The AppCadets program consists of a 3 week web application development learning experience that involves job shadowing, one on one mentorship, and group instruction.
Apprentices will be given the opportunity to participate in a significant way in the ground up design and development of a web and mobile application using Ruby on Rails and Ember.js.
Qualified candidates will be eligible for employment at a Mantra Labs startup or at the Mantra Interactive agency, either immediately after the 3 week apprenticeship period or after a retry period if they are not ready to take the leap.
Many students come from the developer immersive programs still not ready for full time employment as product developers. This is not good for the student, and it isn't good for the many startups who are unable to make progress on their development due to talent shortages.
We are attempting to address this problem by providing additional educational resources to growing developers, by giving them the hands-on experience developing software that they would obtain as employees.
We will have spots for 2-3 developers every 6 week period. We will run the apprenticeship program 5 times per year.
- weeks 0 - 3 Apprenticeship Period
During this period, the apprentice will begin developing an application for the web and mobile platform, starting from scratch, in a team setting. They will be presented with a design and UX deck and will work with a product owner at Mantra to develop a product for Mantra.
While going through this, there will be opportunities for one on one mentorship, pair programming, classroom instruction covering topics that are relevant to the phase of the project, as well as the chance to job shadow members of the Mantra design, user experience, development, and business development teams.
- weeks 3 - 6 Employment Evaluation
If the Apprentice likes Mantra, and if they meet the evaluation criteria, they will begin a 3 week employment trial / contract for which they will be compensated.
- weeks 6 - beyond
Apprentices will be given a selection of Mantra Labs projects they would like to work on as full time employees earning a market rate salary.
The costs end up being free to the Apprentice. The apprenticeship period requires a cash deposit, which the apprentice will be returned in installments as they proceed through the employment tryout stages.