Hi guys, I realise this is an old post but still worth putting my thoughts out there (oh and this is my maiden post on Radar). Lots of comments for and against Andela’s business model, whilst I agree with some of the “against” comments, I prefer to focus on the positive things the company has been able to achieve at this early stage of its life cycle.
Few companies have been able to bring the required credibility and awareness necessary to build a viable tech eco-system in Nigeria, Andela is one of such. This should be whole heartedly commended. Truth is business is business, the Zuckerberg foundation and other investors are not investing because they are nice guys or because they are trying to save the world, its purely for profit. Andela must serve the needs of these investors, especially at the start of the relationship. If it means targeting the young and “vulnerable” as someone said in their post, then so be it, to do something great there will always be an element of collateral damage, however in this case the damage isn’t all that bad. The Andela fellows will learn, and not just coding, but confidence, charisma, etc, the things that really matter when trying to get the top jobs, or the big investments, or partnerships etc. Yes it may cause a temporary brain drain in Nigeria (I run a FinTech startup Kudimoney.com and many of the developers I want are already at Andela or trying to get into Andela), but in the long run it can only be beneficial to our overall ecosystem. Look at it as Nigerians that have gone to Harvard or Oxford and repatriated back home to share their acquired skills and experiences with others.
Of course the chaps at Andela could have done a better job with the terms they offer, but isn’t that the same with everything, we can always do better, and I’m sure over time, the company will find more creative ways to attract and retain top talent. At least they have provided a sustainable avenue for many to excel, a not so easy feat in the Nigerian environment.
Let us give Andela a “hall pass” for now, there will be mistakes, but this will only make them better, and indirectly make our tech environment better.
There are various alternatives to Andela eg www.thehackacademy.org but the catch is when it comes to paying tuition, some people think N300,000 its too expensive.
Value is very important. Andela has its value, Hack Academy has its value.
LOL at taking adv of poor desperate people. Are you serious? Andela is a GREAT opportunity.
Andela just opened it’s doors in Kampala about 2 months ago.
I am a Ugandan developer, 27 years old to be exact. So for me a 4 year commitment would be too much.
Nonetheless, I am considering it.
Their business model is very standard nowadays especially where free training is offered.
You get free training and in return pay it foward OR you don’t join and do whatever you like. Makes total sense!!
So this guy would rather be trained for free and just walk away whenever he pleases? LOL
Someone had the NERVE to compare it to SLAVERY. When in fact you are getting TRAINED and while at it getting PAID and working for REPUTABLE clients.
I think if you are looking for the definition of UNGRATEFUL, that is a good place to start.
I think that if you are a young developer, it’s one of the best opportunities out there because skills alone won’t do you much good if you can’t find regular employment or well paying clients. You will ultimately get demotivated and quit developing altogether.
My only plea to Andela is to be more forthcoming with this info so that there is no confusion whatsoever.
Just coming across this
Anyways:
Any contract/bond by a company to it’s employees is considered anti-labour practice (I dare you to try it in the US or UK)
A common way US companies try to keep their employees to stay is by giving them stock options.
Andela however could decide whether it wants to be a training institute or a company
Those saying “its a private company they can do whatever they like”, I hope the bank which you keep your money suddenly closes…then you understand why these things are unethical.
That people are desperate (or have no choice) does not mean you should take advantage of them
And actually it’s easily compared to sex slavery
Also anyone saying that the contract is not legally binding and can not be affected…sorry you are wrong. They could easily ask that you have a gurantor/gurantors up front who would promise to pay the sum if requested.
Btw andela would not be the only company in Nigeria who have similar bonds. A company I worked for had something similar.
The reason why the law has not caught up to these companies is because…with such bonds in place, you can only attract “desperate” people who would lack the means or power to effect any sort of change.
Those who have the means are mostly ignorant of such facts as it does not affect anyone that has good access to them
LOL the US college system is setup the same way. The students eventually have to pay up to sallie mae.
If you are working for Microsoft, you can’t be caught working for Google. Celebrities are not allowed to represent a competitor brand. This is obviously something you just made up.
Hell, even the worst blue collar jobs in the Middle East hold you to some sort of contract.
Andela for me can’t be compared to African gov’ts that are too busy sending off their youth to some of the worst working conditions in the middle east.
I see Andela as another option and not an organization one must join.
I also would like to know, on a personal level; What have you done to help youth in Africa-- forget Africa, your neighborhood, to acquire new skills and access to well paying jobs?
As I said
It has to decide to either be a company or an educational institution
As a company it is outright unethical
And here you are affirming my point that those types of jobs are for only the extrememy desperate by comparing to blue collar jobs in the middle East who cannot be protected.
Don’t get me wrong it’s not “bad” it’s just unethical and outright wrong in some countries.
@francis_earth,i am totally disappointed with your comment and please,you have a victim/foreign aid mentality,so we should be grateful to Andela like they are doing African youths a favour.so nobody can critize Andela?
Fact:Not Everybody in Africa will become a programmer,Also not every developer working for Andela will become a succesful programmer after 4 years and that is the reality,also Everyone is entitled to their opinions.any thing other than that is censorship.
Please,do compare your Andela salary to what is being paid by the firm which you were contracted to by Andela,then you will know,you are being exploited.
