“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” - Benjamin Franklin When I decided to study computer science at university, my parents were skeptical. They didn’t know anyone who had chosen this as a career. Computer science was, and still is, in its infancy. Software development isn’t pure science or pure engineering — it’s a combination of the two, mixed with a remarkable amount of artistic flare. It's a profession where you grow by learning the theory and then doing. A lot of doing. It’s a profession that’s increasingly in demand. And it’s a profession so new that schools are still learning how to teach it. The supply isn’t matching the demand; not even close.Our industry is fraught with critical shortages of skills and diversity — software developers are more valuable to companies than money [1]. It’s pretty obvious, we have to aggressively invest in growing and developing software professionals more than ever.Shopify has figured out an important part of how to solve these problems. We call it Dev Degree — a work-integrated learning (WIL) program that combines an accredited university degree with double the experience of a traditional co-op. The program is already in its 3rd year, and it’s time to talk about why it’s a big deal to us. The Beginnings of Dev Degree While living and working in Australia, my company invested in hiring hundreds of graduate developers. The graduates were intelligent and knew their theory, but they lacked the fundamental skills and experience required for software development. This held them back in making quick impacts to our small but growing company. To fill in the gaps, we developed an internal training program for new graduates. It helped them level up faster and transitioned best practices they learned in school into practical skills for the world of software development. It wasn’t long before I recognized that this knowledge gap wasn't an isolated incident.
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