CoDe Academy 2017 edition

“Are you a student looking to start your software career? Are you ready though?

Do you get the feeling that you might still have a few things to learn before you’re truly prepared for the world of professional software development? How would you like a free 4-day intense hands-on course in git, jenkins, and docker?”

For young software development jedis our sales pitch for Continuous Delivery Academy really is a no-brainer. Four days of essential training directed by experienced software professionals - totally free of charge. If you’re a recent graduate looking to break into software development, it’s the deal of the century.

Last year, we started CoDe Academy with the aim of teaching students the best in modern software development practices. In Trondheim, Copenhagen, Aarhus and Oslo we gathered together the ambitious and the curious for a four-day program of action-packed CoDe and DevOps training. We even had some fun while we did it.

By the end of our CoDe roadshow, we had shared some of our most coveted knowledge with around 400 participants. How did it go down with the students? Pretty well. In our survey, 100% of the attendees said they would recommend the CoDe Academy to a friend. 100%. We nailed it! Now we had to bring it to even more cities in 2017.

We never rest on our laurels though. Despite the success of CoDe Academy 2016, we wanted to make the 2017 CoDe Academy even better. A new year means new techniques, new knowledge, new approaches.

We started by listing all the things we wished universities would teach the students and made one post-it note for every subject. We then grouped the post-its into topics that could form the backbone of a curriculum.

We asked ourselves “what are the most important things to know about DevOps and CoDe when you are newly graduated?” The answer to that question ended up becoming an intense four day course spanning Git, Jenkins, Docker and testing.

CoDe Academy Gothenburg

The first Continuous Delivery Academy of the year was held at Chalmers University in Gothenburg in the middle of June.

The academy is based on the principle of “teach a little, do a lot.” We introduce the concepts and tools as efficiently as possible and give the students lots of time to actually try them out. By the time they graduate from CoDe Academy we want them to be able to use all the tools. That’s the ambition.

The first three days is about pouring as much training and knowledge as we can into their brains. These days will make your head explode! From 9 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon we bombard them with new topics. It’s relentless.

The last day is all about using the new technologies. The students work in teams - sharing, collaborating and developing each others ideas and inspirations. After the intensity of the last three days “teaching” takes a back seat. Now it’s about offering subtle guidance aimed at getting the teams on the right track for success.

And they nail it! We never fail to be impressed by how many reach their goal and can reproduce a functional pipeline, running in containers, testing in several steps in scripted pipelines and integrating automatically to the master branch.

In three days we frequently see students go from knowing virtually nothing to mastering the tools. It’s mind-blowing. Not just for them, but for us too.

So how was it?

The feedback we got was overwhelmingly positive. Here’s a sample:

Q. What did you expect to get from the Academy, and did you get it?

A. I was expecting a normal course in Git, Jenkins, and Docker, which would probably be too hard for me and I’d have to quit halfway through. Or, the opposite, it would be too simple and try to sell me the “real” courses if I want to learn anything useful. However, what I got was a surprise - a real course that was not easy, not hard - just perfect! And it left me wanting more.

A. You guys did a great job putting this course together and executing it. Kudos!

Big applause to everyone that attended! You people really worked hard and succeeded!

Why do we do it?

When you tell people that you run a four-day course with professional certified trainers free of charge they immediately ask, “where is the catch?” The catch is that there is no catch.

Here’s the thing. Demand for Continuous Delivery and DevOps skills is far outstripping what is available in the job market. We really feel this at Praqma. We had a thought: “Why do we only train our recruits? Why not train everyone looking for work? Let’s make it so that these skills are shared across the industry and not just in Praqma. Going out to help a company becomes so much easier if even one person inside that company knows a little about DevOps and Continuous Delivery.

We are a knowledge sharing company. We love it. And teaching others all the cool things you can do is a great way of showing-off!