Behind the scenes
From bytes to insights: Product Development in transition (part 1)
by Ronny Wullschleger
In-house IT professionals thanks to the apprenticeship in application development
18.9.2020
Translation: machine translated
Pictures: Thomas Kunz
For the first time, we are training two apprentices to become EFZ Application Development IT Specialists. Julia Holzweg, Education Professional, gives us an insight into the structure and process of our new training programme.
Why are we now offering apprenticeships in application development?
Julia Holzweg: The idea of offering this apprenticeship was already on the table 2.5 years ago. It makes sense to train computer scientists with us; after all, we have 180 software engineers and do everything in-house. If we train people with us from scratch, they can do exactly the things that are important to us. This means that we can take them on after their training and deploy them immediately. Of course, we also have a responsibility to society and want Switzerland to have a well-trained workforce.
Why did it take 2.5 years for the "IT apprenticeships project" to be implemented?Unfortunately, you can't just make things like this up out of thin air. In order to train apprentices, we need a training licence. This is issued by the vocational and education office of the respective canton. We have to fulfil certain requirements, for example, we have to have a certain number of employees who carry out the apprenticeship. We also need a vocational trainer who has many years of work experience in the field and has also completed the vocational trainer course. Finally, you also need to have a rough plan of how you intend to train the apprentices.
What was the biggest difficulty?
Clearly, finding the right people in charge. We needed people who were willing to invest a lot of time and, above all, wanted to do this for a while. It's not good for the learners if they always have a different contact person.
You may not be an engineering professional, but can you briefly explain how the apprenticeship works?
The apprentices go to school for two days and the rest of the time they work in the company. They learn everything from scratch with us, starting with the technical terms. The apprentices come straight from compulsory school. Before we can deploy them in software development, we have to bring them up to a certain level. That's why they first work in support, where they learn how to assemble a computer, for example. Next, they learn the C# programming language and will soon be working with us. There is an engineering team responsible for each department. The apprentices work in all teams for at least three months during their training and can then decide what they like best. They can then specialise in this area and write their dissertation. However, the training objectives are the same everywhere, only the implementation and the environment are different. The aim is for them to be able to work as fully-fledged employees, even before completing their apprenticeship. After completing their apprenticeship, they become EFZ Application Development IT Specialists.
The aim is for apprentices to be able to work as fully-fledged team members, even before completing their apprenticeship
Now that everything is in place organisationally, are we soon planning to offer more than two IT apprenticeships per year?
In principle, we could train 20 apprentices in application development. For 2021, however, we are "only" recruiting two apprentices again for the time being. After the first few years, we will then see whether the apprentices are working out as planned and whether we want to increase the number. In the third and fourth year, we expect the apprentices to be quite productive and able to work in the teams in a similar way to trained developers. But for the first two years, they will most likely need closer supervision - and that costs time and staff.
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Alexandra Peyer
Commercial Apprentice
alexandra.peyer@digitecgalaxus.chAfter spending many years in southern Africa as a tour guide and actively being involved in animal welfare, I'm now taking on the challenge of e-commerce. My ideal day starts before sunrise and includes time outdoors and popcorn for dinner (why not?!)
