Microsoft is announcing a software engineer apprenticeship cohort scheduled to take place in Nairobi, Kenya, through its LEAP apprenticeship program.
Are you a software engineer looking to learn and upscale your talent? Then read on. If this cohort isn’t a fit for you kindly recommend this to anyone who it might be, thank you.
The Microsoft LEAP apprenticeship program is a sixteen-week modern engineering acceleration apprenticeship program focused on inspiring and developing new and diverse talent.
Through five-weeks of technical and non-technical learning instructor-led classes and labs. Ten-weeks of engineering project with an immersion with a Microsoft product team. This is usually with the Microsoft team sponsoring the program. Mentors and leads are assigned during this period. Then a one-week project fair where participants will showcase their engineering project. Hiring managers are present during the presentations to see your body of work and possible interview that can lead to a hire or job offer.
This particular call is for senior software engineers with about eight years of professional programming or technical experience.
The ideal software engineer candidate should be authorized to work in Kenya for the duration of the program as Microsoft is not offering relocation. Basically Kenyan citizens.
The application portal is opened till 12am UTC on February 9th. The cohort will start on March 15th and will be virtual.
The LEAP program has various pathways for varying levels that get announced from time to time, so don’t forget to subscribe to get these details as they come in.
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Rwanda Coding Academy will receive one hundred and fifty thousand US Dollars in a new grant agreement between the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Ministry of ICT and Innovation in Rwanda.
The grant fund is sponsored by the Rockefeller Trust Fund and administered by AfDB. It will go into financing on-job training for teachers. As well as equipping the school with the equipment to facilitate an ultra-modern innovation center.
The academy is a special model school set up by the Rwandan government to develop technology talent. That will drive the booming innovation-driven digital economy in Rwanda. The academy trains students in software development, embedded systems programming and Cyber-Security.
“The Rwanda Coding Academy is part of our broader vision to grow a local pool of highly talented Pan-African workforce in science, technology and innovation“, shares Paula Ingabire, Minister for ICT and Innovation.
Nnenna Nwabufo, Acting Director General for the African Development Bank’s Eastern Region notes “this proof-of-concept has profound implications on how the education sector can adopt an effective response to the persistent skills mismatches in the labour market, not only in Rwandan but in Africa at large.”
The coding Academy is a 3-year program opened to high school graduates. It has an intake of sixty students per year, recruiting 30 sets of boys and girls for each year to encourage gender diversity.
It is currently piloting in Nyabihu District in the Western province of Rwanda with plans to scale the academy in each province. That will onboard about three hundred students each year.
What is the Software engineer recruitment process for the Microsoft Africa Development Center like? James Ndiga Microsoft technical recruiter Europe Middle East and Africa talks about the process during this digital meetup.
Firstly, Microsoft advertises the software engineering or any other role on the career website. You put in the application.
If selected, Microsoft will send you a technical assessment using Codility. The technical assessment will have three questions in easy, medium and hard levels.
After you’ve submitted your work, a team of engineers will check and review it based on the standards set for that specific assessment or role.
When you pass the technical assessment level, you are invited for a recruiter screening. Here the recruiter checks for non technical focus areas. Other areas include cultural and other competencies that relate to Microsoft and the role.
The next stage involves four interviews in the space of four long hours. Held back to back and lasts for forty-five minutes each with fifteen-minute breaks.
Successful software engineer applicants go on to get an offer at this point.
However, unsuccessful applicants receive feedback on areas they need to level up on in preparation for future opportunities within Microsoft. They are given about six months to do this and then reapply.
For successful candidates who accept the offer, the next stage of the software engineer recruitment process is a background check. This will usually take at least 15 working days.
When the background check is completed and successful, the recruiter discuses your starting date with your hiring manager. It is at this point that you can send in your resignation with your current organization. If you are a freelancer or unemployed and available you can join immediately.
This is is how the recruitment process for most software engineering roles at Microsoft looks like.
