XactechED workforce program
As training manager at Xactware I found there was no local pipeline for the web developers the company needed. Seven months later a state-funded program was enrolling students, with a curriculum, an externship, and 13 of the 18 first-cohort externs hired by the company.
The problem
Xactware needed developers and could not hire enough of them locally. There was no structured training pathway, so the company was competing for the same small pool as everyone else. The request that reached me was "we need more coders." The gap underneath it was that nobody was making any.
Who it was for
Two audiences: adults in Utah County who could learn to code but had no affordable route in, and the employers who would hire them. The program only worked if both sides believed it.
What I analyzed
- Local labor-market data: roughly 2,000 coding job openings projected for the next year, 40 tech businesses hiring, seven in ten Utah openings coding-related. This became the case for funding and the message to students.
- The state's UCAP grant criteria and the Governor's Committee process, so the proposal answered what the committee actually scored.
- What an employer would trust as evidence of skill, which shaped the 240-hour externship at Xactware as the final stage of the curriculum.
What I decided, and why
- Partner with a technical college (MTECH) instead of running it in-house, so the program was state-approved, fundable, and would outlast any one company's interest.
- Industry developers as instructors. Ten working developers taught the curriculum, which kept it current and gave students a network before they graduated.
- A brand and a marketing campaign, because a program nobody enrolls in helps nobody. Flyer, landing page, billboard, and a community meetup (à la code) for ongoing recruitment.
- Externship as the capstone, so hiring decisions could be made on observed work rather than a certificate.
What I built
The grant proposal and Governor's Committee presentation; a nine-month web development curriculum; the MTECH partnership and instructor roster; the 240-hour externship; and the XactechED brand and campaign materials.
Result
$200,000 UCAP grant awarded June 2015. Program launched through MTECH the same month. Of the 18 first-cohort students who completed the externship, 13 were hired by Xactware (UCAT Annual Report, 2016). The pipeline continued after I left and drew a further $521,694 in state funding: a $221,694 MATC–UVU DevPath grant in 2016 and a $300,000 Talent Ready Utah grant in 2017 for a mobile development program built on it.
“In just one year, Christie advanced from Quality Assurance Analyst to Training Manager, where she designed and launched the MTECH Web Development program, a proprietary curriculum that secured a $200,000 UCAP grant.”
Tim Harrison, Technical Project Manager, MNTN (formerly Xactware)