How We Make Sure Our Engineers Are Impeccably Trained
When people find out that Neutech regularly helps clients get their MVPs to market in just 3-5 months, we often get an eyes-narrowed, seems-too-good-to-be-true reaction.
“So where are you finding these magical unicorn engineers and developers? I thought you were a senior staff augmentation agency that worked entirely with outsourced, near-shore developers – how can you be sure they’ll be any good?”
⬆️ What you’re probably thinking but are too polite to ask.
Want to know our secret?
(whispers) We handpick every single engineer on our team and put them through a rigorous three-year training academy to make sure they meet Neutech standards.
Neutech Academy + Where We Find Our Candidates
Neutech Academy is a 2 – 3 year training program we put our team through to build their technical and professional skills to a senior level. It’s our quality assurance that every single person who’s working under the Neutech banner has great communication skills, work ethic, and a product-oriented mindset as well as a top-of-the-line technical skill set.
We have faculty at the top universities in Brazil handpick college seniors they think would be a good fit for Neutech Academy. After four years of teaching these students, the professors have great insights into who would be right for Neutech, our process, and our clients.
Who’s a good fit for Neutech Academy?
It might surprise you to learn that when we’re looking at candidates for Neutech Academy we’re not necessarily looking for the best developers with the tightest code. We’re actually looking for people who possess intangible qualities or soft skills. You can always teach someone how to design a clickable Figma prototype, it’s much harder to teach work ethic, right? Click To Tweet
Intangibles that we look for in candidates:
- Work ethic
- Product-oriented thinking rather than task-oriented thinking
- Fluent English communication – both written and spoken
- Lack of ego around their work – happy to receive feedback and make changes
- Generally giving a shit
- Willing to crank the midnight oil
- Willing to challenge you for the betterment of the product
- Community-driven individuals who thrive on the success of their peers
People with these intangibles make great software engineers – these same intangibles also make them people who are easy and fun to work with. What luck!
Training On Real Projects, With Real Clients In Brazil
We place our trainees in small groups with senior mentors on real projects with real clients in Brazil. Getting this outside-the-classroom real life experience is invaluable; it prepares them for so many of the realities of working in tech.
They learn how to communicate efficiently and clearly with clients and how to provide real solutions to real problems as they pop up. We teach them how to deal with emergency production bugs and how to appropriately plan development sprints. It’s so much better (and more effective!) to learn these skills in real life – not just read about them.
When our trainees are working on a project with a senior mentor and they inevitably encounter issues like these, they have someone to turn to and they’re building their own skillset. By the time they’ve completed Neutech Academy and they’re working with American clients, issues like these are old hat and they know exactly what to do.
The Neutech Academy Curriculum
When we call this an academy we mean it; we’ve got a structured curriculum that covers a huge variety of topics that prepare our trainees.
I don’t know about you, but I was not ready for the keys to the proverbial car fresh out of college. For most of us, it takes a minute to transform from a recent college graduate who knows how to code into a true, senior level developer who’s ready to work with international clients and meet the demands of their projects.
That’s why we invest 2 – 3 years in our trainees in Neutech Academy! Think of it like America’s graduate school system; Neutech’s developers essentially have the programmatic theory, problem solving ability, and seniority of a Master’s Degree graduate, along with the real life experience of someone who’s been in the field for many years. We find this to be a winning combination!
Every week, trainees receive four hours of instruction on sample projects designed for maximized learning. They practice working solo and in groups; they practice working “sprints” – so they’re accustomed to scrum-style project management and working on tight deadlines.
So where does all this training lead and what roles are we training for? Our curriculum produces builders solving new problems daily, architects who guide systems design, and growth specialists improving products. Each role matches needs in growing companies.
Other topics covered in the Neutech Academy curriculum:
- Project management
- Communication
- Privacy laws in Brazil, U.S., and Europe
- Financial planning
- Career planning
We’re extremely invested in our trainees - not just as developers but as humans. We make sure they have the training they need to not just succeed at work, but to succeed at life. Click To TweetWe teach them how to save for retirement, find work / life balance, and find niches within tech that work best for them.
Because of this, we have an unusually high retention rate and sense of camaraderie rarely found in an office. Many of our developers have been with us for 8 – 10 years! We met them as college seniors and they’re now married with kids and a dog.
Just a few photos from a recent trip to Brazil to meet up with our team there
How We Know When Someone Is Ready To Start Working With American Clients
How do we know when someone is truly a senior level developer? It comes down to two things: problem solving and communication.
A senior level developer is more than just a “problem solver.” When someone is a senior level developer and they encounter a problem they can:
- Come up with 3 – 4 ways to solve that problem
- Communicate with their team about the problem
- Tell the team why they’ve chosen this specific solution
- Teach other people on the team how to solve that problem
Sounds great, right? Wouldn’t someone like that be an incredible addition to any team?
We’re incredibly proud of Neutech Academy, not only in terms of the great work our graduates produce but also the tight knit, supportive community we’ve built with our trainees, mentors, and graduates. We truly enjoy working together and building awesome things for our clients.
If you’d like to add some of our impeccably trained senior developers to your project, I’d love to chat!