eHeads Meet Up 6: Building a sustainable tech talent pipeline - Discussion Notes

Providing Context for the Discussion

To initiate the discussion, it's important to outline the visible symptoms and consequences arising from the growing gap between the availability of talent and the demand for it within our local tech ecosystem. This gap significantly impacts the Philippines' potential to nurture independent unicorns. I've incorporated insights from Gobi-Core's "State of Talent in Tech Report" of 2022 to elaborate on this. By examining these findings, we'll uncover how the Philippines lags behind its Southeast Asian counterparts, shedding light on the scarcity of independent unicorns in the country.

According to the report, around half of the funds raised by most early-stage tech startups are allocated to cover employee expenses. This implies that if hiring skilled tech talent is costly, the time for early-stage startups to operate efficiently is reduced. A shorter runway means these startups have less time to focus on achieving product-market fit.

A country's capacity to generate unicorns is influenced by various factors, including tech infrastructure, market scale, accessible funding, and more. Considering these factors, tech talent remains an ingredient consistently observed across thriving startup ecosystems.

In an ideal scenario, the education system would have been well-equipped to tackle the tech talent supply issue comprehensively. However, the challenge lies in the fact that only a limited number of institutions offer curricula designed to graduate individuals with the required qualifications for seamless integration into a majority of tech startups.

Impact of the 2021 Tech Boom and Intensive Digital Transformation on the Tech Talent Shortage

The existing gap between talent supply and demand was notably intensified due to three key factors that shaped the tech industry landscape in 2021:

1. The 2020 pandemic ushered in a new era of remote work for Filipino engineers, creating a scenario where local tech startups and other tech organizations found themselves competing with lucrative offers from well-funded foreign counterparts, denominated in dollars. This trend normalized remote hiring, magnifying the challenge of retaining local talent.

2. The surge in funding during 2021 led startup enterprises to prioritize faster deployment of tech talent than training new engineers, resulting in a competitive bidding environment to secure the necessary expertise.

3. Local corporations and institutions accelerated their digital transformation initiatives in response to the pandemic, aiming to render their operations pandemic-resilient. This amplified the demand for tech talent across the board.

Furthermore, these factors contributed to the thriving business model of software development boot camps. However, even with these graduates, additional training remains essential to align their skill sets with the specific tech stacks that prevail within most tech organizations.

Origins of the tech talent development framework

During our software development consulting days and the early days of building ChatGenie (back we were still a chatbot platform), having our development team intact until the consulting project completion is critical. At one point, our OPEX increased by 30% overnight after extending a counteroffer to the tech lead of the project just to make sure that our tight delivery timeline won’t be compromised. This incident helped me realize two things:

1. Our tech organization must be resilient and should always be ready for unplanned tech team turnovers.
2. We need to pump more competent software engineers into the tech ecosystem to improve its resiliency as well.

So from then, the talent development program has expanded from the web development internship program onboarding interns to become entry-level developers, to something that will support entry-level developers to perform senior-level tasks in as short as 18 months. We also tried to document the process as much as we could so that we don’t need to repeat ourselves every time there’s going to be a new batch of people coming in. After socializing what we are doing with fellow founders, we then realized that we should upgrade it to a framework so that it can be easily replicated and improved.

Fast forward to today, the current version of the Tech Talent Development Framework is designed to have two pipelines. First is a low-touch accelerated pipeline for interns aspiring to become entry-level developers and another for entry-level developers aspiring to become senior engineers.

Mission, Vision, and Purpose

At the framework's inception, we aimed for simplicity, focusing on empowering tech organizations to cultivate fresh talent from within their ranks, subsequently contributing skilled engineers to the broader tech ecosystem. Rather than reinventing the wheel, we collated proven best practices already in use by tech entities, refining them into a format that's readily adaptable. This ensures a seamless process for anyone to customize and integrate these practices into their specific tech environment.

The framework's mission is to foster the creation of over 1 million competent software engineers by 2030. While this goal might seem ambitious initially, it gains feasibility through the power of compounded interest effect. As multiple tech organizations adopt variations of this framework and their employees initiate their own tech ventures, the prospect of reaching a million becomes plausible.

Realizing this mission could elevate the Philippine Tech Ecosystem to a prime destination for establishing tech operations, characterized by abundant and high-quality talent. An illustration of this potential is evident in Israel—a relatively small and youthful nation—establishing its own version of Silicon Valley, known as Silicon Wadi. Israel's success in creating this hub was rooted in concentrated tech talent sought after by industry giants like IBM, Intel, Broadcom, and NVidia for their Research and Development divisions. This strategic playbook aligns closely with the model already familiar in the Philippines through the flourishing BPO industry, which sustains millions of jobs across the country.

