Fellowship
In this fellowship program, you will have an exceptional opportunity to acquire modern software techniques, approaches, and mindsets that will empower you to tackle challenges from a fresh perspective. The program's objective is to enhance the skill set of Airmen interested in software development by integrating new tools into their repertoire. The program is divided into three disciplines: Product Manager, Product Designer, and Software Engineer/Developer. Each participant will receive training from industry experts on software development principles and their role within an agile and balanced team framework. The framework is structured as follows:
Product Manager: The Product Manager is responsible for representing the mission and acts as the voice of "the business." They strive to become experts in their product area and oversee the team's backlogs and outcome delivery. They prioritize work and make the final determination regarding the validation or invalidation of hypotheses.
Product Designer: The Product Designer plays a vital role in advocating for the user and promoting empathy. They are the voice of the user. Their main focus lies in interaction design, user testing, and experiment design. Additionally, they also lead or support visual design and user research initiatives.
Software Engineer/Developer: The engineering teams predominantly work in pairs to implement solutions that address user pain points. Guided by the backlog owned by the Product Manager, the engineers concentrate on delivering intended outcomes by employing the simplest viable solution. They are the ones who bring the plan to life.
Through this program, you will gain valuable insights from industry experts and refine your expertise in software development. The aim is to equip you with the necessary tools and perspectives to approach challenges with innovation and efficiency.
Prerequisites
General
- Have a growth mindset and love working in a fast-paced agile environment
- You have experience making data-driven decisions and are comfortable with generating and monitoring metrics to deliver insights
- Understands the benefits and goals of a balanced team and empathy for users
- Ability to work independent without major oversight
- History of going above and beyond to help other team members
Product Manager
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with ability to present in a clear and concise manner to a variety of audiences
- Experience working cross functionally with tech and non-tech teams
- Experience defining product requirements and using data and metrics to determine improvements
- Demonstrated ability to operate both strategically and tactically in a fast-paced environment
- Ability to use hard data and metrics to back up assumptions, recommendations, and drive actions
- High degree of organization and ability to manage competing priorities
Software Engineer/Developer
- Experience in computer science fundamentals like data structures, complexity analysis, object-oriented design and algorithm
- Preferred DoD software development experience
- You care about writing high-quality code, and understand automated tests to back up your code
- Experience utilizing XP processes preferred
- Comfortable writing both interpreted and compiled languages
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines
- Experience with one or more Container-ecosystem and frontend and backend development
- Embrace test driven development, continuous delivery, and automated testing
- Object-oriented programming experience
- Experience with user interface design/development
Product Designer
- Demonstrates strength in visual design, storytelling, designing modern usable interactions and UIs
- Ability to highlighting your customer-centered approach to design with business and customer impact
- Customer-focused mindset with the ability to understand customer insight and turn that into tangible solutions
- Excellent communication, presentation, interpersonal and analytical skills