Editor’s note (2026 republication): I kept updating the original post for five years, tracking application windows for dozens of cohorts. Those application deadlines and salary ranges have all expired, so this republished version keeps the original’s core concepts, judgments, and advice, and organizes the programs into an evergreen comparison table. Actual application dates and cohort sizes differ every year; please check each company’s official site.

From Bootcamps to Apprenticeships

In 2016, I wrote about the rise of short-term coding programs in the US. At the time, forecasters were predicting that by 2020 the US would have about a million more tech jobs than people to fill them. Starting in 2012, entrepreneurs rushed in and built coding schools of every kind, aimed at people who had never written a line of code. If this tech boom was a modern gold rush, then supplying trained people to tech companies was like the 1849 business of selling shovels to miners.

But a few years on, the entry-level market is no longer as strong as it used to be. Take Hack Reactor, the program I attended: back then, one of the selling points on its website was that 99% of graduates found a job within three months of graduating, and my classmates mostly did land jobs within about three months. Later I heard graduates needed more time, and that claim was taken down. As more and more people changed careers, the supply of entry-level candidates grew sharply. There is a joke now that every international student in the US is switching into coding, whatever they originally studied.

I am not telling everyone to switch into software engineering. You will spend decades in a career; it is not a decision to make on hype. If you switch only because you see the demand is hot right now, you may still face the same hard entry-level job hunt afterward, or or you make the switch and discover you hate staring at a screen writing code all day, and now you are stuck.

But what if you are already sure you want to be a software engineer, and you have already made the switch, but you just cannot get a chance to prove yourself? The good news is that there is now another way into Silicon Valley tech companies: the apprenticeship programs that companies have been rolling out.

What Is an Apprenticeship Program?

Major tech companies started apprenticeship programs to open their doors to software engineers from a wider range of backgrounds. They hope to bring in more women, more people from underrepresented groups, and more engineers who did not come through a traditional CS path.

The interview bar is generally a bit lower than for a regular entry-level SWE role, and some programs skip the on-site entirely. After you are accepted, you typically get several months of paid learning and work, and a chance to prove your ability. Do well, and many apprentices convert straight into full-time roles, with no months of wondering whether you will get an interview, or whether you will pass one.

The Reality of Applying: Short Windows, Move Fast

Readers have complained that by the time I post about a program, the application window is almost closed. Honestly, the window is just short: companies announce these programs and close applications within weeks, because demand is huge. I remember some programs where the application site crashed as soon as it opened, and companies are not worried about getting enough candidates. I usually share them as soon as I hear about them, too. So if you are interested, prepare well in advance, set up your reminders, and submit your application as soon as the window opens.

Companies That Have Offered Apprenticeships (Tracked in the Original Post)

Below are representative programs the original post tracked between 2019 and 2024. Cohorts, eligibility, and salaries are adjusted every year, so think of this table as a map of which companies offer a path like this:

Company Program Notes (per the original post’s records)
LinkedIn REACH A new cohort every six months; length varies from 1 to 5 years; the widest range of roles (Backend, AI/ML, UI, SRE, TPM, and more), with many engineers from the teams providing support
Microsoft LEAP 16 weeks; requires essays; prefers self-taught, bootcamp, and community college backgrounds; besides engineering, there are also PM, UX, and security paths
Google SWE Apprenticeship About 20 months, including a bootcamp and two rotations; aimed at people with no CS degree and one year or less of coding experience
IBM Software Engineer Apprentice 12 months; you need to know one programming language; you must complete the program’s training and requirements
JPMorgan Chase Emerging Talent Software Engineers Up to 2 years; prefers non-traditional CS backgrounds; note that most cohorts do not offer immigration sponsorship
Amazon SDE Apprentice Training courses first, then placement into a team; veterans and STEM backgrounds are encouraged to apply
Airbnb Connect 6 months; aimed at non-traditional backgrounds such as self-taught, online courses, and bootcamps
Asana AsanaUP 6 months (reported at the time to convert well; treat as a period observation, not a current figure)
Twilio Apprenticeship 6 months (reported at the time to convert well; treat as a period observation, not a current figure)
Dropbox Ignite 6 months; aimed at non-traditional CS backgrounds

Others the original post tracked include Oscar Health, Plaid, Lyft, Twitch, and Twitter (now X). The list grows and shrinks with the economy: programs like these tend to launch in good years and get cut or paused first in downturns (Twitter’s, for one, no longer exists), so check each company’s official site for its current status in 2026.

For Those Who Want to Apply

If programs like this had existed when I was switching careers, I would have taken a few fewer detours. This door has always been there. It just opens for a very short time, so you need to be ready and standing at the door.

This post was originally published on my former blog, 「半路出家軟體工程師在矽谷」 (August 3, 2019, and kept updated by the author through May 2024; the site is now offline, and the full text is preserved via the Wayback Machine). For this republication, the expired cohort information was reorganized into an evergreen version.