Edtech Insiders

Combining Education with Employment with Melissa Jones and Alison Evans-Adnani of Shopify's Dev Degree

July 06, 2022 Alex Sarlin Season 2 Episode 28
Edtech Insiders
Combining Education with Employment with Melissa Jones and Alison Evans-Adnani of Shopify's Dev Degree
Show Notes Transcript

Melissa Jones leads Technical Programs for Shopify, focused on empowering the Research and Development teams with the technical skill and support they need to be successful. She oversees onboarding, leadership development, communications and early talent initiatives for engineering and the other R&D disciplines. Prior to joining Shopify, Melissa served in leadership roles at General Assembly, Code.org and Adobe

Alison Evans Adnani is the senior program lead for the Dev Degree team at Shopify. Dev Degree is a work-integrated learning program that combines Shopify developer skills with a university degree. She has had a rich career in software development, education and learning. Alison started her technology career as an intern and is a passionate advocate for experiential learning opportunities.

Recommended Resources
Work-integrated learning companies to watch out for:

Praxis Labs: a New York-based company offering diversity, equity and inclusion training through immersive learning and VR
TechKnowCon: an annual conference to bring together peers from various companies to compare notes and share best practices about technical training, documentation, and learning in the workplace, available virtually through a Slack group

➤Alexander Sarlin  0:04  

Welcome to Ed Tech insiders. In this podcast we talk to educators and educational technology investors, thought leaders, founders and operators about the most interesting and exciting trends in the field. I'm your host, Alex Sarlin, an educational technology veteran with over a decade of work at leading and tech companies.


➤Alexander Sarlin  0:28  

Melissa Jones leads technical programs for Shopify, focused on empowering the research and development teams with the technical skill and support they need to be successful. She oversees onboarding, leadership development, communications and early talent initiatives for engineering and the other R&D disciplines. Prior to joining Shopify, Melissa served in leadership roles at General Assembly, Code.org and Adobe. Alison Evans-Adnani is the senior program lead for the Dev Degree team at Shopify. Dev Degree is a work-integrated learning program that combines Shopify developer skills with a university degree. She has had a rich career in software development, education and learning. And Alison started her technology career as an intern. And she is a passionate advocate for experiential learning opportunities. Melissa and Alison, welcome to Ed Tech insiders.


➤Alison Evans-Adnani  1:28  

Thanks, Alex. Thanks for having us.


➤Alexander Sarlin  1:30  

Oh, thanks so much for being here. The two of you have been working in talent initiatives, education programs, for years across several organizations. I'd love for each of you to give us a little bit of an overview of how you got into the education and talent development field. And what you find most exciting about it. Why don't we start with you, Alison?


➤Alison Evans-Adnani  1:50  

Oh, sure. So my background is actually in software development. And I got into education initially, from that aspect, way back when we were trying to figure out how to turn training into an online experience. And I've always enjoyed working in education and bringing a technical aspect to education and finding new ways to kind of move beyond the classroom.


➤Alexander Sarlin  2:17  

How about you, Melissa? So what is your background? How did you get into the talent world and education world?


➤Melissa Jones  2:22  

Yeah, so you know, I was the first in my family to pursue a higher education and earn a bachelor's degree. After graduating from university I went on to do the Teach For America program, I was placed in schools in the South Bronx here in New York City, thought I would stay for two years and then go on to be a poet or, you know, some fabulous career something in New York City, but wound up getting hooked in education and just really fell in love with, you know, the young people and the teachers and the communities in which I was working. And since leaving the classroom, after about eight years teaching in New York City, I've worked at a bunch of different positions, a bunch of different companies. But I would say that my career has been focused mostly on, you know, increasing access to university education, to college education, and nowadays to careers in technology and software development,


➤Alexander Sarlin  3:08  

It's all about increasing access to education and getting the best training or education programs to be delivered online. I think that will resonate with a lot of our listeners. So Alison, let's talk about Shopify. Shopify is a leading technology company. It's been around about 15 years, I believe, in the e-commerce space, but it's really not known for education. That said, you have developed the Dev Degree program, this really incredibly innovative education program through Spotify. Can you tell our listeners about how the depth degree program was developed? And what makes it different than other corporate or university educational programs?


➤Alison Evans-Adnani  3:47  

Sure, you know, Shopify has such an internal culture of education and learning that even though like you said, we're not really known for our education programs that's like education is in our blood. This is how we work as a company. And we're always trying to think ahead, you know, what are we thinking of, for the long term? And how do we build up the environment around us? So we had a CTO who was convinced that we could do better than like the traditional Co-op models. And the traditional Co-op models: You've got a five year program, and you're alternating semesters between work and school; and Dev degree, our students are studying at the same time is they're working, and they're getting academic credit for that work experience. Dev degree, we like to say, we've been building the rocket ship in flight. So when we started the program, we had like this grand vision of competency-based learning and having all of the learning outcomes tracked in the work environment, and kind of had to pivot to what worked with the current university structure our partner had and the resources we had available in Shopify. So where we are now with Dev Degree, having our students take, they take three courses a semester, they work part time, we have an eight month training path to bring them up to speed on our full stack environment. And then they have four rotational placements. It's a pretty solid way to allow us to work with different university partners, and still get that work experience and that academic credit for that work experience and for years.


