With the talent shortage reportedly being an enduring hindrance of growth in the Canadian tech ecosystem, Shopify has created a program supporting engineers and developers who choose to take time off work for personal reasons and want to reenter the industry.
The Shopify Welcome Back program is a three month, paid program, designed to support software developers who have taken an extended leave of absence from the tech industry to reenter the workforce.
The program focuses on helping talent refresh development skills through hands-on workshops and custom programming, led by the company’s engineering and learning development teams.
“Choosing to return back to work after an extended period of time can be daunting, and in an industry as fast-paced as technology, that feeling can be intensified,” Shopify wrote in a statement. “We want to make this choice easier to improve our industry for everyone working in it.”
The program is targeted for people who have taken leaves related to issues like parental leave, sick leave, or any personal reason that has prevented them from working for extended periods. In addition to technical skills development, the Shopify Welcome Back program will also refresh users in context gathering, cross-team communication, and problem identification, to help developers and engineers reenter the workforce at a senior level.
To qualify for the program, applicants must have been out of the software development workforce for a minimum of two years, have more than three years of experience as a professional software developer, a strong foundation in object-oriented principles and fluency in at least one object-oriented language, and a passion for and curiosity of software.
During this program, participants will complete courses and gain an understanding of the build and deployment pipelines at Shopify, have an opportunity to work with many of the development tools used at Shopify, and learn about working at Shopify.
The three-month program will run from October to December in downtown Toronto. Successful participants will be partnered with a Shopify mentor after the first month to support their growth and wellbeing. Applications will close on September 13.