Andela’s business model is to exploit,I will be blunt,Truth be told,no serious western client will employ an African developer except you are being referred or you are exceptionally good,just check most freelancers site and check if you will get jobs as a freelancer,most do not trust you because you are African,i have spoken to lot of western companies,they prefer Indians or Eastern Europeans to Africans,so what are you saying.
Andela is just doing you a favour,they know you will never be employed as a programmer in the western world,so they just tell you to self learn and pay you chicken change,while they make the real cash:)
I am also very skeptical about San Francisco startups here in Africa,they bring their cultural baggage and motivational speeches from San Francisco and expect you to behave like them forgetting the reality on ground,if you do not follow their ways they start saying you are not open minded.
I’m really trying to determine whether to be excited that people have understood the value that Andela is creating, and will continue to create for the world, or to be disappointed that so many people sit on their computers, look for reasons to criticize organizations they have limited information about. I’ll choose the former. Excitement is more exciting :).
Perhaps it’s helpful for me to create a list here of what Andela is and how we work. In general, I prefer to keep working hard and focusing on how I can add value, but it feels like now’s probably a good time to take a more definitive stance on this conversation.
Andelans are passionate about making a dent on the future of Africa and the world, and we are already toughing it out and taking steps every single day to do just that
Andela is a 4-year technical leadership program focused on empowering world-class software engineers and technologists. We are a company. For profit. Our developers are full-time employees. They are typically folks with pretty high levels of persistence, grit, desire to learn, and ability to take feedback). We actually test for those things.
Our community is diverse. We have people from different socioeconomic backgrounds. We also have a few people who were smart enough not to bother finishing university, though the overwhelming majority hold Bachelor (or more advanced) degrees
We place aspiring Andela developers through ridiculous hurdles. An aptitude test, a psychometric test, interviews, an in-person bootcamp, and THEN six more months of learning and developing after they are hired.
We invest a sizable amount in each developer we hire, and provide them a stipend to learn during the aforementioned 6-month program (the stipend is not mouth-watering, but it reduces the barrier to entry for people who truly want to learn by removing any cost from this). This also means we can become more diverse - as the only requirements to get in are things within peoples’ control (such as desire to learn and accept feedback), not how much they can afford to pay.
In order to ensure that these investments are recouped and we are able to hire and “upskill” more developers (i.e. creating a sustainable model), we ask each developer to stay for 18-months. After that period, everyone is free to do what they want. Our retention rates are some of the highest I’ve seen in any firm or country I’ve ever worked at. Check my LinkedIn if you’d like to see the comparison set.
After 6 months of intense learning and development, amazingly smart Nigerians (some of whom didn’t know how to write code before beginning their Andela application), become capable of working alongside some of the most awesome startups working on solving some of the most challenging, or most interesting problems (or sometimes maybe just ok and not soooo exciting). Examples of such companies are - CrunchBase, SeatGeek, Microsoft, Zapier, IBM, etc. The rest can be found on our home page here https://andela.com/
Andela’s developers are interested in solving many of Africa’s problems. Many also want to solve global problems. They will.
During these client engagements, Andela’s developers learn, build, create, and then continue to increase their exposure to global technology teams, and also increase their confidence as world-class developers
When they’re not busy building, creating, learning, they are mentoring young women and teenagers, contributing to open source, organizing workshops or participating in community events through ForLoop, Facebook and Google Developer Groups, supporting aspiring Andelans, etc. Basically, they are contributing to their communities, Nigeria and Africa at large. Some of our awesome devs have gone as far as attending Google I/O, joining Fareed Zakaria’s GPS show on CNN, and continue to represent Nigeria and Africa on the global scene
Our intent is that after they spend four years at Andela, most will go on to do other amazing things - become CTOs, VPs of Engineering, Startup Founders, maybe get into public policy or governance, etc.
As we now have developers who have completed their 3rd year and are advancing towards the 4th year, we are preparing to help them launch careers in tech AND start businesses (for those who want to). We are co-creating this with their input, because in this environment “You Own Your Own…” (learning/development/interests/etc)
We envision a future where many of the top executives at Nigeria and Africa’s leading technology companies, startups, and public sector arms will be Andela alumni. That way, they’ll all speak the same “language” and be laser focused on building a better future together (even while competing). We also hope that they will be able to find colleagues who either worked here, or at any number of the awesome tech companies our fellow country-men are building. Afterall, many of us in the tech scene already interact frequently. We might as well work together to build the future here.
Because we can’t unleash the power of 100,000 developers (that’s our first big goal) through building multiple physical campuses, we’ve also taken advantage of (you guessed it!) the internet to codify the lessons we’re learning internally and distribute them to thousands of learners through our Distributed Learning Community - https://andela.com/join/dlc/
Outside of the above, there are many other dimensons to Andela. We post a lot on our social media pages
We also host visits to our office to show any curious person more about what we do. Our office is really nice - deliberately (we want people to block out the Lagos “madness” and focus on honing their craft) - https://techpoint.ng/2017/05/05/andela-epic-tower-lagos/
As with every other organization (especially a young one), we are continuously identifying areas where we can level up. We also get feedback from our >300 employees (in Nigeria), and constantly work to incorporate them. They are pretty smart and awesome people so they ALWAYS have feedback. In general, people love it here. But we’ll always keep striving to be more awesome.
For folks who sees what we’re trying to create, and perhaps already see the value we’ve created so far, we’ll keep forging ahead and trying to support the ecosystem.
My colleagues in the comms team would probably kick my a** for writing this, but I’m hoping this helps a few people understand what we do better.