EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Shahed Islam:
Hello everyone. My name is Shahed Islam. I manage a blog Manage Coder for Agency owners. We talk about an agency’s problems. And if you are managing a team, this is the right podcast to listen to. And today we have a special guest, Nicole Craine, from Tektonic. I contacted and have been talking to you about different issues, Nicole welcome to our Podcast.
Nicole Craine:
Great, thank you for having me.
Shahed Islam:
Can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about your company and your experience?
Nicole Craine:
Sure. So I am currently the CEO of Tektonic. I’ve spent the last 30 years of my career in tech, working from startups in Silicon Valley that handled everything from high-speed internet to the home, to online virtual communities. I’ve made a jump into digital advertising. And I did a number of years at a couple of companies and startups in that space. And then about five years ago, I moved to Colorado and joined a SaaS company, and spent a couple of years there helping them grow. And then, about a year and a half ago, I joined Tektonic. So Tektonic is an outsource development firm that also runs a technology apprenticeship program. So the company’s been around about 15 years. And it started as just an outsource deb shop and started running into the same problems I think that any company that has any level of technology today is finding good quality staff and resources that can help them not only grow teams but deliver on rapidly changing applications and technology products. So about six years ago, the company decided that since it’s so hard to find talent that maybe the path was to train and grow your own. So they started an apprenticeship. It was one of the first in the country that was registered by the Department of Labor. So it’s a pretty rigorous program. And our students are required to complete 2000 hours. And that’s broken into about 14 weeks of classroom training. And then they move into on-the-job training where they get hands-on experience under the tutelage of a mentor working on real client projects. So we’ve been doing that for about the last six years. The company has grown to just over $5 million, and we’ve had at the height about 50 some employees. And what’s unique about that is you’d think over that period of time we’d have more employees. But the model is actually designed that after the completion of the apprenticeship our clients can then hire those folks to continue working in their organization. So the best way to think about it is we’re a pathway for our apprentices that have come into the program into a full-time role that starts their career in technology. So we’re constantly moving people through the system. And then the other thing I’d mention is we go after talent that’s coming from unexpected places, and communities that are typically not represented in what you would see in tech talent. So we’ve got folks that generally never had the opportunity to go and get a four-year degree but have the aptitude, the grit, and the desire to make a change. And we put them through the program. And what we’ve realized over time is we’ve got a higher level of diversity in our program than if you just looked at the industry-wide statistics. So generally speaking, we are two to 3x on people of color, women, and the Latina X communities because we’ve given them an alternative to what has traditionally been kind of a walled garden for those groups.
Shahed Islam:
That’s really amazing, Nicole. I’ve been running an agency for 17 years. And I think we are going through a tsunami of resource shortage for the last year. Literally every CEO, every HR department I talk to on an agency level are short on resources. And what you guys have created and modeled five years ago, and the reason probably you are doing better when I found out about you from that you are doing really good because you don’t have a shortage like other agencies. So let’s dive into that. So if I am an agency owner, what would be your suggestion? How do I start? I know you joined a few years ago but how does a program start? Maybe a little bit more details about the program. You already talked about diversity so we understand. But our listeners are mostly international in some cases. And that is true in their cases. When we think about agency, I have seen most of the times agencies think that I need to hire expert people and make money. Build them for the client. But you are thinking two years later, or one year later you will make money. But you invest and it pays off better, your revenue is pretty good of the size of your company. So can you give us a little bit more information and give advice to that agency owner, why they have to think about that apprentice program you have been running?
Nicole Craine:
There’s a couple of things that I would probably point to. And being an operator that used to be on the other side that used to have to hire a lot of people quickly, etc. And from a sheer cost basis, you can’t have an entire team of senior people. You might do that if you’re an early-stage startup, for instance, that needs to get to market quickly. But over time, most companies want to build towards a pyramid of talent. You have your senior people at the top and you go broader as it goes down, which also then creates growth opportunities to hang on to your talent. Everything we hear today is about employee engagement and opportunity. Well, if everybody is senior, at some point, there’s nowhere to grow unless you leave, that is costly to an organization. So creating a model where you can bring in junior people to join your team or work on projects, and also, if you work with a company like Tektonic it comes with mentoring and oversight. So we’re bearing the burden of really helping these folks make that transition into an organization that you’ve now created some cost efficiencies by bringing in junior talent that you can then engage through your own employee development programs to keep them retained. It’s a better model long term. In terms of starting a program, it’s really not entirely different from internship programs that a lot of companies engage in today with the local universities and colleges. They’re bringing in junior folks, they give them an opportunity to work in teams, and most of the internship programs today have evolved into making sure those folks are working on projects to give them applicable skill sets. I think we’ve all heard horror stories of the past that if you’re an intern you’re nothing more than fetching coffee or making copies. That isn’t the case any longer in technology. The difference is with an apprenticeship program like Tektonic we’re not tied to an academic calendar, we have access to different types of people, typically higher diversity, and you’re able to hire those people on right away. Internship programs are great but typically those folks are there for maybe three months in the summer, and they may go back to school. All good programs all designed to get people into the workforce but are going after an intern versus an apprentice is just a different category of resource that you can tap into. So I think your question on how do you start. If you’re a small to midsize company, I would say try and find a company like Tektonic you can partner with, it’s already created the program, and you can tap into it. A lot of other companies that have resources like Verizon, IBM, Deloitte have created one, they’ve created their own programs but they also have the resources and the capital to put into creating a program like that, that both small and midsize companies can’t. Doesn’t mean you can’t participate, you just may have to go down the partnership route.
