Riviera Partners is excited to announce that August 21st marked the start of our first Android developer class in partnership with CodePath. The partnership has enabled the creation of the first Mobile Academy aiming to give engineers in-demand mobile skills at no cost. The 6-week evening program is designed to prepare each developer to pass the hiring bar at the most competitive mobile software startups in the world.
The course is ideal for existing developers who want to transition to Android development. The first 15-member cohort will meet twice per week for 90-minute sessions and do weekly projects. An additional 5-10 hours of work per week will be needed in addition to class time.
The application process for the first class was spread primarily by word-of-mouth and was well received by the developer community, pushing the acceptance rate to five percent. The most common languages among applicants were Java, Javascript, and Ruby. On average, the engineers selected to participate in the class have 4.5 years experience, 94% have CS or other technical degrees, and 30% attended a top 10 engineering school.
“We are impressed with the quality of the applicants and narrowing the group down to 15 was not an easy process,” said Timothy Lee co-founder of CodePath.
CodePath, founded by Nathan Esquenazi and Timothy Lee, has been offering high-quality mobile courses to companies in the Bay Area since its inception earlier this year. Nathan is a serial entrepreneur who’s been developing web and mobile apps for the past eight years and Timothy is a Stanford graduate and the co-founder of Miso – a startup acquired in January. The two of them bring mobile technical expertise and a high-quality learning experience to the partnership. Additionally, the guys at CodePath have been active in teaching with groups like RailsBridge and RailsGirls for several years.
Riviera Partners is also bringing a unique team together to make this project a reality. Michael Ellison, Riviera’s Product Manager previously founded a Y Combinator backed education startup and Alaina Percival, Riviera Marketing Manager also operates the successful programming education organization Women Who Code. Their efforts demonstrate the level of innovation Riviera Partners encourages within the organization.
Supporting the CodePath Academy is part of Riviera’s overall effort to provide the best service and experience to the tech community. We have a broad overview of the market and a large gap exists in the markets supply and demand for mobile engineers. Providing these classes will help individual engineers pursue rewarding careers and aid the overall tech market by providing an additional source of high-quality mobile engineers.