Apprentice Program
A Word From Tom
In college, I studied hospitality and business management. I never studied computer science or engineering. In fact, I dropped a double major in computer and electrical engineering CE/EE at UCF because I thought it was too nerdy for me.
Many years later through a series of ironic life events, I accepted my first job in the software industry as a software tester for what was at the time MCI WorldCom. I thought I was being "punked" because I didn't understand why someone was paying me good money to play with computers.
My technical mentor who helped me get the job congratulated me and welcomed me to the "software development tower." He told me I could climb as high as I wanted and that it was all up to me.
I welcome you to do the same. Whether or not you're graduating with a relative degree or changing careers, Elegant Software Solutions is always looking for great people to join our Apprentice Program.
-- Tom Hundley: Founder and CEO
The Five Key Attributes
Many of the best developers we have worked with do not have formal educations in computer science and software development. Some of them do, but this is one of those industries that doesn't require a formal education to succeed.
What every great technologist we've worked with has, however, are these five key traits:
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Aptitude: We can't teach you logical reasoning. You have to innately be a great problem solver to succeed in software development.
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Attitude: You really do have to be a glass-is-half-full type of person. If not, you won't have the right mentality to solve ever-present challenges and problems.
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Unyielding Work Ethic: Excelling in software development isn't a 40 hour per week job. It's more like a 60-80 week job, especially at the lower levels. Things even out a bit when you level up, but it takes a lot of work to get there.
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Passion: Read number 3 again. You need to love this stuff and it can't feel like work. If it does, you're going to end up camping at a large corporation not pushing yourself. That's okay, but it's not for us. If you don't understand why people are paying you six figures to play with computers, that's what we're looking for.
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Charisma: Let's be clear- being a great software developer doesn't mean you're a great technical consultant. If you're going to be on our consulting team, you'll need a little charisma. You'll [eventually] be meeting with C-Level executives, vice presidents, and directors, and if you're the kind that doesn't realize he has cracker-crumbs in his beard, you may not make it as a consultant. That said, the cracker-crumbers are fine for our product teams.
If you think you possess these key attributes and want a career as a technologist, contact us.
Mentorship Hierarchy
There are five levels of technologists at Elegant Software Solutions:
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Apprentice Technologist
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Junior Technologists
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Technologist
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Senior Technologist
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Principal Technologist
Each Principal mentors up to five Seniors. Each Senior mentors up to five Technologist. Each Technologists mentors up to five Juniors. Each Junior mentors up to five Apprentices.
This allows our technical management team to scale and teaches our Technologists how to deal with people matters as well as technical matters.
