A101 case study: How to build a new team of 9 developers in only 10 weeks

About A101

A101 is the most widespread supermarket chain in Turkey with more than 
11,000 stores, 61,000 employees, and over 600 suppliers. The company is also listed among world’s top 250 retailers.

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A101 Amazon Lambda & DynamoDB Node.js Program

A101 and Patika launched a 4-week Node.js Bootcamp in January 2022. 
Because A101 uses AWS serverless architecture, an AWS Workshop was also included in the curriculum. Originally, A101 aimed for hiring 5 developers out of 32 candidates admitted to the program. But the quality was so high that A101 decided to complete the hiring process with 9 great talents.

At the end of 2021, A101 was in the process of strengthening its technology infrastructure with new hires. Establishing a new team in the company was a challenge since it required A101 to quickly recruit a high number of developers. 
The speed of hiring, the workload of the hiring teams, and choosing great team players with cultural fit to each other and the company were major challenges.This challenge intensified with the high competition for technical talent in the market.

Hiring teams wanted to hire as fast as possible since vacancies cost money and delay operations. But, research shows that hiring tech talent could take up 3+ months.

Glassdoor also report that 76% of hiring managers admit attracting the right candidates is their greatest challenge. Hiring managers and technical teams are wasting their precious time by going through tons of applications.

Finally, quickly bringing a new team formed of individuals that never interacted with each other before together means taking a big bet on team formation.

Data: Glassdoor, Kodluyoruz

We tailored the bootcamp’s content and durationbased on A101 needs:

• 3-week applicationand candidate outreach
• 2-week selection
• 4-week training
• 1-week job placement

Within 10 weeks, all hiring processes were completed. A101 saved at least 50% in hiring time and cost. Workload on the recruiting team has been significantly reduced as all process was managed by Patika except the final 1-week job placement period.

Since the newly established team will use AWS in addition to full-stack technologies, we held a workshop with Amazon Turkey to provide an AWS training.

One of the best part of hiring from bootcamps is hiring a group of friends who already learned about each other during the training and projects. Candidates got to know each other better thanks to our community-based education and fun social activities. Our bootcamp-specific Discord server and office hours encouraged students to support each other and work together instead of competing with each other.

A101 didn’t only hire 9 great talents - it also provided a level playing field for new talent to launch their career in tech and change their course of lives:

💪 Berçe Özüm Uyğun, an Electric and Electronics Engineer department graduate, landed her first software development job.  

🚀Alı Doğuş Tarhan, an Energy Systems Engineer department graduate, after working in another industry for a year, could change his career thanks to this opportunity.

“The Telegram and Discord channels were so interactive. Being a part of this  developer community that worked towards the same goal has improved me a lot! Many thanks to A101 for providing us this opportunity."

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“I learned about how to improve myself as a developer thanks to this bootcamp. Interacting with expert people from A101 and Patika increased my motivation. I am sure that I will not have difficulties in business life thanks to this knowledge I have gained :)”