➤Alexander Sarlin  5:30  

Yeah, you know, you mentioned existing Co-op programs. And there are universities in the US that are known for their sort of cooperative learning between university and company programs that Drexel University, northeastern Georgia Tech, and Canadian universities do this a lot too: Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier, Simon Fraser, all have Co-op programs. But you mentioned had dev degree is different in some really core ways, including that students are really learning and working simultaneously throughout all four years. Tell us a little more just about what the experience of a student is like going through the Dev Degree program? What do they do on a daily basis?


➤Alison Evans-Adnani  6:10  

Sure. And, you know, we think a lot about how are we different than a Co-op program. On a daily basis, our students are managing their classes at university. They used to be commuting a lot, not so much commuting anymore. And they're working on teams. The interesting thing, you know, one of the key differences between a Co-op placement program and Dev Degree is that as they're working on four different teams, they're actually working in four different disciplines. So each time they rotate teams, they're actually going to a new team and learning new technologies. So we usually start them off in a front end and back end placement. They might go to data, they might go to mobile, they might spend time in a production engineering placement, we've had some interns who develop a passion for security. So they're getting a real breadth as well as a depth. The traditional Co-op programs, you can have like a four month rotational Co-ops, you can do a 16 month internship.I did a 16 month internship, that was just pivotal for me as a developer, but you're really, you get your first Co-op, and then you're finding your next Co-op, based on that first experience, you're always having to show demonstrated experience. So being able to take like to work with four different teams around the company has made like our graduating cohort has such a breadth, as well as that depth that they've become very valuable developers.


➤Melissa Jones  7:43  

Alex, if I could jump in a couple of things. You know, when you originally asked us about, you know, Shopify, and why an e-commerce company would be interested in education, in edtech, you accidentally said Spotify instead of Shopify?


➤Alexander Sarlin  7:55  

Oh my God, did I?


➤Melissa Jones  7:56  

No, but let me tell you that that is very common. And I remember when I was interviewing for a job here at Shopify, I said Spotify, like multiple times in the job interview, and I thought to myself, I'm never gonna get this job. I can't even get the company name, right. Don't stress. But yeah, that does happen quite a bit. And we love Spotify. They're a great company. We've done some partnerships with them. But yeah, different company. And I think that yeah, as you mentioned, like Shopify is known as an e-commerce company, or e-commerce leader, we build platforms that serve over 2 million merchants, from small businesses to large businesses. And when I first got the call from the recruiter to come work at the company, I was like, oh, geez, you know, I'm an education person, a tech person, I'm not sure why Shopify would be the right place for me. And then they started telling me about this program to have Dev Degree and my mind was just completely blown. Essentially, it was it maybe six years ago, the program started Alison, is that right? Five or six years?


➤Alison Evans-Adnani  8:45  

Yeah.


➤Melissa Jones  8:46  

So six years ago, you know, our CTO at the time Jean-Michel Lemieux was taking a look at some of the new grad hires that they had made, and just realizing that folks who are coming directly from universities had a really good grasp on computer science theory, and you know, the research and an understanding of all of that academically, but weren't necessarily prepared to be successful in teams. So you know, we're putting all this effort into hiring new grads straight out of college and university, but they weren't really ready necessarily to be successful, even after doing some of these Co-op programs, at the same time, looking at graduates from boot camps, who had a lot of practical hands on coding experience, but didn't have that computer science theory. So the genesis of depth degree was what if we tried to build a program that did both? And why would a tech company be interested in doing this? While the demand for qualified software developers and engineers is huge, and there's not enough talent, particularly diverse talent coming out of our, you know, K-12 and higher educational systems in the US and Canada. So how might we create a stronger pipeline of folks who are better prepared to be successful in that first job out of college and that's where Dev Degree really came from? It was the melding of that academic plus the practical skill at the same time.


➤Alexander Sarlin  9:55  

Yeah, you know, that's really what caught my eye about this step degree program in the first splice from Shopify, it just, it really goes in acknowledges in a really deep way that computer science learning in a university classroom and on the job training that's applied where you're actually working with teams in development are both meaningful ways to learn, I think, in the EdTech space, we often have these debates about whether, you know, whether work-based Learning versus versus traditional higher ed are sort of, you know, optimal. And what seems to be the really brilliant epiphany of the depth degree program is they do different things, and they go together. And if you can have both, you're the best possible candidate. So yeah, can you explain how the learning that happens in the classroom complements the on the job work that students are doing? How are they using their classroom experience on the job or using what they're doing on the job back when they go back into the classroom, which might be the next day?


