Qwasar is delighted to announce the launch of our first Women's Cohort, starting mid-September, 2022.
Finding quality female software talent is a well-known challenge in industry: companies often specifically request and ask us for female candidates for their positions. There’s an interest for more female candidates, but there also needs to be opportunities for women to learn and grow their skill set to be ready for software jobs.
Emeritus notes, “As a matter of fact, employment for software developers is projected to grow 22% from 2019 to 2029 (according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). However, the biggest challenge the tech industry faces today is talent acquisition across genders.”
In an effort to increase the number of women and representation of women in the tech workforce, we’re launching a Women’s Cohort in September this year. Led by our co-founder and supported by our entire community, the cohort aims to be a fun, encouraging, and challenging environment for women to develop their skills in software development.
Why Are We Launching a Women’s Cohort?
Not only are there not enough women in tech at the core, but there is not a space for women to come together and find support to get into tech. This is something that the founding team at Qwasar want to see and do. We understand the importance of having a space for women to collaborate, share ideas freely and come together to be successful as a group. This is an opportunity to work together in a cohort of women to close the opportunity gap and find support from one another who relate to your situation. For example, those who might be working moms or career transitioners, you can connect with someone who understands you better. Being a woman in the tech industry comes with its own challenges in a male-dominated field, making it increasingly important to collaborate and mentor one another individually.
"Our programs have proven highly successful at helping people from all backgrounds and experiences transition into software jobs, and we want to focus on helping more women do so," said Qwasar co-founder Jennifer Robertson. "SheCodes, Ada Academy, Hackbright and other introductory-level courses have been successful at providing opportunities for exposure to coding (and some are expensive!), but they don’t train to the level that major tech companies demand for software engineer roles or full stack developer jobs. Inspired by their traction, and seeing a lack of women-focused cohorts in advanced software engineering or full stack development roles, we hope that our women’s cohort will provide a key learning opportunity to help more women launch into real backend software careers or full stack development."
Further, Black and Hispanic women account for 3% and 1% respectively of the tech population, and both groups have a low national average income, meaning they can’t necessarily afford other training programs at $15,000 for three months. Being financially accessible and being women focused, our hope is that we can make a significant difference in these figures and increase the number of minority women in high-paying software jobs.
How Does Our Woman-Focused Coding Cohort Work?
Our woman-focused cohort was developed out of a need to create a way for more women to get into tech with a space for them to feel comfortable to do so. In many scenarios, women face adversity and struggles navigating a career transition or skilling into an industry with a significant gender imbalance. This opportunity provides an accessible, inviting, and empowering environment for women to come together and get trained in programming. This is our inaugural women’s cohort and we are excited to see how we might impact women’s journeys into the tech world.
Qwasar programs generally start with a morning standup. The women’s cohort will run on either a Tuesday/Thursday or Saturdays schedule. For our women’s cohort, each day will begin with a morning standup of all the women. This session will include time to connect with one another about progress on projects and any blockers that came up. This is an opportunity to communicate with one another and ask for help from those who may have recently finished a quest or project. This starts the day on a strong note and ensures accountability. It is similar to industry where one attends morning standup meetings as well.
After standup, the women's cohort will join the entire Qwasar community for live coding sessions, coding collaboration, and Tech Start Up of the Week - these are the other program events and meetings that are core elements of our programs. This allows the cohort an opportunity to network amongst other cohorts (networking can play a key role in job applications).
Additionally, throughout the year, there will also be events on subjects of particular relevance to women in tech such as workshops on negotiating job offers as women, finding companies that value inclusivity and work-life balance, and conversations with successful women alumni from our program.
What Subject Areas Can I Study?
For the women’s cohort, you can choose between full stack development, software engineering, and Claris app development.
This program focuses on front-end and back-end development, as well as strong fundamentals in data structures and algorithms. Learners will cover fundamental computer programming concepts including arrays, strings, algorithms, pointers, hash data structures, and software architecture, before moving on to focusing on front-end and back-end languages including Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Javascript, HTML, CSS, Typescript, React, PostgreSQL, PHP, REST APIs, and Liquid. Our projects include a focus on databases, intermediate object-oriented design, and deploying to the cloud.
This program focuses on software engineering principles, as well as strong fundamentals in data structures and algorithms. Learners will cover fundamental computer programming concepts including arrays, strings, algorithms, pointers, hash data structures, and software architecture, before moving on to focusing on front-end and back-end languages including JavaScript, using the terminal, C, Assembly, Shell, virtual machines, sockets, C++ and object-oriented programming, Elixir, network programming, Redis, and advanced algorithms and data structures. Our projects include a focus on software architecture, object-oriented design, and advanced back-end programming.
This program focuses on front-end and back-end development, as well as fundamentals in data structures and algorithms. This program is part of our partnership with Claris and the wider Claris Developer community as well as the Claris Business Partner Alliance, including a group of companies who actively hire program graduates as Claris Developers and Interns. Learners will cover fundamental computer programming concepts including arrays, strings, algorithms, pointers, hash data structures, and software architecture, before moving on to focusing on front-end and back-end languages including Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Javascript, HTML, CSS, Typescript, React, PostgreSQL, REST APIs, and the Claris platform. Part of learning the Claris platform includes building apps on the platform and developing a portfolio of both full stack and app projects.
Who’s Eligible For This Cohort?
This program is suitable for women ages 18 and older with a high school diploma. An interest in programming is recommended for this program. A willingness to learn and arrive on time and be prepared for meetings is important. Our programs do require a computer and a working webcam for meetings. Groups of women who are encouraged to apply and have done especially well in our programs: veterans, working mothers, career transitioners, or women who have had a career break. Some of our employer partners have “returnship” programs and are looking for people with previous programming experience who’re brushing up on their software skills.
How Do We Support You in the Job Search Process?
Part of our programs at Qwasar include a technical interview training, resume review, job tracking, and other resources as you begin the job search process.During the second half of your program, you will participate in our Technical Interview Preparation Program, which largely entails doing technical interviews to enhance interviewing skills and practice solving common technical problems. We review LinkedIn profiles, cover letters, and resumes to give you the best possible opportunities when applying to companies - this is important because women often undersell themselves, and we help avoid that. We review profiles to ensure students have accurately portrayed all of their programming skills and explained their education/experience effectively, while staying ATS friendly. Women will also review each others’ resumes and profiles to share information or expertise that they have learned in their past experience, and gain valuable knowledge from each other.
As they enter this season of their program, we work with students to make them aware of companies that are specifically looking to increase their diversity and have committed to hiring more women. This is an important attribute to look for in a company culture when considering which company to apply for in a future career.
They will also have the support from other female mentors within the program who are farther ahead in the tracks than them to guide and support them through the process. This is a great way to develop a connection and grow communication skills. Throughout small group sessions, guardians will be available for support and mentorship as well. Support is never ending at Qwasar to ensure students are well prepared for the next steps in their journey.
What’s It Like Being a Woman Studying at Qwasar?
Students and alumni have amazing things to say about the community we foster within our programs (check out two blog interviews with one of our current students, Iana Alekseeva, and one of our alumni, Thay Ribiero. The remote and self-paced nature of Qwasar programs enables us to be flexible and accessible for many populations, including working adults, mothers, and those who are both.
We provide an atmosphere and environment of learning and engagement with students from around the country and even around the world. Our students are incredibly motivated to learn and get through blockers (even if that means coding until 2 in the morning sometimes).
To apply to our women's cohort, please visit: https://qwasar.io/apply/
If you would like to volunteer to speak, present, or share your journey within Qwasar, please contact Jennifer directly.
