> A typical applicant will have at least two years' experience in a professional environment, and an undergraduate degree in a related subject. However, more extensive experience may compensate for a lack of formal qualifications, and a strong, immediately-relevant qualification may compensate for a lack of professional experience.
> Applications are welcome from anyone with an appropriate combination of academic achievement and industrial experience; a first degree in a related discipline may be useful, but is by no means necessary.
> Each MSc within the Software Engineering Programme is available only to part-time students; there is a separate MSc in Computer Science for full-time students.
I believe the full time study noted here is what you linked to.
('Higher' being 'degree equivalent', and 'degree' being with an actual degree conferred by an actual university.)
At Arm I had a colleague who was on that programme, and so was also studying at a university. I think it started off part-time, 2 and 3 days of a week or something, and then switched to term-here/term-there.
I agree, great scheme. (Icing on the cake: I believe the education is paid for (subsidised by government and paid for by company?) in addition to the work being paid.)
This is so great. I would have preferred to do something like this when I was fresh out of High School instead of going the traditional route of studying full-time or immediately entering the workforce.
That's what we call 'Duales Studium' in Germany. You just do your semesters normally and in between instead of springbreak etc you work for the company.
It's popular in France too, "Alternance"; you spend two or three days in the company per week and the rest in school. It's mostly for senior grad students.
This is what RIT has always been about, where you MUST complete PAID cooperative education for degree credits. Typically after year 2, you're going to school some semesters, and then working the other semesters at a company in your field. It's a great stepping stone to get into the workforce
I'm currently in the program and it is very much both. We work 20 hours a week at Shopify, and take three classes per term, including the summer, at the university. We are paid a salary and our tuition is covered. At the end of the program we will have had 4 placements at Shopify, and receive a Comp Sci Honours degree from the University.
It's wonderful to see this on the front page. I'm currently a student at the Lassonde School of Engineering at York University studying software engineering and heavily involved in the school community.
The Lassonde School of Engineering opened 8 years ago with a fervour for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. I suggest folks give the school a Google search as it has rapidly developed to become a phenomenonal environment with its own startup incubator and entrepreneurshi' degree with courses from VCs. I digress, but feel free to ask me any more questions about the school.
The dev degree program started its first cohort last year actually and it now is in its second year.
It is structured so students work 20 hours a week at Shopify and take 3 courses per semester at school. Students are required to work and go to school through the summer which allows them to complete the degree in the standard four years.
My peers in the program have I said great things. One of the key parts of the program is how one switches between different teams to get a better understanding of the software engineering landscape. Moreover the mentorship is very helpful and not only developing your technical skills by yourself skills.
One question that students and parents asked me a lot is if there is a requirement to work at Shopify following the completion of the program. Luckily Shopify has made it clear that they will not be expecting students to stay once they complete their degree, but it is my intuition that many people from the program will stay on after their large time investment into the Shopify ecosystem.
Overall, I would have entered this program myself for it for engineering students as well. Sadly, the program is restricted to computer science students as the Canadian accreditation requirements for engineering are not fulfilled while in the dev degree program.
Although people may say "why do you need a degree?", it is difficult to find a job without the qualification of showing your ability to complete post-secondary in a field of candidates that did.
With initiatives such as Silicon Valley trip for students run by the Lassonde co-op Department, I am sure that lassonde will continue to innovate and engage students in meaningful ways beyond the traditional methods.
How do you feel about York's CS program in terms of helping students be competitive candidates? At some Toronto companies it sometimes feels like they prefer U Waterloo CS or Engineering grads.
i am wishing i could go back 15 years and do this now. i was dumb enough to go to an ivy league for an unrelated degree, then change careers and go thru a bootcamp, and i'm now still 100's of thousands in debt. if i was growing up today i would absolutely drop everything to do this. kudos to shopify but it really feels a little bittersweet.
I don't have the amount of debt that you do but I also did a career change after some years of doing dead end jobs. I have the same feeling that I wish this was an option for me when I was looking to start university but I'm also aware I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life when I was 18. Chances are I would do these 4 years then decide I want to be a sky diving instructor or something instead.
