The lack of software developers in Sweden and the rest of the world is a challenge that many companies are facing. In 2023, RISE has tried to contribute to the solution with a bootcamp – an intensive training concept in which employees from RISE got to participate in order to strengthen their skills in developing code. The bootcamp is a way to deal with the skills shortage internally and at the same time build a learning organization, says Annette Anjou, Chief Human Resources Officer at RISE.
The increased demand for digital solutions and technological innovations has created a high demand, and competition, for qualified developers. Many companies are struggling to meet their need of these skills, as is RISE.
- My assessment is that we at RISE need about 10-15 software developers in the next few years. Despite intensive attempts we are unable to recruit them because the competition is too fierce. So why not develop the skills of our existing employees, instead of spending resources on new recruitments that do not lead to employment, says Tor-Björn Minde, Director of the ICE Data center unit at RISE and initiator of the bootcamp in software development.
A bootcamp meeting RISE needs
In November 2023, a pilot of the bootcamp was carried out, where 28 employees from different parts of the organization participated. The training was tailored based on RISE needs and was held by employees and experts in the field - Thor Wikfeldt, Anastasiia Andriievska and Martin Simonsson.
- All three of us have worked in international projects where we developed educational material for programming in "open source" format. We currently work together in the EU project ENCCS, which develops skills in industry, academia and the public sector in the use of supercomputers. We have taken modules and materials from there and assembled it into a concept that matches RISE needs, says Thor Wikfeldt, Researcher at RISE and teacher in bootcamp.
The RISE bootcamp in software development was carried out during two weeks in November, a total of 40 hours. Thor tells us about the plan:
- We divided the bootcamp into two parts. Part one focused on the basics of the UNIX shell which is a command line interpreter, or shell, that helps the user automate repetitive tasks and combine smaller tasks into larger workflows. Then we went through Python, the largest programming language in the world. Part two was about methods around code development – all tools and best practices.
It is a win-win situation for both RISE as an organization and for the employees who participates
The bootcamp concept is taken further
After the bootcamp, a follow-up survey and interviews were conducted. All participants say that they are positive about the concept and the majority say they will benefit from what they learned in the bootcamp in their current roles. This gives us at RISE good reasons to continue with the concept.
- The hope is that we will be able to continue with bootcamps at RISE, to both deal with the skills shortage internally and build a learning organization. It is a win-win situation for both RISE as an organization and for the employees who participates, says Annette Anjou, Chief Human Resources Officer at RISE.
In addition to further developing the concept internally for our employees, we at RISE also want to offer bootcamps externally. This as part of our work to ensure that our research reaches society and become knowledge and development for organizations and individuals. That is why we have repackaged the bootcamp in software development into an education that is also offered externally. Read more about this offer - with the new name "Bootcamp in coding and data analysis" here.