Veeam Academy for C # Developers: New Season

In the fall of 2018, Veeam Academy will once again open doors for students who want to pump their skills in development on the C # and .Net Framework.

In this article we want to tell you how the classes at Veeam Academy go, what the main stages of training are, and what the Academy gives to our graduates. You will learn about all this firsthand by looking under the cat.

Own Academy: why, how and for whom?

The goal of this business project is to search, train, and recruit young C # developers from among students and recent university graduates. In this regard, the Academy provides an opportunity for our colleagues involved in training to get to know students better. And from the point of view of hiring managers, our course is a kind of interview, test task and probation period, all together lasting two months.

“Often the interview process is stressful for the interviewee (and sometimes for the interviewer) and does not allow to fully reveal knowledge and skills. In fact, the Academy is a long interview in a environment comfortable for both sides. We have more time to see how a person thinks and it works, how he writes the code, to understand how quickly he learns and how to correct errors, which allows us to make an adequate assessment of how this or that potential candidate will cope with the complexity and flow of tasks solved in combat Slovenia. " Denis Serov, Technical Leader.

The Academy allows students to gain experience and practice in industrial development, which is especially important for beginning developers at the beginning of a career. After all, programming is primarily a practice.

The training course is conducted by a professional teacher, Ph.D. Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Dmitry Shalymov.

Many Veeam Software employees also actively participated in the preparation and organization of the course. They made presentations, conducted code reviews, were mentors to students and shared their experiences.

“As a mentor, the Academy gives me the opportunity to refresh and deepen my knowledge in preparing presentations, to think and discuss interesting questions that students ask. As a reviewer and hiring manager, the Academy provides an excellent opportunity to look at the children’s work for a long time, on their ability to learn new things, learn from experience and develop - all that is impossible to see in 2 hours of a regular interview. " Artyom Grigoriev, Experienced Developer.

To get into the Veeam Academy, participants undergo preliminary online testing: 30 questions on C #, OOP, multithreading, algorithms and other topics. Those who scored a passing grade are expected to be interviewed at the company’s office. The study group is formed of 10-15 students. You can read more about the results of the spring stream and the qualifying round in our previous article .

“I accidentally stumbled upon courses from Veeam Academy on the Internet. But as soon as I read the announcement, I immediately started registering. There were many reasons for this. First, it so happened that over the past few years I have been working with C # and .Net I liked this stack, although at that time I still didn’t really understand what the development process was. Secondly, it’s a convenient time. I’m a student, and this imposes some restrictions on my time management. I almost resigned with the fact that the only opportunity is some summer practices, but evening ku Veeam Academy’s classrooms with an ideal schedule for students became a salvation. Well, a certain additional factor was the atmosphere that I felt when I first met at the course presentation. " Alex, a graduate of Veeam Academy.

How is the training

At the very beginning of the course, the guys choose the topic of a common pilot project on which they will train team development skills. According to the results of voting, the service repeatedly won by the type of electronic trading platform. It is intuitive, easy to use, and it is quite realistic to have time to prepare its prototype in two and a half months.

The project is being developed using the Scrum methodology. For many students, this turns out to be the first experience of team development, and with Scrum in general, almost none of the students had encountered in practice before.

To work on a common project, all students are divided into five groups:
UI - User Interface
BL - Business Logics
DB - DataBases
NWK - Networks
QA - Auto Testing

“During my studies at Veeam Academy, I not only significantly improved programming skills in C #, but also gained invaluable experience in team development. It was the team work on the common task that seemed to me the most interesting and difficult stage. Probably, mostly because that it was new to me. A sense of responsibility to your teammates, awareness of the importance of the tasks assigned to you for the whole project as a whole motivates you to work doubly. In addition to everything, it was very interesting to see from the inside how this mechanism of becoming Mands - when 15 initially separate and completely independent programmers establish communication, argue about problems arising in the course of solving problems, find compromises, support each other and eventually become one. " Alexander, a graduate of Veeam Academy.

Each student also has his own individual individual project, in which the guys get acquainted with Microsoft.NET technologies . Student code is checked by Veeam Software employees, the company's leading programmers, whom students can always turn to for advice or recommendations.