Curious and want to ask: if this were available 15 years ago, would you have done it? It seems like you'd need to 1) have CS as your goal, 2) know about Shopify and their program, and 3) get in.
I know a lot of people don't even have CS on their radar when they enter college.
Graduated from an unrelated degree more recently, but had the opportunity to write a whole lot of code while there. Got my first dev job right out of school.
There are much more opportunities nowaday to use coding in almost every major, sadly, the schools haven't changed, ending up imo ruining a lot of career.
While my debt load is not nearly as much I did the same thing. I studied economics even though when I got home from class I would spend hours and hours tinkering with hardware, Linux, and programming. Everyone I talked to thought I was silly for not sticking with my CS major and doing Economics. They were right. I am learning on the job and it’s been kicking my butt but I am learning and it’s been good though I would go back and tell my old self to stick with CS.
Don't put yourself down too much about past decisions. I also went to school for Econ, and did IT support and web design jobs on campus. But I wanted to set my career up for finance and did summer analyst internships. Then, 2008 happened and all the finance jobs dried up with some companies skipping campus recruitment entirely.
A decade later and I'm working in UX research and digital strategy and the finance stuff feels like a lifetime ago. Everyone's journey is going to be different.
I know you’re downvoted for saying something that’s basically unethical, but I’m interested: how do you propose to buy a home using this strategy? All cash? In my area, I’d need around $200,000 cash. I know there’s trailer parks and etc. but they may not work for everyone.
Took me getting a doctorate in an unrelated field before I realized I was in the wrong place and changed careers.
I don't have the debt (just the opportunity cost of wasting a decade doing something I didn't really want to do), and this program wouldn't have saved me, but I understand your regret.
If we ignore pedigree and networking, how good (high quality material/curriculum, good lecturers) do public/affordable/free universities and colleges provide (in US)?
My brother's ivy league tuition was subsidized based on income, and my dad still paid over $300k over four years. Though that did include housing as well.
not hyperbole. there were some compounding factors i didnt mention, but the bulk is quite literally college tuition. i dont need to put my screwed up financial life on display but it's the single worst decision of my life, all for imagined prestige. i'm lucky enough that i will earn my way out of it, but it is quite literally preventing me from starting any businesses right now, which is what i actually want to do.
this Shopify program would have been a lifesaver. we need way more Shopifys in the world.
This is cool. But very conflicting for me personally. Here I am, deciding whether to apply to the Mississippi Teacher's Corp, which would give me a free Master's degree while getting paid to teach. Probably like $35k per year. And then here is this program, which is very tempting to apply to, partly because of the salary. It should be the other way around. Teaching is so much more valuable than coding.
I don't know about the pay differentials between Toronto and Mississippi, but I'm very sure that the cost of living is a lot lower in the latter. Developer salaries in the Toronto area are also lower than the US-centric numbers you see bandied about on HN.
Disclosure: recent hire at Shopify, not through this program. Just learned about it, actually today from HN. After mentioning it to my team, was pointed to this link and thought I'd share it here.
As someone who went the bootcamp route, got a job, and absolutely would love a structured CS education that would expand my skills and experience beyond my day to day coding I do now this is very tempting.
The site isn't very specific about location, are there location requirements?
There are two universities involved: Carleton (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) and York (Toronto, Ontario, Canada).
You must apply and qualify for the university degree, in addition to being selected by shoppify themselves. If I remember correctly when I asked about it, the University also had some say in the selection process.
When I looked into it, the number of accepted was quite low (I believe less than 15 per year), which to me indicates they are quite selective.
The people I met were exceptionally friendly, and genuine. It seems like a really excellent place to work, at least from the outside.
I'm currently in the program; the university side of the application and Shopify side were separate. The Shopify interview consisted of several interview stages, while York & Carleton looked at your academic transcript, same as any Canadian program.
I offhand mentioned a previous program they ran (letting people out of the field get an internship) to someone I knew, and it made a huge difference. Creating/sustaining jobs/incomes in this way is actually very cool in my books.
Readit News
http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/softeng/
all-in cost was something like £25,000 for me including accommodation, and they're open minded about accepting people without undergraduate degrees.
EDIT: happy to answer questions by email
https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/courses/msc-compute...
