NSS & Code Campfire Invest in tech talent
NSS announced the ProTech (Protect our Tech Talent Pipeline) initiative in December of 2024. As part of ProTech we announced that we would be launching a series of continuing education programs aimed at adult job seekers with tech skills but no current tech job. We’ve been working on the program since that time but haven’t had much to say in public. It’s time to break radio silence and let you all know what we have been working on and what’s coming up soon.
A lot of what has been happening so far has been research into identifying the continuing education topics that would be most valuable for job seekers - using our NSS graduates in software development and data analytics as the primary research subjects. We started the research by analyzing skills currently in demand using Lightcast to help inform the questions we asked our Seekers and graduates. We then conducted in-person interviews with graduates pursuing jobs in both data analytics and software development as well as written surveys of our seekers in those two groups. And we extended our research to cover NSS alumni employed for 6 months to 3 years to get their perspectives on what would have been the most valuable continuing education topics for them - either during their job search or during their early time as junior developers.
As a result of the research we have identified a number of topics that offer value as continuing education for job seekers. These topics include some intended to give seekers additional skills that they do not currently have as well as some intended to help seekers connect and integrate skills they already have. We found that seekers were open to multiple different forms of learning experiences, including active and experiential classroom learning, individual asynchronous learning, and team-based project-centered learning. There was also a desire for some form of guidance from experienced professionals, whether as classroom instructors or coaches/mentors.
Based on what we learned in our research as well as on our accumulated experience with hundreds of job seekers, we selected several learning topics to target in three initial classes. Two of these classes are designed for graduates of our full-stack web development program or other junior talent pursuing software development roles. The other is designed for graduates of our data analytics bootcamp or job seekers with similar training and skills pursuing junior data analyst or business intelligence roles. All three courses are in development. We have also identified additional potential topics for development later this year.
Remember, under the ProTech program qualified students are able to take these classes at no charge - yeah, I said it, they’re free! Watch our blog, newsletters, and social media for more information regarding the launch of these first three ProTech continuing education courses including details of course contents, learning objectives, prerequisite knowledge, and how to apply. I can tell you that we expect to launch one class per week over the next three weeks, so it’s all starting very soon.
These new classes are in addition to our Advanced SQL for Developers course which is available through ProTech. Through our first two sessions this year, we have been able to provide 33 Seekers with advanced SQL skills. We anticipate opening up our August session to eligible students outside of NSS later this month.
I’d also like to mention another great resource for NSS Seekers and working alumni - codecampfire.org. It’s not an NSS program although it’s one we endorse and support. Code Campfire was launched by NSS graduates, spearheaded by Preston Robbins. It offers a place for Seekers to gather for community, to ask and answer questions, to work together, to get coaching, etc. (Mentorship is something our Seekers were looking for in our research.) It’s early days for them but they are doing great work. Shout out also to Lynn Samuelson who is working with Preston specifically on integrating mentored projects into Code Campfire. We had a chance to sit in last week during the demo and retrospective of the first project team and it was impressive. Code Campfire is already offering a place to continue learning for NSS Seekers and another way to build community and help others for NSS grads and other members of the tech community. Just like ProTech, it’s another way for us all to support and protect the growth of junior tech talent in our community.
ProTech is partially funded under a Grant Contract with the State of Tennessee.