Below is the cover of the book STARTUP-UP NATION which briefly discussed how Israel managed to build their own version of Silicon Valley.

First Pipeline: Intern to Entry-Level Onboarding

The primary aim of the first pipeline is to identify interns who exhibit the highest potential for progression into entry-level developer roles. This pathway also plays a pivotal role in pinpointing candidates who possess key attributes such as a growth-oriented mindset, creative problem-solving skills, and rapid learning abilities—essential traits for thriving and ultimately advancing to senior engineering positions.

Operational within this pipeline is an 8-week low-touch accelerated internship program. This program equips interns with the fundamental skills to write features using the tech stack required to actively contribute within the tech organization. Within the framework, we've outlined two key advancement criteria to select candidates for entry-level positions effectively. It's noteworthy that during this condensed 8-week internship, interns are expected to already demonstrate competence in crafting CRUD projects using their chosen programming languages.

First-Pipeline Schedule and Group Size

How often the first-pipeline program runs depends on the organization's growth plans. Using an 8-week structure, it can be conducted every quarter, every six months, or once a year. To decide the group size, consider factors like the success rate of the previous batch, the number of new developers needed, and the available mentors. A good mentor-to-mentee ratio is 1:2 to balance mentor time and program effectiveness.

Impact of Economic Cycle on Your Pipeline

During a tech boom phase of the market, anticipate challenges in finding suitable candidates for your pipeline. In 2021, due to aggressive digital transformation, well-funded startups and corporations are actively recruiting recent graduates and career changers, leading to a talent shortage. We experienced this firsthand in the same year when filling our internship batches became tough. Interns showed reluctance to join a program that offered no job guarantees, reflecting the market trend.

Daily Journal: The Key to Effective Low-Touch Mentorship

In our low-touch internship program, interns have the freedom to learn our tech stack at their own pace. They follow a weekly course outline and utilize resources like the Rails book, recorded sessions, and ad-hoc materials. To track their daily advancement, we ask interns to maintain daily journal entries. This helps us monitor their overall progress, identifying specific achievements and challenges. Mentors review these entries to offer valuable feedback and recommendations. In an optimal mentor-to-mentee ratio of 1:2, mentors dedicate just 1-2 hours weekly to provide effective guidance and support.

The journal requirement reinforces interns' skill to document their thought process which will be useful in documenting their code and other tools in production that requires documentation.

This process is proven effective in terms of providing feedback and recommendations to interns and doesn’t require mentors to be with interns’ schedules.

To maintain intern engagement, we suggest having 30-minute catch-up calls each week. This facilitates discussing their weekly insights and enables mentors to share valuable engineering practices that foster their development. This addition to our framework resulted in a noticeable reduction in our dropout rate.

1st and 2nd Assessment

Our two evaluation benchmarks determine intern progress. By the 4th week, they should deploy a CRUD web application, and by the 8th week, they should create a CRUD application with web services and a single-page implementation. Interns who pass the 1st assessment proceed to week 5, and only those who clear the 2nd assessment are considered for entry-level developer offers.

Second Pipeline: Progression from Entry-Level to Senior Engineer

After successfully onboarding skilled entry-level developers from the first pipeline, you're already halfway there. Once these entry-level engineers are in place, their advancement is facilitated by your tech organization's nurturing culture, characterized by a growth mindset, a dynamic range of real-world challenges, a ladderized mentorship system, product development workflow, regular one-on-one meetings, quarterly peer reviews, concise assessments, incident analysis, and more.

The duration between entry-level developer onboarding and their readiness to undertake senior engineer responsibilities determines the depth of your mentorship system.

Ladderized Mentorship System: Core Element of the Second Pipeline

For the second pipeline to function effectively, it's essential that all members of your tech organization benefit from some form of mentorship, whether internal or external. The concept behind the ladderized mentorship system is straightforward. It begins with entry-level developers being mentored by junior engineers. Then, junior engineers receive guidance from mid-level engineers, who in turn learn from senior engineers. These senior engineers are mentored by more experienced roles like DevOps engineers, engineering managers, solution architects, system administrators, VP of tech, or CTO.

Creating a culture that values the "giving back" mindset is crucial, or else the mentorship system could become burdensome. This system brings forth numerous benefits to mentors, including enhancing interpersonal skills, solidifying knowledge and expertise, nurturing leadership qualities, fostering confidence, gaining fresh perspectives, and offering a sense of fulfillment.

Mentorship as a skill can even serve as a promotion criterion. When mentors excel in guiding others, they can be more easily promoted as their mentees step into their current roles. Effective mentorship also enables mentors to enjoy their time off, as most of their responsibilities have been taught to their mentees.

