A new Mono apprenticeship

We’ve got a new apprenticeship. In this post, we delve into how we got to the apprenticeship formula. For the specifics, check out the job page.

We have a hard time finding the right people for our company. We know this, because we’re quite specific in what we want. The way we work as a company is also quite specific. What we usually do is a mix between design and development.

I once made a Numbers spreadsheet to list the kind of skills you need to do a good job in UI design, and they range far and wide, from knowing about accessibility to web performance to visual design and interaction design.

Around 2 years ago in summer, Emily joined our team as an intern. As a team, we tried to teach her everything we knew about UI design and development.

Now Emily is our full-time, well-appreciated colleague. We had a great experience with the formula we used: a combination of a 3 month paid internship, followed by a longer 5 month internship. At the 3 month mark Emily knew she was in for a full-time job 5 months later.

During the 5 month internship, she worked 1/2 of the time on her own project Arkiplan. This is an internal project that we are now using as a demo of our design capabilities.

Now we have a new apprenticeship position, and we’re hoping to repeat the same success story. Through a combination of learning new skills, getting coached and helping with real projects we aim to teach a new team member the skills needed to be a full-time UI designer/developer.

Does this sound like something for you, or someone you know? The link with details can be found on the job page.