A LEAP apprentice's experience: Part 3 - Application process ??

In this article series, I will be exploring my time in the Microsoft LEAP Apprenticeship program. This article will cover the application process and tips for applying.

The Microsoft LEAP apprenticeship program consists of a 3-week classroom training and 13-week project period program that totals to a 16-week apprenticeship program. From what I heard, LEAP has expanded the 3-week classroom training to 4 weeks which means the project will now be 12-week project period.

Disclaimer: Every apprentice's experience is different and this article is based off my personal experience being a part of the cohort 25 so take note that my opinions are my own and what you hear here is just 1 person's opinion. As the program continues to evolve, the content written here may become irrelevant. I highly encourage you to reach out to other apprentices/graduates to hear about their experience and keep yourself up to date by looking up the program's official website .

Why should you apply?

The Microsoft LEAP apprenticeship program is a highly sought after apprenticeship program that historically has an acceptance rate of less than 5%. A program that started in 2015, it is meant for people looking to break into the tech industry with a non-traditional background such as career transitioners, self-taught engineers/your chosen discipline, and those who chose to take a break from their career.

It's a great gateway to experience the job in your discipline especially with the 12 week project period, if you had not already done so. The 12 week project period is akin to a intern project. You are placed into a live team working on a particular part of the product and you're given a project to work on that product. You could be placed into a team that works primarily on the front-end, back-end, dev ops, or even data science. The team you're placed in is dependent on the interview process which I will get to later.

As a bootcamp grad, one of the biggest holes in learning was working in a large production codebase. You can create as many personal projects or perfect the one project but nothing compares to working in a large codebase. A couple of challenges include the time to ramp up, getting overwhelmed by the sheer size of the codebase, and diving into too many rabbit holes that's not relevant to the job.

Aside from the learning experience, let's also not forget the power of having an apprentice and Microsoft on your resume.

What do you need to apply?

Aside from a non-traditional background, they asked for a minimum of 6 months of experience. As far as I understand it, this experience can include personal projects, volunteering, internship, or part-time positions. I believe the description is left vague because they want to see a wide variety of applicants.

You will also need to write 2 essays and a resume in markdown format. If you have a github of your projects, I would highly recommend showcasing it. For the essays, LEAP emphasis them greatly. I would compare them to college application essays. During my interviews, it was clear the interviewers took the time to read my essays and they wanted to know more about it. When I applied for the program, the questions for the 2 essays always centered around: "Why are you interested in this pathway?" and "Describe a project that you completed. What was the most challenging part of the project? How did you manage that challenge?".

There are a few things they look for in your essay and they are mostly personality traits: your passion (reason for getting into the discipline), grit, intellectual horsepower, and customer obsession. The one on customer obsession was tricky to write in an essay but I was able to use my previous career in Marketing to help me here. These are all Microsoft traits so I would find out more about the company and it's values it is so you can get a better understanding yourself.

Aside from proofing the essay multiple times, I had to dig deep to write them and I highly recommend you do the same.

Note that the application portal opens with UTC time zone. That was the case for previous cohorts and I do hope they will change it to EST time zone for the US cohorts since it has caused confusion among the applicants.

For full details of LEAP's requirements, refer to their site .

Interviews

The LEAP program has 2 interviews and they?generally ask easier DSA questions for their interviews. I would compare them to easy Leetcode questions. If you do complete your question, they will generally ask for multiple solution approaches so make sure you can answer a problem multiple ways and you can talk about why an approach is better/worse in terms of time/space complexity. Also you'll find to interview with Microsoft again if you want to get a FTE job in Microsoft so DSA will definitely prove to be useful.

Also, there is never the same interviewer or interview questions since the team who gets involved in the interview process is always different. The reason for this is there is a different product/team that sponsors the current cohort so your interviewers are always different.

Accommodations

At the time of my apprenticeship, my cohort went through the program virtually so I did the program while I was still living in California and my team was based locally in Redmond, Washington. I was paid $40/hour, with a maximum 40 hours a week. With this program, you would be a contractor with Microsoft so your wages and benefits go through the contracting company. I hope your financial situation can fit these accommodations. I'm always happy to talk more about this, if you want more details.

Final thoughts

Apply, apply, apply! There is a blind process where the essay reviewers do not know the names of the applicants and I believe they do not keep previous applicants' history. In other words, you can apply as many times. It took me 3 tries to get in. There is also no referral process with the LEAP program so your essays and capabilities are what shines through in this application process.