticeship-in-a-box" and promoting it broadly among companies who are looking to make a difference in providing amazing opportunities to a broad inclusive demographic.

The second aspect, our Mentorship Saturdays have been a labor of love from our software development team.  By simply providing the space to a passionate group of senior developers, we are now able to offer an introductory exposure to the software industry to a group of 30 to 40 people every week.  This has created an opportunity for mentors not only at our company but throughout the community created a place for people to give back.

I have attached the full letter of support.  Please wish Worksystems, us and the rest of the TechRise group well.  We will let you know how things evolve!

Anyone can program

Anyone with a child under the age of 19 knows that "anyone can cook".  Thanks to Ratatouille and the folks at Pixar, a whole generation of chefs has been inspired and emboldened.  As someone working in the software industry, I have a similar vision and it is this: anyone can program.

Woah, you say.  "Isn't programming for hardcore nerds?  People with degrees in Computer Science or PHDs from Stanford?"  Yes, yes it is.  But it is also for the Unemployed Factory Worker looking to reengage in the workforce.  It is also for the Gym Manager looking for something other competing with their peers for the sole Regional Manager spot.

The software/tech industry is awash with opportunity, so much so that many job postings for senior folks continually go vacant and the top 10 of the jobs with the greatest expected salary gains are software related.  So why can't this opportunity belong to anyone?

The answer is that it can.  It will take a little vision, but I believe that in as little as 6 months anyone can be ready for an entry-level position and in 3 to 5 years anyone who sticks with it will be in a strong middle or upper income job.  

Anyone can program.  It's up to us to inspire them to try.