➤Alison Evans-Adnani  10:55  

This is so interesting, and I love hearing from our interns about this. Because as I mentioned, you know, back when we were initially thinking of the program, we were trying to control everything, we thought it would be very competency based, and everything would be very progressive, and actual fact it's not. But it's so interesting how it goes both ways. I've heard stories from interns, like, Oh, I was sitting in my discrete math class this morning, and I went into work and was able to apply what I learned. And I'm like, Okay, that's cool. I didn't think that was going to happen. And practically what I hear from my students is, they sit in class, they get the theory, and then they're able to apply it. And as they're coming in and working on their teams, they may find an algorithm as they're learning in the theory that they can bring in and share with their team. I've heard examples like, oh, you know, I learned how to do a specific type of data modeling, I came in, I showed my team how to do this as it goes the other way, as they're learning hands on, what they find is when they hit their university classes, they're already familiar with the concepts. So they can dive deep into the theory and get a little more out of their classes, because they've already had that hands on application. So it's a real, like, it helps both ways. They help bring it to work, and then they bring their work back to school. And the learning and each environment is amplified.


➤Alexander Sarlin  12:23  

It makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, when you're immersed in both the work and in this rotational model in different teams in the work and learning at the same time, all sorts of different connections can be made that would not be made, if you're, you know, sitting in a classroom for two straight years or four straight years and only then see how it's applied. So with a new style of program like this, you know, one of the first things that people want to know is okay, it's really innovative, it's different. How is it working? I'd love to hear some of the results you've seen in the cohorts of students or interns that have completed the Dev Degree program. Melissa, let me ask you about that. How have the results been coming in?


➤Melissa Jones  13:02  

Yeah, I tink that we've now had two graduating cohorts three, we just had three, we just had our third graduating cohort. So we have three good years of data on the sort of lagging indicators that the program is realizing. I'll let Alison speak to those a little bit. But for me, some of the leading indicators, things that we've been looking at all along since the program are really impressive, you know, undergraduate retention rates for computer science programs aren't always that great. You see, a number of folks transferring out dropping out, we have very, very high retention rates for students in this program, we find students to be highly engaged both in their academic work as well as their work on their teams, we measure the impact we call the impact or performance of our engineers on their teams. And we find that our dev degree interns are having very high to extremely high impact or performance on their teams, even though they're only there for half of a day and they're at school for half a day. And then something else we watch really closely is just as I said, this program is a really great way for us to build a diverse talent pipeline for Dev Degree. And one thing we keep a close eye on is just sort of the gender and ethnic mix of our cohorts. And for many, many years now, we've been able to maintain the 50/50 split of female identifying students to male identifying students, which is huge, right, that's, you know, better than most undergraduate programs, and certainly better than tech companies like Shopify when it comes to organizational composition of female representation and computer science. But yeah, Allison can speak to a little bit of some of the great things our graduates have done since graduation.


➤Alison Evans-Adnani  14:27  

Sure. So it's Melissa said, I guess we've got three cohorts now who have graduated, we're starting to already see promotions in our graduates, which is very fast, and 100% of them were placed in jobs within six months. Most of them have job offers before they graduate. We're seeing an incredible retention rate at Shopify. So it's a very generous program like we pay a salary for the work we cover their tuition fees, which is great, and they're not obligated to stay at Shopify. Most of them have, which is exciting. And we're also excited about the folks who've gone on to other companies, because I think it's validating the learnings that they're having here in the company. So it's the the diversity rate. As Melissa has mentioned, we'd keep a close track of performance, which is, it's always excellent to see them working on their teams. And we're happy to have the graduating developers when I see the the work they're doing, and how valued they are by their teams. I know we've hit on something special here.


➤Melissa Jones  15:36  

As Allison mentioned, a Dev Degree graduates, we do pay for their entire college education, which is huge for me as a college access person. And we do provide a stipend and a laptop and benefits and all of that good stuff. But in return, they're not obligated to stay at Shopify, as Alison mentioned, and we did see this year, in our third graduating class, a number of students who decided to take offers other places, a small minority, but it was the first time that had happened. And we're actually really excited about that, because we think that we're not just producing great developers for Shopify, but we're actually trying to change computer science education, and trying to move the needle on how that's defined. And we think that having Dev Degree graduates at other companies is actually a really great way to spread the word about the program.


➤Alexander Sarlin  16:17  

Yeah, that's incredible. So I'm just gonna do a quick synopsis, just because I imagine some of the listeners are hearing some of this and trying to get their mind around all of the different impact and how this program works. So I'm just gonna give a really quick synopsis because I think it's just so fascinating. So first of all, you mentioned there for I think, for the first time, that Dev Degree is completely subsidized by Shopify, that the undergraduate their entire college tuition is subsidized, because they get they get to do classes in the morning and work in the afternoon at Shopify, the results of this you're seeing, you know, higher retention, a 50/50 gender split, people grayed out 100% placement rate which I you know, anybody who's listening to this from a, you know, bootcamp or from traditional, higher ed, nobody can be a higher 100% cComplete placement rate. And that placement rate is mostly people going directly to Shopify, because they have had a rotation and work with multiple teams. But now in your third cohort, and that's a third cohort of people going through all you know, four full years, they're starting to even go to other programs, but they're still getting 100% placement rate. And you're also even seeing promotion. So your keep seeing not only are they getting the job, but they're starting to move up in their career within it as well. And they're making impact in a job. And they're engaged.


