Four New Pathways Graduates
Last week, four more participants finished our latest Pathways Program cohort: Dominic, Jim, Valerie, and Cooper. Each of them came in from different backgrounds. Each of them is leaving as a software engineer.
That sentence is easy to write. The work behind it is not.
What Pathways Actually Asks of Participants
Pathways is a months-long program, not a weekend bootcamp. Participants learn the fundamentals of software engineering: writing code, working with data, building applications, and reasoning about systems. They cover C#, databases, web applications, and the patterns and practices that hold larger systems together. By the end, they are building working software and talking about it like engineers.
Getting there is hard. The material does not click on the first pass for anyone. Concepts that experienced developers take for granted, like how a database join works or what a class actually is, take time to absorb. Participants sit with code that does not run. They debug things they did not write. They read documentation that assumes knowledge they do not yet have. Then they come back the next day and do it again.
The technical material is only part of it. Most of our participants are changing careers, which means they are rearranging the rest of their lives at the same time. They are managing families, finances, and the uncertainty of leaving something familiar for something they cannot fully see yet. Finishing the program takes persistence on a level that is easy to underestimate from the outside.
Dominic, Jim, Valerie, and Cooper did all of it.
The Partners Who Make This Possible
Pathways does not work without sponsor organizations willing to invest in people early, before those people have a resume that proves they can do the job. Three organizations sponsored participants in this cohort:
Sponsoring a Pathways participant is a real commitment. It is also one of the most direct ways we have seen organizations build the kind of engineering talent they actually need, on terms that work for the community. We are grateful these three were willing to make the bet.
The People Who Did the Work
Programs like this run on the time and attention of people who already have full-time jobs. A few of our team members at Don’t Panic Labs put real hours into this cohort:
- Jeff Kodad
- Rafael Simosa
- Malika Yadgarova
They taught, mentored, reviewed work, answered questions, and showed up consistently. The participants will remember them. We do too.
We also want to thank Alec Engebretson at Doane University. The partnership with Doane is a big part of how Pathways works, and Alec has been a steady part of that on their end.
Why This Matters
We talk often about software being a hard discipline. It is. But the harder part, the part that determines whether someone makes it in this field, is not the syntax. It is the willingness to keep going through the parts that do not make sense yet. Pathways is built around that idea. The graduates of this cohort lived it.
Congratulations again to Jim, Valerie, Dominic, and Cooper. The hard part is behind you. The interesting part starts now.
If your organization is thinking about how to build engineering talent in a way that also builds your community, we would love to talk. Pathways is one of the things we are most proud of, and we are always looking for partners who want to be part of it.