“The lectures in conjunction with the tasks seemed to me the most fascinating. At some lectures I sat and caught myself thinking“ Ahhh, that's how it works! ”And this was all fixed later using the lessons learned, which could be discussed with a more experienced developer. This was the most interesting and useful part of the course. " Tatyana, a graduate of Veeam Academy.

The course has a point-rating system. A table with the results of each participant is updated every day on a shared resource. It takes into account the activity and performance on the main indicators (laboratory work, team project, intermediate testing, attendance, weekly reports, etc.). Such a system supports sports interest in many people and motivates to be more active.

The course lasts two and a half months, classes take place three times a week, in the evenings. Let's face it, this is quite intense, especially since in addition to classes in the office, the guys had to do laboratory work at home. But, as a rule, projects capture our students, and the time spent on the course flies unnoticed.

“The informativeness of lectures at the end of the introductory part became higher than I expected: from ways to create an interactive UI to profiling a database, from a reactive paradigm to lectures on clean code - the range of topics covered has become considerable. But in my opinion, working with code- turned out to be most useful reviewer: all the subtleties cannot be covered in lectures, and when personally checking the code, problems that I hadn’t paid attention to before become obvious. " Alexander, a graduate of Veeam Academy.

About motivation

The guys try not to miss classes. Moreover, it happened repeatedly that someone came in their free time from lectures and worked in the classroom on their own. So, for example, according to one student, this was his first experience in a team, and for two months he literally “lived this project”, giving him all his time.

“When I went to these courses, I couldn’t imagine that they would so swallow me. For 2 months, Veeam Academy really settled in my life very tightly. Often, almost all team members came to the office long before classes began, and left almost at night. Work on the project did not stop at home, and labs didn’t relax either. Throughout the course of the courses I was in a state of euphoria, I felt indescribable pleasure from the realization that I was a participant in this project. Tew justified: I got invaluable experience of team development training products combined with interesting lectures. " Alexander, a graduate of Veeam Academy.

And what after the Academy?

Intensive ends with the defense of their project, the guys present software modules and solutions to problems that they dealt with both in individual and in team projects.
After completing the course, each student receives a certificate of professional development and a certificate from Veeam Academy. Well, what about without a graduation ?! We celebrate it in the restaurant as a whole team: former students and their mentors, who have the opportunity to chat in an informal setting.

Successful graduates who showed themselves well during the training and were able to demonstrate high results to hiring managers (the ability to write high-quality code, learning ability) were invited to interview for company vacancies.

Already, graduates of past Veeam Academy courses are working in our company. Here is what one of them says:

“The work leaves only good impressions primarily because of the team with which I work: all the great professionals, communication with“ you ”even with the bosses, the atmosphere is as friendly as possible and free from unnecessary formalism. The product is much larger than anything I have encountered before "So at first it was difficult to understand all the features, but everyone is ready to help and explain what and how. The tasks that are set almost always require a little more than you can, so you constantly feel growth." Alexander, a graduate of Veeam Academy.

Many are keen to recommend Veeam Academy to their friends:

“Based on the results of the course, I can say with confidence that these were the best two months for all the time that I program. Of course, before the end of the course I told my classmates about Veeam Academy and highly recommended. I really hope that they will get to the next course and will also be pleased with its passage. " Alex, a graduate of Veeam Academy.

“During the course, the next day, after another lesson at the Academy, at the university, I excitedly told classmates about everything that had happened the day before. Those, in turn, listened very carefully to me. There was a slight envy and distrust on their face related to that they couldn’t imagine that a third-year student without any serious practical experience could take part in something like that. So, Veeam Academy provides such an opportunity. " Alexander, a graduate of Veeam Academy.

"I will recommend Veeam Academy to my friends and acquaintances who already have some initial knowledge base in programming, IT in general, and who have already managed to work with C #, with Microsoft technologies and realized that they want to develop as C # developers. For them this intensity can be a good start to a career! " Tatyana, a graduate of Veeam Academy.

Fall semester 2018

We are pleased to announce the start of the recruitment for the autumn course for C # developers in St. Petersburg and we invite everyone to take online testing on the Veeam Academy website .

The course starts on September 24, 2018, runs until mid-December and will, as always, be completely free.

Registration and a link to entrance testing are already available on the Academy website: academy.veeam.ru