➤Melissa Jones  17:40  

Yeah, that's a great summary. Yeah, I would just add on that my role is the Senior Director of technical programs, I oversee this program as well as a number of others, including onboarding, right? So I know a lot of companies out there struggle with how do you bring in new hires, especially in this like work from home remote environment, get them up to speed and get them having impact quickly in their jobs. And the Dev Degree graduates require no onboarding whatsoever, they've essentially had a four year long onboarding, right. So while the program can seem expensive, in terms of paying for tuition and stipends and things like that, the amount of money that we're saving on our recruitment, sourcing and onboarding costs, in terms of the increased timed impact, and the velocity at which the software developers are able to have impact once they're full time in their jobs, it's a net savings for the company.


➤Alexander Sarlin  18:29  

Yeah, I think you're touching on something that would be a really great subject to dive into here, which is, you know, when you hear about a program like this, it sounds like an incredible deal. Certainly for the students and interns. They're getting a computer science degree, it's incredibly valuable. They're getting years of work experience, basically a consistent, rotating internship. But the question is, you know, why aren't more people doing this? Because it's obviously amazing for the students. And I think the natural question is, well, it's expensive to subsidize like that. So, but you're already mentioning some of the benefits. This reduces the onboarding, you get this amazing cohort of fantastic engineers that have been, you know, training with you for years and can hit the ground running many times over. So I want to tackle the question of, you know, why aren't more people doing an exciting program like this from both directions? Because you've been really in the trenches here. So you work with, you know, Shopify, but also with universities to give the academic classes. What have you seen as some of the hurdles that might keep universities from engaging in this type of partnership where they can teach students halftime and they can be working the other half?


➤Melissa Jones  19:41  

I think that's a really important thing to call out. Alex, before we answer that question, like the per this program, really, I think of it as three sided there's the benefit to the students, obviously, right like free degree, great education, pretty much guarantee job placement. There's a benefit to us as a technology company in terms of recruiting and save the onboarding costs on more diverse workforce, but the third piece of the puzzle here is really our university partners. There's a benefit to them as well. And we've seen that through our partnerships with we have three university partners State Carleton University in Ottawa, York University in Toronto and Dominican University in the San Francisco Bay Area. And Alison, I think you're probably better suited to speak to the benefits or partners. And then also what makes this hard because I think that that is something that would hold other companies back from doing this work is the university partnership piece can be difficult for a tech company to navigate.


➤Alison Evans-Adnani  20:30  

Yeah, so our university partners have been so wonderful to work with. We've worked with all of them. So Carleton, Ottawa is where Shopify was founded, we had close relationships with Carleton. York, we started with them in 2018 nd we were so aligned culturally with the London School of Computer Science and Engineering, and they were excited about working with industry. For a university to have a chance to work closely with industry gives them an insight into where their students are going. I also sit on the advisory board for the EECS group at York. And there's been such a chasm between the university and industry that a chance to get some input is really valuable and appreciated. We're also -- as our brand is growing -- we're also bringing more enrollment into the school and bringing more diversity. So the benefit of having a Dev Degree program -- I'm already talking like, it's huge -- but the benefit of having a deaf degree program at your school to the students is that they end up with a small cohort experience and a bigger class. And they are collaborative. So they're coming in and helping each other and helping their classmates and sharing their learning. So we've definitely seen that being appreciated and recognized at both of our partners, York and Carleton. We've just started our partnership with Dominican and it's been so exciting to work with them. They're so engaged, and they've got this great new curriculum that that was developed as part of their Bachelor of Applied Computer Science, and to have it come with work experience has just been such a boon. So for them, they're seeing benefits through additional enrollment and through work experience and a way to really differentiate their program against other programs.


➤Alexander Sarlin  22:29  

So I'm hearing lots of really great benefits for university partners in engaging in a program like Dev Degree. They get access and understanding of the hiring environment and of the needs of corporations and employers that their students are going to work with. They get, you know, more diverse candidates, they get a sort of sub-cohort of students who are super engaged. I still, though am curious, because I agree that, you know, there is a gap between universities and employers. And I think that there's there are some reasons behind that gap. The universities sometimes aren't always able to engage in this incredibly close way. So in your travels, working with these three university partners and talking to others, I would imagine that when you walk into university with this idea of Dev Degree, they'd be very excited for it. There's a lot of benefits to it. But I also imagine they might hesitate. For that, I'd love to hear what you're hearing the hesitations and how these three universities have overcome them. 