Below is a video on how apprenticeship is trying to fix the labor shortage in the US

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVTxute2lhA

Here’s a more specific apprenticeship program for tech in the US

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB9TmQFtlXA

To accommodate time limitations, I condensed the discussion to 30 minutes, ensuring there was room for participant questions, a lean coffee activity, and socials among the participants. I put less emphasis on the discussion for the senior engineer pipeline but I’m happy to have a longer discussion on that in the next installment event.

Lean Coffee for Discussion Takeaways

Participants were grouped into 5 teams to engage in discussions about their main takeaways from the session. They were also asked if they will consider the framework's potential value for their organizations.

Enhancing the Framework with Participant Insights

Participants' thoughtful queries and feedback hold the potential to refine the framework further. Here are notable questions I received that contribute to enhancing the current version:

Question 1: How frequently should the entry-level pipeline be run if all entry-level positions are already filled?

Response: The primary goal of the talent development framework is to bolster resilience within your tech organization and the broader tech ecosystem. If your organization experiences minimal turnover and lacks the need for additional entry-level candidates, you can guide your graduates toward other tech entities with similar tech stacks. At this stage of your journey, you likely have insights gained from exit interviews and hiring assessments, helping you identify compatible local organizations.

Additionally, a new initiative called Array (https://array.org.ph/) aims to incentivize organizations that refer qualified applicants to other tech firms with monetary rewards. Consider the possibility of receiving a financial incentive—akin to a "recruitment referral fee"—for directing excess entry-level graduates emerging from your low-touch accelerated internship program. This provides a unique opportunity to contribute to the ecosystem's growth while also benefiting your organization.

Feedback 1: The current structure of the tech talent development framework overlooks less skilled interns.

Response: While I understand the concern, addressing every issue in a single stride is complex. The perspective I hold is that there exists an extensive untapped talent pool within the ecosystem. This pool comprises recent graduates and career changers striving to enter the industry. These individuals can be categorized by skill level: some possess the raw skills for entry-level engineering roles but lack practical experience, while others need further training to build and deploy functional CRUD applications. The framework presently caters to the former category, ensuring it generates proficient engineers through a low-touch accelerated internship approach.

To trigger the talent-startup-money cycle that propels exponential growth within the ecosystem, our initial focus is on onboarding a considerable number of qualified entry-level developers. Inclusivity can certainly follow, but for now, it's important to tap into the group of raw talents that need minimal training to contribute effectively.

Feedback 2: The framework loses its "low-touch" aspect if senior developers invest 2 hours daily in mentoring.

This viewpoint holds validity. In a specific internship batch in 2022, we assigned only 1 mentor to guide 10 interns concurrently. This compromised our ability to sustain the framework's intended low-touch nature within the entry-level pipeline. To ensure a low-touch experience for mentors, we recommend maintaining a 1:2 mentor-to-intern ratio. Alternatively, consider commencing mentorship from week 5, allowing full-time mentors to guide only those interns who successfully cleared the 1st assessment. This approach curbs mentor-intern interaction during the weekly catch-up sessions from week 1 to week 4.

Feedback 3: Many participants appreciate the journaling aspect of the framework.

We share this sentiment as well. Beyond its use in tracking interns' daily progress, journaling imparts the valuable skill of documenting thought processes. This skill proves beneficial in typical development team scenarios, including comprehensive documentation, assessment notes for new features, incident reports, and more.

Moving Forward: Continuous Framework Enhancement

The current framework version isn't flawless, but it's a decent foundation. It serves as an initial step towards crafting a collection of resources to aid other tech organizations in cultivating and nurturing in-house talent. Over the upcoming months, my plan is to collaborate closely with fellow CTOs, engineering managers, tech leads, and VP of tech. The goal is to ensure that this versatile tech talent development framework can be effortlessly applied and adapted to diverse organizations, regardless of their specific tech stacks.

Should you be interested in contributing or wish to integrate this framework within your own tech organization, you're welcome to sign up here: https://forms.gle/gsBKy2THN5cs7Deh9

I want to thank eHeads for allowing me to host the sixth eHeads meet-up to have a public debut discussion of the Tech Talent Development Framework with other tech community members. Thanks to White Cloak for sponsoring the venue and food and of course fellow eHeads core members for making the event well organized.

I also want to thank fellow CTOs, engineering managers, project and project managers, and tech leads who attended the event. It was a fun and insightful night indeed.

This is definitely the first event where we discussed the Tech Talent Development Framework but definitely not the last. Stay tuned for the next event.