> As a minimum, applicants should hold or be predicted to achieve the equivalent of the following UK qualifications:
> a first-class undergraduate degree with honours in a subject with a significant component of mathematics and/or computing.
So, is an undergraduate degree required or not?
http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/softeng/study/apply.html
> Applications are welcome from anyone with an appropriate combination of academic achievement and industrial experience; a first degree in a related discipline may be useful, but is by no means necessary.
> Each MSc within the Software Engineering Programme is available only to part-time students; there is a separate MSc in Computer Science for full-time students.
I believe the full time study noted here is what you linked to.
I've been working as a dev for 3 years and looking at senior positions; do you think this course would augment my practical experience.
I wonder what level they teach to.
Which I think is fantastic, Universities are generally terrible at teaching practical skills and fantastic at teaching theory.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
('Higher' being 'degree equivalent', and 'degree' being with an actual degree conferred by an actual university.)
At Arm I had a colleague who was on that programme, and so was also studying at a university. I think it started off part-time, 2 and 3 days of a week or something, and then switched to term-here/term-there.
I agree, great scheme. (Icing on the cake: I believe the education is paid for (subsidised by government and paid for by company?) in addition to the work being paid.)
They hit the ground _sprinting_.
The Lassonde School of Engineering opened 8 years ago with a fervour for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. I suggest folks give the school a Google search as it has rapidly developed to become a phenomenonal environment with its own startup incubator and entrepreneurshi' degree with courses from VCs. I digress, but feel free to ask me any more questions about the school.
The dev degree program started its first cohort last year actually and it now is in its second year.
It is structured so students work 20 hours a week at Shopify and take 3 courses per semester at school. Students are required to work and go to school through the summer which allows them to complete the degree in the standard four years.
My peers in the program have I said great things. One of the key parts of the program is how one switches between different teams to get a better understanding of the software engineering landscape. Moreover the mentorship is very helpful and not only developing your technical skills by yourself skills.
One question that students and parents asked me a lot is if there is a requirement to work at Shopify following the completion of the program. Luckily Shopify has made it clear that they will not be expecting students to stay once they complete their degree, but it is my intuition that many people from the program will stay on after their large time investment into the Shopify ecosystem.
Overall, I would have entered this program myself for it for engineering students as well. Sadly, the program is restricted to computer science students as the Canadian accreditation requirements for engineering are not fulfilled while in the dev degree program.
Although people may say "why do you need a degree?", it is difficult to find a job without the qualification of showing your ability to complete post-secondary in a field of candidates that did.
With initiatives such as Silicon Valley trip for students run by the Lassonde co-op Department, I am sure that lassonde will continue to innovate and engage students in meaningful ways beyond the traditional methods.
I know a lot of people don't even have CS on their radar when they enter college.
There are much more opportunities nowaday to use coding in almost every major, sadly, the schools haven't changed, ending up imo ruining a lot of career.
A decade later and I'm working in UX research and digital strategy and the finance stuff feels like a lifetime ago. Everyone's journey is going to be different.
I don't have the debt (just the opportunity cost of wasting a decade doing something I didn't really want to do), and this program wouldn't have saved me, but I understand your regret.
Is that hyperbole, or literally your debt is that much?
this Shopify program would have been a lifesaver. we need way more Shopifys in the world.
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https://engineering.shopify.com/blogs/engineering/dev-degree...
Disclosure: recent hire at Shopify, not through this program. Just learned about it, actually today from HN. After mentioning it to my team, was pointed to this link and thought I'd share it here.
The site isn't very specific about location, are there location requirements?
You must apply and qualify for the university degree, in addition to being selected by shoppify themselves. If I remember correctly when I asked about it, the University also had some say in the selection process.
When I looked into it, the number of accepted was quite low (I believe less than 15 per year), which to me indicates they are quite selective.
The people I met were exceptionally friendly, and genuine. It seems like a really excellent place to work, at least from the outside.
York is in suburban Toronto.
Those schools are not quite in the same league as Toronto or Waterloo, but they're adequate.
Deleted Comment
I offhand mentioned a previous program they ran (letting people out of the field get an internship) to someone I knew, and it made a huge difference. Creating/sustaining jobs/incomes in this way is actually very cool in my books.