➤Melissa Jones  23:30  

We talked about some of the benefits to the company and to the students and to university partners for being part of this relationship. You asked, Alex, what makes it difficult and I think that, you know, one of the struggles that I think we had early on when we first started the program was an assumption on the part of you know, tech executives, tech company employees about the speed at which certain things should be done and how quickly you should move. And then that kind of bumped up against sort of a higher ed academic schedule right so you know, we work on two or six weeks sprints here in the in the tech industry right here at Shopify, we have six week product sprints. You cannot change the curriculum, have a higher educational, fully accredited bachelor's degree program in six weeks, that's gonna take you years to get approval of the boards of governors, of the regents of these different universities and things like that. So just the pace at which you're able to achieve outcomes. I think, at first when we first sort of Dev Degree was likely very frustrating for some of our executives who don't have a background in higher ed or an understanding of that. And I think a similar frustration sort of on the side of professors, many of whom have been in industry and have worked that there before is, you know, why why does this gap persist? Like why can't I get great experiences for my students at the tech companies that are located all around me? Why is this gap between university and higher ed so big? I think that can be very frustrating for instructors and for professors as well. So trying to figure out how to make a tech company work at the speed of a higher educational institution and try to figure out how to get professors more closely aligned with tech professionals, I think that was something that we leaned in to really try to fix. And really the only way we did it was through Alison's blood, sweat and tears and her team, you know, her skill as a partnership manager. But I think that, you know, if the company like Shopify and has the executive sponsorship that's fully bought into making this work. And then in the university, you have those professors and Deans who really want to push the envelope and do something new and innovative, it is possible. You just have to have that commitment and buy in from both sides to figure out the solutions.


➤Alison Evans-Adnani  25:28  

Having such close alignment with industry can be kind of worrisome for a university. The university's goal really is to produce like a graduate with a foundational and broad knowledge of the subject area. So being closely aligned with an industry partner can be worrisome. They don't want to be producing graduates that are only able to work for one company. That's enough to kind of set universities off, and they're worried profs want to have full autonomy on their subject areas. They don't want necessarily to be influenced by a company like us saying, Actually, no, you know, we'd love it if you taught this latest and greatest bleeding edge technology, which may not actually do a good job of illustrating the concepts they're trying to teach. So we've tried to overcome that by having that breadth through the work placement so that the students are actually participating in many different disciplines as they go through the program. And we've been successful making a solid case to say, you know, there's lots of programs where work experience is actually required to graduate something like a nursing program, or anything in medicine, like you actually have to have some hands on experience. So I think it's only reasonable to have hands on experience for a computer science degree as well.


➤Alexander Sarlin  26:50  

I love that metaphor. It's really resonates with me that, you know, some some domains, and some degrees require hands on experience, and others don't. But it's not entirely clear why that is. And I think hands on experience is usually valuable for almost any learner of any kind, especially with something as applied as computer science and engineering. So that definitely resonates with me. And what I'm hearing you both say is that there are some blockers, sometimes it's the pace of change, there's some can be some accreditation blockers because you can't change curriculum, if it's accredited that quickly. And sometimes it's just a sort of a philosophical fear that, you know, universities don't want to make sure that they're not graduating students who you know, for a single existing tech company, and instead they have the ability to move around. It sounds like in your latest cohort, you're getting some learners who are going to other companies other than Shopify, and that maybe is a step in that direction.


➤Alison Evans-Adnani  27:52  

Yeah, like Melissa said, we're really excited about it, because it validates the program and the strength of the program outside of Shopify.


➤Melissa Jones  28:00  

I think we even had in the last cohort, I think, maybe two of the 20 graduates or whatever went to different companies. But a third actually started a startup and got a whole bunch of funding for his like, his tech startup. So you know, it's it's a great program, because you were not just turning out folks who are able to be engineers on engineering teams at large tech companies, but we're churning out young folks who, you know, have the skills to really think big and build the future of tech as well, in different ways.


➤Alexander Sarlin  28:27  

Yeah, I think that's a great segue to the other side of the question. So, you know, the question is, you know, why are more people doing really amazing hybrid programs like this, that combined university education, and hands on work? We talked a little bit about some of the reasons universities may be a little hesitant, but how they could perhaps overcome it. The other question is, why aren't more companies doing this kind of really interesting, intensive learning initiative in collaboration with universities? And you mentioned one reason, which is that there's a little bit of a tension between paying for an entire degree for a student and then then maybe not coming to work for you. And that coming up in some boardrooms as a possible, you know, issue with that type of program, but you both treat it as a positive thing. And I can see why. What do you see as some of the reasons why other companies don't try out intensive programs like this? I'd love to hear either of you talk about that. Why don't we start with you, Allison?


➤Alison Evans-Adnani  29:26  

Sure. There are some aspects of this program that have been hard and have taken us a while to figure out. 80% of our cohort come straight from high school. So these folks are transitioning not only to university, but a professional work environment. And sometimes this can be their first job, which is kind of mind blowing, right? So how taking responsibility for bringing those folks into the company and helping them integrate with work is not something to be taken lightly and does take a little bit of time and effort to figure out we have a strong culture of of learning and support in the company, which has really helped. And we've built a team of folks who work with our participants and make sure that they have the right mentors and buddies to to help them manage that transition.