James shares there are career opportunities in various roles such as Program Manager, Research Scientist, UX designers, software engineers and many more.
Microsoft also has full time opportunities for recent university graduates or students graduating in the next year. Check them out.
Update: New date for Nigeria event announced. Watch the full Kenya event below.
Join Microsoft Africa Development Center software engineer and program managers as they share their journey and experiences. Also, get to know the Microsoft product and services they are and have been working on. Finally, find out what it will take for you to join them in this virtual meetup.
There will be two virtual meetup sessions for each site location. The site in Lagos focuses on building Microsoft AI and Mixed reality services. Whilst the Nairobi team builds solutions and experiences for Windows and Microsoft 365. Click to register to participate in the event. There will be a Q&A session. so come with questions.
Introducing the Africa Development Center in Nigeria will now take place on the 4th of March 2021, 5:00 pm-6:00 pm (GMT+1). It was earlier scheduled to take place on Wednesday, 21 October at 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm West Africa Time (GMT +1). But due to the end SARS protests Microsoft has since postponed the Nigeria event and will be announcing a future date.
“Our team has been thoroughly assessing the recent situation (ENDSARS protest) in Nigeria, and based on the latest news, we decided to postpone our live event for a more suitable date in the future. We will come back with regular communications regarding the potential date of the event.“
Missed the Nairobi, Kenya event? Watch the it below.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella notes the Microsoft Africa Development Center will be at the forefront of building innovative solutions that benefit Africa and the entire world.
This year the Microsoft software engineers in Africa celebrated their first anniversary. The Lagos team also saw Azure Object Anchors mixed reality service for HoloLens become available in private preview as announced at Microsoft Ignite 2020.
Update February 22 2021, 6:40 PM GMT: Article updated with the new date and time for Nigeria event.
Update October 16 2020, 6:00 PM GMT: Article updated with additional details on the postponement of Nigeria event. Update October 16, 6:00 PM GMT: Article updated with additional details on the postponement of Nigeria event. Update October 27 2020, 2:30 PM GMT: Article updated with Youtube video of the Nairobi, Kenya event.
July 2020 signalled a milestone for Microsoft in Africa and most importantly local software engineers working with the company.
Microsoft celebrated one year of hiring African software engineers to work in its Africa based global development center.
Some of these software engineers took to social media to share the one-year anniversary package they received from Microsoft. Check out some of the posts below. Thereafter we will look at how far the company has come on its journey with the continent.
Microsoft in Africa
Microsoft has been operating in Africa for the past thirty years. Having local offices in Senegal, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt. With South Africa hosting the oldest Microsoft offices in Africa.
However, this has mainly been on the sales side of the business. Providing consumers and organizations, mostly governmental ones with various services. The closest you could come to Microsoft workers in Africa were either through partner organizations or Microsoft employees acting as technical account managers who implement, onboard and deploy Microsoft services for customers and clients.
The launch event came off on the backdrop of a lot of backlash to self-professed Africa’s biggest online e-commerce site Jumia. The CEO had claimed a lack of local software engineering talent. Microsoft shared it believed in the growing local talent and that it was time to tap into that pool.
Phil Spencer, Microsoft corporate vice president and executive sponsor of the Africa Development Center, and Michael Fortin, corporate vice president at Microsoft and the lead in establishing the first ADC engineering team in Nairobi, led the pomp and pageant opening ceremonies in Nairobi, Kenya and were joined by Microsoft Technical Fellow, Alex Kipman, for the Lagos launch event.
The Nairobi Microsoft Africa Development Center site software engineers contribute to building Windows and Office 365 products and services. Whilst the Lagos site software engineers contribute to building Microsoft Azure services that power new Augmented Reality experiences.
At the launch events, Microsoft executives shared the company was going to hire about five hundred software engineers by 2023, across both center sites. With plans to hire 100 software engineers by the end of 2019.
We reached out to Microsoft for the latest updates on the Microsoft Africa development centers and haven’t gotten any feedback as at publishing this. We will bring you updates when Microsoft responds.