Building on the launch of its technical outsourcing and recruitment service, TalentQL continues to innovate with the launch of Pipeline by TalentQL, a specialized training program for Software Engineers in Africa. The program is focused on training and upskilling mid-level software engineers across the continent to Senior Software Engineers. This is in line with TalentQL’s commitment to democratizing and decentralizing opportunities for African Tech Talent.
Launched late last year by Adewale Yusuf, opewemi Awoyemi and Akintude Sukran,also co-founders of Techpoint Africa,Jobberman and DevCarer, TalentQL is committed to helping companies around the world, build and manage world-class remote engineering teams consisting of high performing technical talents across the continent.
TalentQL raised a US$300,000 funding round in November 2020, and recently added US$120,000 to that after being selected to take part in Techstars Toronto. The startup is now building on the early success of its technical outsourcing and recruitment service by launching Pipeline by TalentQL, a specialized training programme for software engineers in Africa.
According to the e-conomy release Africa 2020 report released by Google and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Africa has about 700,000 professional software developers. However, a larger percentage of these developers are junior to mid-level.
The six month intensive program is targeted towards helping mid-level software engineers who desire to accelerate their career growth by offering them access to advanced resources and training at no initial cost. The program is open to all Software Developers with a minimum of three years work experience in Africa.
Speaking on the newly launched training program, Adewale Yusuf, CEO and Co-Founder of TalentQL said “The demand for senior engineers is at an all-time high. Up to 90% of our clients are seeking Senior Software Engineers. The Pipeline Program was necessitated by this huge gap in the supply of Senior Software Engineers on the continent as against demand. While running TalentQL, we also discovered that a lot of the available Senior Software Engineers lack the requisite soft skills that will position them for global opportunities. We are committed to providing practical solutions to these problems through our Pipeline Program. The program will not only train them on technical skills but will cover soft skills that are needed to succeed and compete in the global talent market. We are confident that this is the right move and will be solving a major challenge in the African Tech Talent Market.”
The Pipeline Program will be fully remote and will run a peer to peer learning format which will offer one-on-one mentorship provided by Top Senior Software Engineers working in some of the biggest tech companies globally, including Twitter, Tesla, Gitlab, Amazon, Google among others.
One of the mentors, Babatunde Fashola, a Senior Software Engineer at Twitter Inc, said “We have a large number of talents on the continent and helping them grow into the full stature that’s required will invariably help us create that required engineering force for building the future we envision. TalentQL is creating this pipeline of engineers and I’m happy to be a mentor; helping to grow our community one engineer per time.”