➤Melissa Jones  30:20  

Yeah, and I think that is something that I think that any decision maker at a company who's doing the math looks at the cost of tuition and the cost of stipend and the cost of, you know, say Allison's team, the staff there. And then compares that to the cost of hiring and training up a software engineer pretty quickly sees that that's it's not a cost barrier here. But I do think getting really good at having 17-year olds on your payroll and within your HR systems takes a little bit learning as Allison said, you know, we work really closely with our, you know, talent, business partners and things like that to make sure that we have the right benefit packages, the right support systems or evaluations in place. But we really had to rethink our HR systems to make it work for undergraduate part time employees. So that's a barrier. And that's a learning curve that I think would hold people back and give them pause. And then I think also like, this is a long term play. I mentioned when I was interviewing for this role, I was actually just finishing up some time at General Assembly at the time, which is a leading boot camp provider, and they have a really excellent software engineering immersive program, that's, you know, 12 weeks long, that is really effective. And then I was talking to Shopify, and they said, well, we don't spend 12 weeks on these end people, we spent four years on these people. And I was like, wow, that's like a huge vote of confidence in these people, these young people and like, what a long term investment in a program to say, we're not going to spin up a pilot for a month or a year, we're going to spin this up for four years. And so I think it really requires a long term commitment to building a diverse talent pipeline, a long term commitment to going in deep with university partners, and really changing computer science education for the better. I do know that a lot of tech companies want to do that. And there are leaders that many, many tech companies that want to do that. Allison and I have met with many tech companies who are like, we tried to do something like this, or we want to do something like this. And I think one thing that Allison and I want to do pretty quickly is to just start to like, package up our learnings and share them a little bit. Because, you know, Shopify is a really unique place, a unique company that's willing to like take risks, and really push the envelope and invest deeply and for the long term with communities. I think a lot of other tech companies are as well, and it's in everybody in the tech industry's interest. If we can make computer science education work better for aspiring software developers, that helps us all and lifts all our belt our boats. So we're more than happy to share some of our learnings. And I think that is sort of what we would like to see as the next step here. Dev Degree has been really successful at Shopify with our three partners, but how do we bring the the model to other companies and other universities in ways that they can replicate it or make it their own?


➤Alexander Sarlin  32:53  

I think that is an amazing vision. And you know, we've been seeing on this podcast and just in the tech space, in general, in the last few months to years, a real reexamining of the core question of you know, who should pay for education, we just saw last week Guild Education get a humongous, you know, Series F round, really, based on the premise of employers should be much more involved in supporting the education of the future of their future employees, and in passing really meaningful education to without passing the bills down to individuals. And I think we're just seeing a lot of reexamining of that. And this Dev Degree program is something that I feel like addresses that problem in a really unique and interesting way. I want to ask one quick question about when you mentioned General Assembly and boot camps, I think it's a really valuable question. I want to even just double click on that for both of you.If you are a company that is trying to hire the best possible engineers, have them have reduced onboarding, hit the ground running, deliver a lot of impact, have be really, you know, loyal, ideally, to the company, although that's maybe, you know, nice to have, why is it more valuable to help them through an entire four year education than a one year or, you know, six month, three month, one year bootcamp? I think that's a tricky calculus to make, as you just mentioned, Melissa, but I'd love to hear it just a little more distilled, because I think you've seen those benefits really close up, and you're some of the people who have, so I'd love to hear how you think about that.


➤Melissa Jones  34:30  

Yeah, absolutely. And I will say that we don't differentiate, like we do both. We hire many, many graduates of boot camp programs of all different lengths at Shopify into other early talent programs that we run. So Dev Degree is one of our bets in that area. But we found phenomenal talent through all sorts of different non-traditional path to a career as a software developer. I think that Dev Degree is the right program for some aspiring developers. I think that It's really great for folks for whom that bachelor's degree is really important. As I mentioned, I was the first in my family to go to college. I don't know who I would be today, if I didn't have that bachelor's degree. No one else in my family had ever done it, it completely changed the trajectory of my life. Is that the case for someone who maybe comes from a different background? I don't know, right? Is it? Is it that important for someone internationally, like it's different for everyone. But for me, that sort of well rounded liberal arts education was really, really important. And I think Dev Degree is a great option for those folks. As I mentioned, we have tons of folks at Shopify, who have come from different backgrounds who maybe don't have that computer science degree. One thing we were always trying to do at General Assembly was to figure out how to build in some of the computer science fundamentals like data modeling and discrete math, things that Allison mentioned, that there's just not time for in 12 weeks. And so we have found that sometimes when students are, sorry, when new grads are coming to us from some of these programs that we're investing later on, and continuing professional development, to help them get some, you know, college courses under their belt or things like that, like computer science, one on one if they didn't get it in their program, because it does kind of unlock your future trajectory in terms of engineering leadership, to have some of those fundamentals under your belt. But I don't think that if a boot camp is the right choice for you, or if Dev Degree is the right choice for you, you're making a bad decision as a learner. And I think as a company, you have to allow for multiple pathways in there are so many open jobs for software developers in the tech industry these days, and so many people who want those jobs, I just think anything we can do to connect them is worthwhile.


➤Alexander Sarlin  36:30  

I'll send I'd love to hear your thoughts on that as well.


