A Winston-Salem-based software development solutions company is reviving a program to help break up the homogeneity that is prevalent in technology.
Sightsource, a small company with nine employees, has relaunched its Empower program, which aims at training people to become software developers for free. Typically, programs of this kind cost anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000. Sightsource will be offering an eight-week program at no cost.
The first time Sightsource ran this program was in 2018, it was able to train 40 people, including six fulltime employees and four contract workers at Sightsource.
Sightsource had plans to partner with Forsyth Technical Community College to train 60 people last year but wasn’t able to due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
This time, the program will train 20 people from Aug. 2 to Sept. 24 and is in partnership with Winston Starts and Wake Forest University Center for Private Business.
“I’m very cognizant of the fact that a lot of people out there can do this job and they can do it well, but they can’t break into it because in custom software development, nobody’s going to talk to you unless you have two or three years experience,” said Ali Tahbaz, the company’s chief operating officer and one of its co-founders.
Tahbaz graduated from the University of Virginia with a non-technology-related degree. After realizing he wanted to pursue a career in tech, he found that RJ Reynolds was holding a boot camp looking for tech employees. He took the opportunity and ended up spending five years with RJ Reynolds.
After founding Sightsource, they hired senior software developers who were mostly working from other locations. Tired of working via Slack conversations, Tahbaz and his co-founders decided to “reboot” the company.
“We didn't fire all of our employees at the time, but they left voluntarily within the course of six months to a year,” Tahbaz said. “We believed that we could probably train people with aptitude and motivation, a good work ethic, without having an experience.”
Thus, the Empower program was created.
“We were hoping we’d train them and then three to six months later they’ll be knocking things out of the park,” Tahbaz said. “It didn’t happen like that. It took longer, maybe a year and a half, but it was still well worth it.”
Six slots are open in the program that starts in August. Balint Gaspar, chief financial officer and co-founder of Sightsource, said they are still interviewing applicants.
“It was our thesis that, lo and behold, if you remove all the different reasons and obstacles that keep people out of this industry, then all of a sudden it looks like the community at large,” Gaspar said.
According to Gaspar, Sightsource is looking to add six more employees from this year’s cohort to add to its existing team of nine. Gaspar said they have already begun talking with other companies for potential opportunities for those who complete the Empower program, but no set commitments have been made.
Also, Sightsource has offered to continue training any of the 20 after the course in specific areas they might be working on at their new jobs.
The only requirements are that the applicant is at least 18 years old and has a high school diploma or equivalent.
But they are looking for some intangibles.
“We look for demonstrated attempts at learning this by yourself,” Tahbaz said.
“Basically, we’re looking for drive. We’re looking for people who know that this is what they want,” Gaspar said. “All they really need is just some help to grab onto the first rung of this new career.”
