Office Hours
A Community Driven Mentorship Program
TL;DR:
It’s a mentorship program built to support newcomers in the tech community. You should participate. Yes, you.
> Member sign-up
> Slack sign-up
How we got here
I started my education at Ivy Tech in 2003 and completed my bachelor’s at IUPUI in 2013. Working throughout delayed my graduation, but what I lost in time, I gained in experience. Near the end of my time at IUPUI, I realized that most of what I was learning was already falling out of favor within the software community. I don’t believe it was IUPUI’s fault. I understand the institution of academia is slow by design to protect the integrity of education and the tradition of knowledge transfer. When I left school though, it was clear that I had a lot of work ahead of me.
The first thing I set out to do was learn what I did not know. I joined a number of tech meetups and even though I only understood about ten percent of what they were saying, I figured it was free education from some of the smartest people in town. Listening to them discuss bleeding edge technology gave me a destination. I began plotting a knowledge trajectory that would take me where I wanted to go. Even if it took me years to catch up, at least I’d end up in the right place.
“The first thing I set out to do was learn what I did not know”
Having gained so much, I pushed my peers to attend these events, but almost everyone admitted to being intimidated by the subject matter. After a number of failed reassurances, I began to understand that the high-end nature of these groups made them the intellectual equivalent of “the rich feeding the rich.” It was never their intention to exclude people, but providing content on any one subject long enough naturally filtered the groups into something largely unapproachable to newcomers.
It turned out there were lots of people who had left school or a job entirely out of touch with what they needed to be considered for a position in the tech industry. It was at this point that I partnered with my IUPUI mentor Todd Shelton to offer free intermediate-level workshops on a variety of technologies to the community instead of the high-level talks in an effort to get people from almost ready to job ready.
“The goal was to get people from almost ready to job ready”
We started Dev Workshop because we saw a problem that no one was addressing. I wanted to give back to the community that had given me so much. It was far more work than I ever imagined, but it developed skills and relationships that have far outweighed the costs. We never set out to make money and did our best not to lose much. Our community was always grateful. About once a year, when I was ready to throw in the towel, someone would come up to us after an event and tell us that our workshops gave them the direction they needed to reboot their career, and that’s all I needed for a long time.
In the four years I participated, we hosted dozens of monthly workshops, two highly affordable local workshop-based conferences, and several free all-day workshops taking people from start to end on a single project. I eventually stepped away as the last of the co-founders to handle a family crisis. Todd continues to support one of the largest tech meetups in Indianapolis at 1,260 members. He always was and remains one of the most dedicated individuals I’ve ever met.
The Purpose
Through Dev Workshop, I met Emily Trimble. At the time, she was a recruiter who seemed to understand developers better than most of the aggressively extroverted folk in that profession. Since then she’s gone from recruiter to Campus Director for The Iron Yard’s Indy location and then Program Manager for Indy Women in Tech (IWiT) for TechPoint. [1][2][3]
During her time at The Iron Yard, I attended their events where students would interact with local professionals to network and show off their skills. As someone who’s learned everything the hard way, I’m happy to give actionable, pragmatic advice. The students appeared to be torn between taking that advice and networking with potential employers. I asked Emily and some tech-friends if they thought it’d be valuable to offer to answer more questions in a more casual setting, and the response was overwhelmingly positive.
From there, Emily and I put together some experts and the infrastructure to see through the first few weeks of ad-hoc mentorship. We decided to stick with a term most people leaving school would be familiar with; something that represented the idea of receiving extra help from a professor: “office hours.”
I believe an organized effort to get existing professionals and budding tech-workers in the same space is going to pay dividends in several ways:
> Fill the knowledge gaps
Students are always asking what they can do to stand above the competition. There are lots of ways to go the extra mile and industry professionals can help you find yours.
> Develop a resilient career trajectory
Gaining advanced knowledge of where the industry has been, where it is, and where it’s going will give new entries the information they need to make sure they aren’t left behind by the next major industry pivot. Complacency in tech is a death sentence.
> Develop a culture of giving back
Most of the people leading the current tech circles are those who’ve received benefit from them in the past. Continuing this cycle is essential.
> Long-game recruiting/networking
Students are often intimidated by networking and mock-interviews. The Office Hours program gives both parties a chance to get to know each other without the tensions of an interview. These people will be submitting applications within a year or two, so what better way to start building a hot list of talent and employers than when they’re at their most authentic. Participation as a mentor helps build leadership skills and increases company notoriety within the community. It also counts as volunteering for any company participating in the salesforce.org 1-1-1 integrated philanthropy model. Participating as a member helps get your name out there as someone passionate about their field of work. There’s nothing better than going to a job interview and knowing the interviewer from a more comfortable social situation.
> Stronger decision making
Few new tech-field folks have the knowledge to differentiate between a good opportunity and one that’s “too good to be true.” As we work to close the diversity gap in tech, we would lose fewer brilliant individuals if they had the knowledge they need to avoid taking a position at a company with a reputation of harassment or intolerance.
> Grow roots and bloom
Developing a strong network of business contacts in Indianapolis first can be the thing individuals need to stay in Indiana. A lot of jobs are filled by referrals and it can be harder to get started in another city when you already have good job offers with friends here.
The Solution (v1.2.0)
We have three working components: mentors, facilitators, and members (mentees). To reduce the barriers to entry, we’ve decided to host this in Slack. We’ve already had members requests in-person events and mentors asking to open their availability to “always” so members would be encouraged to ask questions whenever they need help. These were always on the roadmap, but we didn’t think people would ask for them so soon; so that may become a priority sooner than later. We’re always taking feedback on how to improve the program.
We’ve prepared about a dozen mentors with the idea that each one could handle ten members per session. I’ve signed on dozens of members myself, but we’ve got a lot of unused capacity. Now that we’ve validated the infrastructure, we’re ready to open membership to everyone interested in speaking with industry professionals about software engineering, career management, job hunting, interaction design, UX, startups, enterprise companies, management, etc.
So, whether you’re just learning to code, positioning yourself for your first job, or trying to further your career, we’re here to help. We don’t have membership fees or monthly dues. We’re simply here to match up the people that need help with the people who can provide it.
It’s an easy two step process
Thank you.
– Scott Williams
Founder, The Society for Excellence in Software and Design.
Sr. Software Engineer, UI-Kernel, Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