➤Alison Evans-Adnani  36:33  

It's interesting, everything is interesting about this program. But when I think about our interns, a lot of them, you know... I've seen Toby, our CEO says, you know, why are we associated with a degree? Because that's what their parents want. He's tweeted that, but really, it's a leveling up. It's that next step and social mobility. And it gives that breadth and foundational understanding, and that you may or may not be able to tell the difference between a developer on a team who's been to university and who hasn't. But we're betting the folks who've started with us, we're anticipating they're going to have a strong career acceleration, and hopefully strong persistence in their careers, that they won't get frustrated, and they won't drop out of a career in computer science. And of course, we're a long way from seeing that data yet. But that's kind of what we're anticipating.


➤Alexander Sarlin  37:34  

Such enlightening and interesting answers. I think this is a something that the entire industry is really wrestling with. And it's so interesting to hear you just, you know, distinguish between the value of a computer science degree how it may, you know, set a broader foundation prepare people for management prepare for more persistence in the career versus a bootcamp which can get people that hands on experience to accelerate, but maybe doesn't include some of those core underlying concepts behind a degree. I love the idea that there are options, I think that this is such a powerful vision for what the future of engineering education might look like that, you know, students can choose based on their own backgrounds, their own needs, what their ambitions within the field, whether to try something that's six months long, or commit to something that's multiple years knowing they're going to get a degree, which is still a credential that changes lives, as we know. And the idea of people being able to then have that cost be paid for by technical employers who get so much of the benefit of these talented individuals. It all just feels very optimistic. It makes me very optimistic about the future, the engineering space, I want to give you one more question, which is that as you're thinking about taking this Dev Degree model that you know, 100% placement rate, high engagement, high retention, better gender equality split, what are some of the learnings that you've gotten, you've said a few during this, but what are some of the learnings that you would distinctly like to pass on to any of our listeners who are either in the university space and might want to try a program like this? Or in the corporate learning space in white want to try a program like this? What are the top things that you would want them to know to get them on the right track?


➤Alison Evans-Adnani  39:29  

For me, the biggest thing that I just want everyone to know, it relates to our gender diversity, and it's our hiring process. So when we set up our hiring process, we wanted to hire people based on potential, not on demonstrated experience. You don't have to know how to code to take a computer science degree. You have to have the math skills, you have to have the aptitude. So when we set up our process, we intentionally set it up blind, so that we're not looking at names. We're not looking at resumes, we're asking students to answer some personal statements based on some of the things we know they're going to need, they're going to need time management skills, they're going to need an interest in computer science, a real interest not and an understanding of what computer science actually is. We're looking for students who are resilient, and who show a great deal of initiative, we have some questions that actually give us a really good sense of their aptitude. These are math questions, and we set them through a multistage interview process, like the shop of based on the Shopify developer interview process, but geared more to just problem solving, rather than programming. Every year, we run this process. And that always comes out 50/50. And even, you know, it started out small. And even as we're scaling to larger numbers, we lift the veil, and we're always at 50/50, our funnel is not up 50/50, which is an interesting thing. And we are continually working to grow and develop and make sure we have a diverse funnel coming in. But I think we don't have to assume that we can't have diversity in our programs, because there's just not enough talent out there. The talent is out there, we just have to look at it a different way.


➤Melissa Jones  41:20  

I think I would say, you know, there's a lot of little tips and tricks here and there. You know, Allison and I are always happy to get on the phone with anyone who's thinking about doing a program like this. And we have done that with a number of different companies. But I think the biggest thing, like regardless of how you operationalize a program like this, the biggest thing that's going to sustain it is the the network that you build around it. So I think if you know if you're currently in higher ed and you see an opportunity for this, like how can you get to know the tech companies that are around you and the employers that are around you? How can you start to build those relationships as a start? And vice versa? If you're at a tech company, you want to do something like this? Like, what are the local computer science programs around you? And how can you start to get to know the professors and the students and the grad students. I think that those networks and those connections is what will sustain you through any of the bumps in the road of trying to spin up a program like this. And if you don't have those strong networks and buy into the decision makers in your community, those roadblocks can become a bit insurmountable but with the buy in you can vault over many of them as we have done.


➤Alexander Sarlin  42:23  

Powerful, powerful words, I really like both of those takes. Blind admissions leads to gender equality, that's really exciting to hear. And getting buy in and working locally to build networks can overcome all sorts of hurdles that might come at you unexpectedly as you build an innovative new program like Dev Degree. So we close every interview with a couple of quick questions. One is about what do you see as one of the most exciting trends in the EdTech landscape? Generally something you are keeping an eye on you think our learners should keep an eye on? So I'll ask both of you if that's all right. So let's start with you, Melissa, what is it a great trend in the tech landscape for you?


