CodeX Academy has a new way to ensure its graduates find employment.
A little more than one month ago, the Nashville-based online coding school launched Varsity, a software development firm under the CodeX umbrella, CEO Phil Henry said.
Varsity will hire and employ CodeX students immediately after graduation, Henry said, paying an average salary of $83,000, while providing graduates real-world experience. The firm currently has four clients, including Nissan North America, with seven more clients in its pipeline, he said.
Tech workers are in high demand across the the U.S., particularly in Tennessee. The Volunteer State saw the biggest increase in tech job growth in the U.S. during the pandemic (Dec. 2019 to Dec. 2021), according to a report from the Technology Councils of North America, with a 7.6% jump. Nashville has been targeted by tech giants in recent years for massive regional hubs, including Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) and Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN).
Henry said that even with all that demand, not every graduate finds a job right away. For example, some companies are looking for workers with specialty skills not yet taught by CodeX.
Currently, 70% of CodeX graduates get hired within 30 days of graduating, Henry said. The school has graduated nearly 100 students since its founding two years ago and currently has an enrollment of 171.
“The greatest marketing tool that a coding school can have is how many people they are getting jobs for, because people are trusting us with their livelihood. To be able to secure a better financial future,” Henry said. “We have 16 students being interviewed by Google right now. Not all 16 will make it to the next step. … I want a 100% placement rate. In order to have a 100% placement rate, we’ve created our own software development company.”
Henry said Varsity, which currently employs 14 people, will have enough demand from clients to employ as many CodeX graduates as needed. He expects the software development company to generate $10 million to $20 million of revenue next year.
“If we can hit that that would be awesome because that will mean we have a ton of clients,” Henry said. “If we have a ton of clients that means we have a ton of our grads that are employed.”
