Forging juniors at Elements Part II
Written by Maria Vătăşoiu and Yahia el sherbini
At Elements we are always looking for new development talent. In order to find people with the skill set we are looking for, we decided to launch our own, in-house, junior developer training program, a.k.a. the Elements Academy. Under the wings of one of our Senior developers, two junior developers are initiated in the wonderful world of Python and Django and follow a six-month training program. In 2015, valued colleagues Aart and Eltjona completed the program, in February 2016 new recruits Maria and Yahia enrolled.
Maria: I can say one thing led to another in my story with Elements: I studied Electrical Engineering, which led to an interest and some experience with computer networks, which led to learning a bit of Python on my own for scripting, which led to web development at Elements as it finally all aligned. I had the wonderful chance of joining the Elements Junior Python Program together with a hard working and resourceful colleague, Yahia.
Yahia: I came to the Netherlands right after finishing by B.Sc. in Egypt to get an M.Sc. Degree. During that time I cycled. A lot. Which was a big deciding factor in my stay here after my studies. After finishing my M.Sc. In Business Information Systems and considering different roles/careers, I have decided to learn programming. This is when I came across Elements on Linkedin, the Junior Program was perfect for my situation and it was to learn Python, the language I preferred during my endeavor. The impression I got from Elements was that its creative and colorful. After receiving the offer and going through the Junior Program I have realized that I chose the best place to start!
We both feel extremely lucky to have been given the chance to participate in this Junior Program and have an experienced Senior Developer (David) at our disposal providing precious guidance. Because of the emphasis on learning it turns out that coding is not just googling Stack Overflow, it’s mostly about reading the documentation…
The program started with going over Python basics, then applying them to algorithms (sorting, lists and search trees). It was an eye opener on how high level languages work and hide these basic algorithms from you. Following that we started learning Django and the Django REST Framework and redid the technical assignment with our new acquired superpowers.
It was generally a smooth ride with a few struggles. However, everything can be overcome with these of are our tips:
- (Again:) documentation is key
- Google is both your friend and foe. So you should also: Ask, then ask again, then ask one more time.
- Don’t tackle everything at once. One task at a time.
- There are multiple ways of looking at the same problem.
- (If you want to get on David’s good side) learn vim and don’t mention PyCharm.
We appreciate the culture at Elements from the start because the recruitment process was very straightforward. It consists of an initial interview, a technical assignment and a second technical interview for discussing the solution. The whole atmosphere is relaxed and to the point, and we are Agile, so as developers we can focus on the nuts and bolts, but trust the product is going in the right direction and have our voices heard. The company is also pretty international which helps with seeing diverse points of view and the easier integration of foreigners as myself, but strong Dutch influences (such as directness) and Python are luckily present.
We would recommend the experience to any aspiring or Junior web developer as we are both passionate about what we do here and we feel that we learned a lot so far. Of course we will continue to learn after graduating from the program while working on projects as juniors.
Originally published at www.elements.nl on September 22, 2016.