➤Melissa Jones  43:05  

I think there's two things I wanted to mention. And I don't want to steal Allison's thunder with my first one. But I'll say it anyway. And if her answer's better, use hers. But I do think outside of Dev Degree, I've seen a number of new ideas and new startups in this sort of like work-integrated learning space, or the apprenticeship space. I was learning about this program called Multiverse that that offers like these really cool interesting apprenticeship apprenticeships and technology and, and so do other groups as well. So I've definitely been keeping an eye on that space. I think there's a lot going on there and a lot of potential for four year programs like dev degree or shorter programs, or there's so much opportunity to get this experience into the lives of more people in different fields to other than computer science. And then secondly, I would say there's a lot of really cool stuff going on with AI and virtual reality in the EdTech space. But I'm also really interested in it on the corporate learning and adult learning side. I just learned about this company, I'll look up the name real quick and get it to you. But they're doing diversity, equity and inclusion training through virtual reality encounters. Really, really interesting. I'll get the name to you, Alex. But I think that that sort of thing just shows how we can be using technology to give people experiences that are outside their norm. And there's so much opportunity to play an event in that area.


➤Alexander Sarlin  44:19  

Fascinating.


➤Alison Evans-Adnani  44:20  

For me, I'm all about work-integrated learning computer science degree programs, right. So there are a couple of new programs coming up that I'm just so excited about. So Kibo is a school that's being started, the founder Ope, I think they just won the ASU GSB cup that's targeting students in Africa with an online CS degree program and they have a strong work experience component built into their curriculum that I'm very excited about. Alura in Brazil, is also headed down that same path. They've been a boot camp for a long time and they're they're working I think they're working on college accreditation this year, in university accreditation next year, and again, online. So having these online programs to work online, to study online, it's just so much more accessible, you no longer have to move to the city with the office, you don't have to physically get to campus. You can stay where you are supported in your family and your community. And you can attend school and work virtually, which I think is such a such a great, I'm so excited to see these programs.


➤Alexander Sarlin  45:30  

Fantastic answers. Yeah, Ope is actually a friend of the podcast, we have interviewed her about Kibo School in the past, and she's really inspiring. And you're right, she just won the ASU GSB cup. And actually, we're interviewing somebody for Multiverse within the next couple of weeks. So we're very much on the same page here. Those are really exciting.


➤Melissa Jones  45:48  

I looked up the VR. So the organization that's doing diversity, equity, and inclusion training in VR is called Praxis Labs. It's a startup here in New York.


➤Alexander Sarlin  45:56  

Fantastic. And we will put the links to all of the companies that are named here in the show notes. As always, last question for both of you. What is one book or resource, or can be a Twitter feed, anything you'd like that you'd recommend for people who want to go deeper into what we've discussed today about these corporate university partnerships, or innovative programs? Let's start this time with you, Allison.


➤Alison Evans-Adnani  46:20  

Oh, that's such an interesting thing. I wish I had a book...


➤Melissa Jones  46:24  

We should write one. Let's write one!


➤Alison Evans-Adnani  46:28  

...to help me through this, because there's not enough of them really here in North America. I spend a lot of time looking at programs in the UK, and in Germany, these apprenticeship programs to that are supported sort of at a federal level in those countries to get an idea of where we could be going.


➤Melissa Jones  46:48  

Yeah, I would say, you know, my background is in K-12 education. And then I worked, you know, in different tech companies in different respects for a while, but I didn't really understand corporate learning and development at large companies very well, even when I took this job to be honest. And I get pitched all the time, from small tech startups and even large tech companies on different things that they want me to buy in the learning and development space. And it just feels like there's a lack of understanding of what problems I'm actually trying to solve in the corporate L&D space. So one thing that really helped me learn and then I would recommend anyone who wants to sell into this space or build a solution in this space do, there's a Slack group called the TechKnowCon, it's tech, k, n, o, w, c, o, n. I think it was originally like an in-person conference, but now it's a Slack group. And they do webinars and things like that, and meetups virtually. But what it is, is basically everyone who has my job and Alison's job at every tech company in the world, so it's all the corporate L&D early talent, learning and development, folks. So you can really learn about like, what is the day to day of this role? And what is it that we're hungry for? What are the problems that we're trying to solve, and it really helps you ideate to understand how you can bridge your understanding of traditional Ed Tech with adult learning and corporate learning and development.At least on the tech side.


➤Alexander Sarlin  48:01  

Fantastic, very practical suggestions. Thank you both so much. We will, again as always, we will put the links to everything  that is said here in the show notes so you can find that slack group. You can find all of the companies that were mentioned. Melissa and Allison, thank you so much. Alison Evans-Adnani, Senior Program Lead for the Dev Degree team at Shopify. Shopify?


➤Melissa Jones  48:24  

You got it


➤Alexander Sarlin  48:24  

Melissa Jones, Tactical Programs for Shopify. Thank you both so much for your time today, really inspiring what you're doing.


➤Melissa Jones  48:33  

Thanks for having us.


➤Alexander Sarlin  48:35  

Thanks for listening to this episode of the EdTech insiders podcast. If you liked the episode, remember to subscribe on Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're listening on Apple, please leave a rating and review so others can find the podcast. For more EdTech Insiders content subscribe to the Ed Tech insiders newsletter at edtechinsiders.substack.com