The Diverse Tech Talent of the Future Is Here in Oakland Now
by Kirsten Lundgren, Lead, TechHire Oakland
Don’t let people tell you there’s not enough diverse talent for the tech industry. I have proof that there is right here in Oakland — and over 120 people to back me up.
TechHire Oakland, which soft launched in Oakland during national TEQWeek last month, is committed to supporting residents navigating non-traditional pathways into tech careers — from bootcamps, community colleges, and community based organizations.
Our goal leading greater Oakland’s development as a national TechHire City, is to connect 1,000 of these individuals to living-wage internships, apprenticeships, and jobs by 2020.
On April 26th, we co-hosted a unique employer engagement event for Oakland’s underrepresented, non-traditional talent, Passport to Tech Careers Pathways, with the Kapor Center, home of inclusive tech done right. This interactive, small-group coaching event featured companies demo-ing projects and skills used on the job, and position-specific advice on resumes.
In total, over 120 diverse current and former students of TechHire Oakland training partners crowded a packed room, energetically exploring pathways and preparing to stake their claim in software engineering, dev ops, IT, cyber security, and UI/UX/design and tech sales.
Fostering this local talent pipeline is urgent, given the East Bay’s high demand for tech employees:
The 120 people who attended are just a small portion of greater Oakland’s tech talent pool seeking to land one of the 26,000 new tech jobs forecast in the East Bay region between 2012 and 2022.
These positions are not being filled fast enough via traditional hiring of four year computer science graduates. Such companies are missing a major opportunity to harness local, untapped talent. The African American and Latinx community comprises over 55% of Oakland’s residents, but less than 20% of its tech workers. The unemployment rate for young adults of color in Alameda County is 22%.
But Oakland is making a name for itself as a leading national location for organizations and companies innovating to solve the lack of diversity in tech via training and on-the-job learning. TechHire Oakland is the one-stop-shop connecting talent to as many of these high-quality opportunities as possible, and creating some of our own.
Engaged employers are key to changing the game:
TechHire Oakland’s network of 20+ training partners can grow all the talent in the world, but can’t bring opportunity where it’s most needed unless employers are ready to do their part. That’s why we curate intimate employer engagement opportunities like Passport to Tech Careers Pathways.
In rotating coaching groups, attendees learned from Adobe about its engineering Project 1324, a platform for emerging creatives to collaborate through a series of global digital art projects. Workday demonstrated basics behind cyber security best practices used to protect their computing systems. And Airbnb shed light on its unique, automated management of data center networks… among several other demos from IDEO/Ideo.org, Lending Club, Locus Energy, Navis, Uber, and 99 Designs.
Perception changes, for both talent and employers:
We believe that meaningful exposure between employers and non-traditional talent leads to perception change that, with the right incentives, leads to new behaviors:
In the words of one attendee, “[The event] helped me understand the skill level I am really at, inspired me to continue my education, and motivated me to want to work with intelligent company employees like the ones I met.”
A Vice President of IT shared his new perspective: “I spend so much time immersed with traditional tech grads, it took me a few minutes to adjust to a different crowd. But once I did, I was able to connect with the highly-qualified people I met — I hope they felt the same! Absolutely will continue to stay engaged.”
In this vein, we want to see more talented people seeking the right training and more companies showing up for inclusive coaching and hiring.
A purposeful approach to tech inclusion and call to action:
We’re excited to scale up employer engagement in support of greater Oakland’s non-traditional tech talent, and to advance the broader goal of building a more inclusive tech ecosystem in the months ahead.
TechHire Oakland is committed to the following goals:
- Mapping greater Oakland’s emerging tech training landscape and establishing a data baseline for graduation and job placement rates
- Improving curriculum and connectivity between training partners so students gain relevant skills and are guided across the fastest, lowest cost path to a new career.
- Engaging tech businesses to expand hiring, apprenticeships, coaching, and technical interview practice
- Boosting community awareness of tech pathways via interactive online resources and public events
- Amplifying our learnings and best practices regionally and nationally across a network of 70 TechHire cities.
The diverse tech talent pools of the future are here in Oakland now. We’re calling on local employers, training organizations, funders, and public sector partners to get plugged into our movement today.
