CTD Labs Apprenticeship
The CTD Labs Apprenticeship is a full-time, 40 hours-per-week, professional program for junior software engineers to get real-world software development experience by working on real projects in an agile development environment. The majority of CTD Labs’ projects involve developing apps and web technologies that advance the social good.
Apprentices are responsible for committing clean, functional, and readable code and delivering it in a timely manner consistent with real-world expectations. Additionally, Apprentices participate in a host of weekly Agile meetings, peer code reviews, pair-programming, and the mentoring of students who are going through Code the Dream classes. Apprentices leave their Code the Dream Labs experience ready to step into a multitude of software development jobs ready to contribute and be successful.
The CTD Labs Apprenticeship is a full-time W2 employment opportunity. Apprentice compensation will increase slightly to an annual salary of $30,000 ($35,000 in high cost-of-living areas). Apprentices will be offered some benefits, including health insurance.
Apprentices must live in the United States. We are unable to accept international applicants.
We recognize that, for a variety of reasons, not everyone will want to or be able to become W2 employees. For those individuals, we are exploring some alternative ways to continue to gain valuable web development experience. Please contact Lori Khamala (lori@codethedream.org) or Lucy Martinez (lucy@codethedream.org) for more details.
The Apprenticeship lasts one year, but there is a firm nine month commitment required. Apprentices who wish to continue longer than 12 months may apply for a second year.
The CTD Labs Apprenticeship can accept only a small percentage of CTD School graduates, due to funding and capacity limitations. CTD students may apply for the Apprenticeship when they submit their final projects. Occasionally, we accept candidates who are able to fulfill the requirements without having gone through CTD classes; this is on a case-by-case basis and requires completion of a take-home assignment.
To become an Apprentice in CTD Labs, applicants must demonstrate independent mastery of the below concepts.
Front-End (React.js/ React Native) Apprenticeship Requirements
- Strong skills with regarding fetching and posting data from a server using REST or graphQL
- Strong knowledge of arrays & objects and how to iterate through, edit them, and display them
- Managing state and props in React
- Knowledge of functional and class components in React
- Basic knowledge of es6 syntax
- Strong grasp of react hooks including, useState, useEffect, useContext
- Demonstrate styling ability
- Git and GitHub knowledge and use of best practices
- Understanding of basic debugging techniques
- Ability to work independently
- Walk us through a fully functioning app on your own (preferably meeting all requirements in react rubric)
Ruby on Rails Apprenticeship Requirements
- Strong knowledge of Ruby
- Basic mastery of ActiveRecord and data schemas
- Knowledge and experience with one-to-many and many-to-many object associations
- Fundamental knowledge and usage of basic CRUD in Rails
- Understanding of HTTP Requests
- Basic knowledge of SQL
- Ability to demonstrate effective styling using Bootstrap
- Testing using Rspec
- Git and GitHub knowledge and use of best practices
- Understanding of basic debugging techniques
- Ability to work independently
- Walk us through a fully functioning app on your own (preferably meeting all requirements in Rails rubric)
Additional Qualities we Seek
Besides your technical skills, we will also be looking for a mix of additional qualities in the individuals accepted into the apprenticeship, including qualities like:
- Commitment to the mission of Code the Dream
- Intention of becoming a career software developer
- Ability to fully commit to and participate in a full-time program
- Interest in using tech to advance social justice
- Potential to increase the diversity of the tech industry
- Desire to actively participate in the Code the Dream community
