Joining Andela Kenya
Please note: I left Andela in 2019. The process has probably changed since. Refer to the Andela site for the most recent info.
Also, some links may no longer be active.
I work in Andela, a company mainly of programmers (software engineers) who mostly work remotely with engineering teams of companies in the US and Europe among other regions. There’s an office in New York (HQ), San Francisco, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda.
It’s been 3 years now!
Andela always has job opportunities and I’m always asked how do I get in Andela. I always send my own summary via WhatsApp, LinkedIn, texts and emails.
Here’s a brief of the process from a summary of these writings :)
Job opportunities are published here: https://andela.com/careers/ (You can go ahead and quote me if I helped you know about a role you are keen on applying)
As mentioned earlier majority of the roles are in engineering. This is open to anyone with interest in that field, has made/ is ready to make effort to learn to programme and has the potential of always learning. Since this is my role I’ll focus on this. If you have considerable experience in the field, consider applying for the senior developer role by filling this form.
If someone is new to programming, there are many resources online. Andela has its own home study: andela.github.io/homestudy/ that is downloadable and learner-paced.
In Andela, applications for the fellowship do not require certification. The journey starts by filling in the form here: https://andela.com/fellowship/apply/.
What will follow is some tests: Psychometric and Technical Tests. For the technical,
Python is the language of choice in Kenya
so I would advocate learning that. Codecademy is a great resource. Its Python glossary is a personal go-to even now: https://www.codecademy.com/articles/glossary-python.
There’s a pass mark. You then proceed to the in-house interview at the Andela campus.
This is mostly to see if you’ll be a cultural fit. I heard that the after the oral interviews, learners are sent challenges they need to work on before the Bootcamp.
For one to get into the Bootcamp, he/she is required to have completed these challenges, normally they are 2 so one challenge per week, and they come to campus for assessments when they deliver certain outputs in the same challenges, in HTML, CSS, python-flask,…
You then proceed to Bootcamp, an intensive 2 weeks. If you have a day job and you’re advised to ask for leave and put in your all in this period. The first week will require you to be on the campus on Monday and Friday. The other days will be constant correspondence with Andelans facilitating this. The next week with be all-hands on board (all 5 days in-house)
Please note that each level has cuts and Andela does well by letting you know if you qualified to the next stage. Applicants have told me of times when Andela seemed silent but it’s usually a case of high expectations, which is expected. An applicant applies today and is refreshing mail every day for a week. It’s not clear how often you’ll be contacted but take into consideration that firstly, holidays are holidays (so expecting a response over the Christmas Holiday is pushing it :) ) and you are among hundreds if not thousands, therefore, responses must be done periodic and in batches.
All in all, you’ll learn a lot hopefully. All the best in the application and remember what Andela is about through-out this process. This video explains it:
The Andela Youtube channel will let you in on loads more.
Funny how Andela’s marketing team released an article on how to join Andela as a Software Developer while this one you’ve just read was in the draft. Well, this is a case of people coming up with the same idea independently. Actually, is there a word for it?
S/O:
- reviewer: Winnie Rotich (Fellow Andelan)
- Cohort mates in the pic: Joan Ngatia, Jee Gikera
Find more about the writer at https://md.engineer/
Stanley Ndagi is one of the featured developers here.
