Overview of the CodeSquad program

1. Lack of opportunity
CodeSquad solves 2 problems at once:
Shortage of programmers

2. Lack of opportunity
More than 6 million young
adults in the United States
are disconnected from the
economic mainstream –
they’re out of high school,
but they’re not in college
and they’re not working.
CodeSquad solves 2 problems at once:

3. Lack of opportunity
More than 6 million young
adults in the United States
are disconnected from the
economic mainstream –
they’re out of high school,
but they’re not in college
and they’re not working.
CodeSquad solves 2 problems at once:
Shortage of programmers
Companies are desperate to
fill job openings in
technology. There are
~150,000 new openings in IT
each year, but less than
14,000 CS grads to fill them.
(ACM, BLS).

4. The technology opportunity gap
Many communities do not have access to technology skills:
• Only 13% of US high schools offer AP computing courses
(mostly electives)
• In California, home of Silicon Valley, 56 percent of high schools
don’t offer any computer science courses at all.
Sources: College Board/ACM, Silicon Valley Educ. Foundation

5. The Year Up model
CodeSquad takes inspiration from Year Up, a national workforce
development program headquartered in Boston:
• Year Up trains 2000+ students/year in financial operations, IT
support and other fields, across 14 U.S. cities (not web devt)
• Currently has over 250 partner companies (Airbnb,
AthenaHealth, eBay, Expedia, Facebook, Iron Mountain,
LinkedIn, Salesforce.com, Splunk, Twitter, Yelp, Zynga…)
• State St just increased its commitment to 200 interns/year
• 88% of Year Up graduates are employed or in college full-time
within four months
• Year Up launched in 2000

6. CodeSquad web developers
• Students get 6 months of paid training in web development,
but also in communication and task-prioritization skills
• Training in full web stack: from installing a server to back-end
scripting to rudimentary UX design
• Portfolio of projects, including built-from-scratch and QA
• Currently choosing back-end curriculum: Python, Ruby,
Drupal, JavaScript?
• High-stakes, high support environment challenges students to
commit to professional goals

7. Cost savings on search & turnover
• CodeSquad acts as a screen for entry-level web developers,
saving on search costs
• Timing of intern “graduation” can be set to coincide with
business-partner deadlines
• Intern managers are supported by ongoing CodeSquad check-
ins, continuous student learning and mentoring

8. Increase in loyalty and diversity
• More than 80% of the Year Up graduates hired by State Street
between 2005-2010 still work there
• Tech companies are mostly male and white – CodeSquad can
help increase numbers of women and minority programmers
Sources: American Banker, USA Today