Announcing: The Foundry Program

A few months ago, Tristan included an article about AirBnb’s Apprenticeship program in his weekly Analytics Engineering Round Up. I’ll quote from it:

An apprenticeship program is different than an internship program. The wording choice is intentional and I love it. Internships are a form of finishing school for already-credentialed candidates, whereas apprenticeships aim to forge mature tradespeople from amazing raw materials. Most companies have internship programs, not apprenticeship programs.

My belief is that most companies don’t do this because they don’t have the freedom or willingness to think long-term. A program like this is a real investment of time more than it is an investment in money—it will take a minute for apprentices to become real contributors. But long-term thinking is the only way to build real moats for your business.

Of course, a reader responded “Why don’t you do this!?”. So, we are.Today we’re announcing the inaugural cohort of our Foundry Program. Over the past few months, the dbt Labs’ recruiting team has partnered with leaders from our Engineering and Analytics Engineering organizations to design a program that will provide a gateway for those that are new to the field or looking to make a career change.

What exactly is the Foundry Program?

It is a 6 month program designed to give:

• aspiring software engineers training and experience in writing code in production at a software company, and
• aspiring analytics engineers experience working with the modern data stack including, of course, dbt.

For the first few months, we will focus on training and growth. Members of the Foundry Program will learn from our world class software and analytics engineers. The second half of the program will involve doing the work – writing code for the dbt product, participating in client projects, building data models – practicing your craft.

At the end of the 6 month program, we will support you on the next step of your journey.That may mean extending a full-time offer to join the dbt Labs team or leveraging our network to make introductions and assist you in finding your next role.

Who would be a good fit?

For this program, we’re looking for folks who are passionate about the space and committed to becoming a software engineer or analytics engineer. This could include:

• Those looking to make a career change.
• Folks who recently completed a boot camp.
• Folks in entry-level data roles looking to accelerate their growth. For analytics engineers, we ask that applicants have a basic knowledge of SQL as that is a prerequisite to learning dbt. For software engineers, we ask that folks have some experience coding, in any language. This could be self-taught, a hobby, through a bootcamp, etc. but a basic knowledge of programming will accelerate growth in the program. This first program is open to applicants anywhere in the US; we hope to expand globally in the future.

When?

Applications are open now! And will remain open for the next week, through July 25th.

You can apply here:

• Software Engineering
• Analytics Engineering

Application review will take place the last week of July and interviews will be held in the first 2 weeks of August. Here’s what to expect during the interview process:

1. A conversation with a member of our recruiting team to talk about why you’re interested in the program and ensure you have the required knowledge to be successful.
2. A 1.5 - 2 hour interview with members of the team, these will be a mix of light technical questions along with alignment to team and org.

Offers will be extended at the end of August and the program starts on September 6, 2021 running through to the beginning of March. These are full-time roles.

These will be paid positions and because we focus more on the work than the time, they will be salaried and you’ll be eligible to participate in our benefit program.

• Software Engineering Foundries: $50,000 annual ($25,000 for the 6 months)
• Analytics Engineering Foundries: $40,000 annual ($20,000 for the 6 months)

We could not be more thrilled to bring this program to the community and to get started! If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, don’t hesitate to contact me! We can be reached at recruiting@dbtlabs.com or I’m @Meg Colón in dbt Slack.

Last modified on: Nov 22, 2023