Shahed Islam:
Thank you, Nicole. You talked about diversity. In technology right now, when we are running an agency, we get client work and we want to make a profit, we always think about let’s get people who graduated from computer science. Even for a developer. I found out that a lot of good developers come from different backgrounds, and they can learn quickly. You are talking about women, my wife, she’s my partner in the development company. And we’ve been hiring a lot of women in our company in a lot of locations, and what we found out in some cases, in some areas women are better than men on development. But still, from many perspectives, we have that mindset that minorities or women are always too narrow. How do you handle that mindset? What is your advice to those out there who are thinking like that? Why do they need to broaden their mind and look for diversity in the company?
Nicole Craine:
Sure. As a woman in tech, I can completely relate to that statement. I would encourage folks to look at the research. Use data. Most technology companies are out there, and there’s a plethora of information that shows diversity and talent or diversity in teams has a direct correlation into better products and better sustainability of those products because they’re bringing in different perspectives. We’ve all heard and seen the story of, I think it was early on the iPhone, whether it’s the face recognition, it didn’t pick up darker-skinned people right away, which that’s a great correlation, and something that sometimes I think was overlooked. But diversity comes in many shapes and forms. Whether it’s skin color, gender, where you grew up, what your cultural background is, we take a pretty broad view of that. And what we’re finding is we get clients that are coming back more than once to hire folks because they’re finding that it brings the entire team productivity up. You just have to be open to it. And we are seeing that shift is happening in the marketplace. But what you can’t give up at the same time is the quality of that individual. And what I mean by that is the skill sets and their ability to perform the role. So diversity is important to our clients but not at the expense of having somebody who can master their craft.
Shahed Islam:
Thank you. Nicole, I have a lot of listeners who are running agencies from India, the Philippines, and other places. And when you are training people, since you are close to the US market you know what your clients want. Developers can no longer just write code and go home. Communication skills, soft skills are very important. On your apprentice program, what else do you guys train those developers? And what would you suggest to the owner to train or formal training needs to happen?
Nicole Craine:
Great question. So we currently run two tracks, we do QA and then software development. But I think your broader question is throughout our program, we are teaching how to communicate, how to work in a team, how to run a stand up, for instance. How to give feedback to appear like code reviews. We spend a lot of time with what we’ve coined on stage off stage, meaning if you’re with your internal team, how you may talk versus if the clients are on a call, or you’re in a client meeting, how do you behave? How do you show up? We do spend a lot of time with our folks creating profiles or resumes for them. And then we do a lot of coaching around how to conduct an interview or what we call a meet and greet, which is when we introduce them to the client. So interwoven to our entire program is teamwork, communication, all of those types of skills because I think we’ve all seen it, you can be amazing at coding. But if you’re absolutely awful to get along with on a team it doesn’t work. It’s a holistic view of that person that we’re going after.
Shahed Islam:
That’s very good information. Other information I would like to know from you is, when we are working, let’s say if we are running a program, I have seen a lot of companies start with a program, they struggle with giving them real projects. Whether it is an intern who’s coming in, giving them a demo project, it no longer works. So what is your solution to other agencies who are running their program? Or how do you guys handle giving them real-life experience on a project? How do you ping them on a real project? Or do you suggest any other way to handle this?
Nicole Craine:
[Unintelligible: 13:59] that is a tough one because I think we’ve all seen case studies or demo projects, and they only go so far to help that person learn. And that is part of the structure of how Tektonic crafted its program and with the apprenticeship. By definition, an apprenticeship is on-the-job learning. It goes back hundreds of years to more of the trades. Electrician, a plumber, etc. And it’s paid training. So we work with our clients, and they’re well aware that if they give us a project there could be a certain percentage of folks on that project that are apprentices. And they’re structured in that project under the management of team leads and more senior individuals. So they’re not assigned a client project and left alone. That does not happen. So they’re getting the benefit of sitting through a client meeting, working on a deliverable that’s going into production, and they can actually see that happen. And then we also have clients that will ask for apprentices in more of a staff augmentation perspective. They still get oversight and mentoring from one of our senior people. And they’re plugged into a team of people that understand what the level of knowledge that that person is with. So it really comes down to the partnership we have with our clients, working with clients that are open and willing to try a new method of, call it recruiting or staffing. And then we work together. We get feedback, we give feedback to that person. And what we find is their level of proficiency over say their first 1500 hours of that client is going up substantially about every three months, give or take. They’re making these significant jumps in their ability. So I’m an advocate of real client work. I know it’s scary to clients because it could be perceived as what if it doesn’t work? What if we have to recode? What if the person doesn’t work? But our structure of oversight and mentoring are the safeguards that go behind that.
Shahed Islam:
This is very good information. Thank you, Nicole. We ran out of time. But what is the best way people can contact you to get help or any service they want to get from Tektonic?
Nicole Craine:
Sure they can go to our website, there is a Contact Us button, and it comes directly to me and a member of our sales team. And we’d be happy to chat with anyone and figure out how to help you or even give you advice on how to start a program yourself.
Shahed Islam:
Thank you. I really appreciate it, Nicole. I’ll keep in touch with you, and hopefully, we’ll invite you back again in our Podcast. Thank you. Take care. Bye. Thanks.
