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Comment by ehnto | Hacker News Reader

I have genuinely never seen an in-house training program in the software industry. Maybe some bullshit industry certs that amount to a single exam. But nothing like an apprenticeship style program where over a year you are taught and mentored.

Even university doesn't teach you how to work in the industry. It's a very DIY career, we should probably change that.

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At my previous company there was an in-house training, where the first three months were dedicated to the training of a new employee. The training consisted of both the tech stack and the development and business processes used by the company.

As a result everyone knew how things worked and everyone by far exceeded the minimum level of knowledge needed to meaningfully contribute. It was a great department to work in and I miss it still.

Sadly, the company had that insane policy of only 3-4% annual raise irregardless of performance, so most people, including me, would leave after a few years.

Training in CS is giving some new-grad a job, instead of not. Plenty of companies hire senior-only.

I agree we should be doing at least that. But we could do better too. Apprenticeships are a much better transfer of practical knowledge than university, and has been a concept in use for centuries.

Think of internship programs, streamlined hiring of new grads and etc. My previous companies had both, now I don’t see that on their website. Obviously not a real statistic, but a bit disheartening.

There was a tech company in the UK who was doing it (irritatingly, I can't remember their name atm) with Oxford and Cambridge humanities grads. Just googled it and couldn't find it. If anybody remembers what I'm talking about, please reply below because now it's bugging me.

Lots of UK companies do it - google Software Engineer Apprenticeships. Vodafone, BAE, Softwire, BT, Rolls-Royce, the BBC, HMRC, tonnes do.

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