Opening the Floodgates to Untapped Talent: Why We Started Yet Another Tech Academy
We’re living in a magnificent time of innovation and unprecedented opportunity in the tech industry. Entrepreneurs from all over the world are migrating to the Bay Area for their shot at building the next startup unicorn. While some are benefitting from the rise in opportunity, this influx has caused something of a crisis for others. Income inequality is at an all-time high. Unemployment for blacks in the Bay Area is 2–3 times the average. Rent prices across SF, Oakland, and San Jose are some of the highest in the nation, pushing black residents out of these cities in significant numbers.
At the same time, there’s a huge need for skilled technical talent. On the surface, it seems like there would be a natural fit for companies to leverage the surrounding communities as a source for talent. Unfortunately, these tech companies have struggled mightily to engage and hire diverse populations despite higher levels of black and brown grads in computer science. People in melinated communities turned to for-profit education institutions in an attempt to quickly gain the skills needed to qualify for jobs. These institutions by and large failed to deliver on their promise again, again, and again, oftentimes leaving people in deeper debt and minimal job prospects.
Other attempts to solve this problem, such as re-introducing bootcamps have provided a bit of relief. For an average time period of 10.8 weeks and cost of $11,063, students could learn the latest JavaScript framework and after graduation, obtain a job as a software engineer earning upwards of $100k a year. These bootcamps are ideal for those who can afford them, but unfortunately, that’s not a realistic option for a lot of people in the melinated communities across the Bay Area. Not many people, regardless of race and ethnicity, can afford to live in the Bay Area for 3 months salary free while spending ~$11,000 learning to code. Even with scholarships, deferred payments, and alternative lending companies providing financing, people of color are missing out on this job boom simply because the solutions aren’t tailored to our population. Access to high quality technical education shouldn’t be limited to those who have the luxury of time and disposable income. To me, this was unacceptable and I felt motivated to provide an alternative solution.
I knew I wanted to start an organization that focused on teaching the skills needed to begin a career in tech. I called up the smartest folks I knew to develop a foundational plan for what would become Floodgate Academy. We named ourselves Floodgate because we know there is a plethora of untapped talent in our communities. With proper training and relevant experience, we can provide a consistent, qualified, diverse pipeline of talent to the tech industry that it desperately needs. This new organization had to be something relevant to the people we felt were constantly overlooked, not just a replica of the existing bootcamp models. We decided to build our organizational foundation on the following:
- Focus on community-minded people who wouldn’t have gone to a 4 year college, or are currently underemployed
- No cost to the student to attend. Costs would be shifted to sponsors and receiving institutions
- Transportation, food, connectivity, and equipment would be covered and students would receive a stipend equal to a living wage
- Flexible hours with around the clock support
- Classes must have >25% women enrolled
Keeping with our non-traditional theme, we chose the area of developer operations(DevOps) as our initial curriculum focus. DevOps made sense to us for a few reasons:
- We noticed a clear need in devops curriculum as most programs are focused on web and mobile
- The types of companies that need/employ DevOps engineers are usually in a more mature stage
- It provides a great foundation for other disciplines in tech
- Our staff has expertise in building highly available, scalable systems for some of the largest web services in the world
As we began to talk with our peers who are recruiters, hiring managers, and senior engineers about the traditional bootcamp space, we consistently heard “…if they had some work experience outside of class projects before applying, they’d be more employable.” To address this, we decided to incorporate two separate 3 month internship experiences before a student graduates. During the internship, we knew it would be vital to provide support to not only the student, but also to the company. We hold bi-weekly 1:1’s with the hiring manager and student. Every other week, we take that feedback and have a half day of professional and technical development with the student and FGA staff. Our success as an organization shouldn’t be solely determined by placement. We measure our success through placement, retention, and advancement. This gives us more insight into the quality of the experience our diverse candidates have at these companies and in turn builds a more sustainable talent pipeline.
Over the course of the past year, we’ve been extremely pragmatic in building the type of organization that will have a lasting positive impact for both the underserved community and tech community. Now that we’ve finished our latest pilot and placed a candidate, we’re ready to expand our reach to help more people of color across the country.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge some of the amazing folks who helped us along this journey.
- Olatunde Sobomehin and Heather Starnes from StreetCode Academy and Live in Peace down in East Palo Alto for providing us with space and students to pilot my program
- Dr. Bryan Brown for giving the FGA team the keys to curriculum development
- Cedric Brown from the Kapor Center for Social Impact for giving us a generous grant to fund our placement focused pilot
- Sean Murphy from ICA/Fund Good Jobs for helping us understand the world of nonprofits and giving us the guidance to structure a great organization
- Everyone who’s given invaluable advice and kept encouraging us to not give up on this effort including family, friends, co-workers, members of the community, companies, and professional colleagues
2017 is shaping up to be an exciting year for Floodgate. We’re starting our first full stack web cohort in Seattle lead by Arif Gursel. We’re continuing our DevOps focused curriculum in Oakland and will be starting a new cohort in the spring. If you’re interested in learning more about our program, volunteering, or donating to the cause, please feel free to check out our website.
DeVaris Brown is the CEO and Lead Instructor at Floodgate Academy. DeVaris has over 15 years professional experience as a full stack developer, systems engineer, and product manager. Outside of work, he’s also pretty nice behind the turntables or camera.
