Member Article

On the Beach appoints Northcoders as its academy training partner

On the Beach, has appointed Leeds and Manchester based coding bootcamp Northcoders to provide key training services for its annual software engineering academy.

The academy, which will take place at the beach holiday specialists’ Digital Headquarters in Ancoats, Manchester, enables trainee software engineers to learn programming languages Javascript, C# and Ruby, so they are ready to start a career with the firm. In previous years, the course focused predominantly on Ruby.

Over the years, the software engineering academy has taken on people from diverse backgrounds, including career changers, ex-students, and self-taught coders, as well as a number of Northcoders graduates.

This is the first partnership of its kind for both businesses and sees the two tech companies coming together to create highly skilled software engineers, nurtured and developed through on-site training. The course will also cover several core aspects of tech, including product, UX and agile training with the sole aim of getting graduates ready for work. The success of the scheme - and partnership with Northcoders - has seen it more than double in size on 2018, with 15 trainees in this year’s cohort, in comparison to the six in the previous year.

Trainees will receive regular support from their dedicated Northcoder tutor, line manager, tech mentor or On the Beach Buddy. After they finish the nine week programme - six of which will be delivered by Northcoders - graduates will be offered permanent roles at On the Beach. They will then rotate around different teams within the company for the next two years. After this period they will be given the opportunity to choose which team they would like to work in permanently.

Stefan Nordin, Chief Technology and Product Officer at On the Beach, said:* “As a tech-driven business, nurturing and developing talent is critical to us. Our Software Engineering Academy is one of the key ways in which we do this, and we are incredibly excited to expand the Academy this year. Our priority was to use a local training partner, whose ethos and values mirror our own. Both companies have very similar support systems from tutors, mentors and their student communities, with guaranteed employment after graduation, so the fit was right.”*

Chris Hill – CEO at Northcoders – added: “We are all incredibly excited to be partnering with On the Beach for this year’s software engineering academy. It is fantastic to be working with such a pioneering business that wants to strengthen its relationship with the community by giving people from different backgrounds the opportunity to kick-start their career in tech.“

Since its inaugural course four years ago, Northcoders has helped over 400 people switch career into tech on average starting salaries of £25,000. Over the past year, it was selected as one of the country’s brightest tech stars in Creative England’s CE50 list and was named Business of the Year at the 15th Annual Chamber Business Awards. It has also launched scholarship schemes and a deferred payment programme aimed at women and gender minorities, as well as those who identify as BAME or LGBTQ+, have a disability or have had limited access to education, to help address diversity in tech.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Northcoders .