If you're thinking of applying, start thinking about that - why are you passionate about coding? Why should you be selected out of the 700 other applicants? I was asked questions about passion, fulfillment, and why I thought I should be selected. The application was a bit different, because LEAPers are a bit different. When I saw that they were accepting applications for their 13th cohort in Redmond, I applied. The LEAP program advertises their application dates on both LinkedIn and their official website, so if you're interested in applying make sure to follow the program on both platforms to stay up to date. ![]() After reading through the official website and watching a few LEAP related videos on Youtube, I was sold on the opportunity and decided that I wanted to throw my hat into the ring. At the time, I had no idea what LEAP was but it seemed interesting so I started doing some research. While a student at Lambda School, I had come across a post on LinkedIn congratulating a couple of LEAPers on converting to full time employees at Microsoft. To those looking to follow in my footsteps, Leetcode and MIT's book on algorithms are your friends! Also, you can watch MIT CS lectures for free on Youtube! The content is out there, so don't make excuses - just study up. Knowing that this industry is heavily gated by technical questions about Data Structures and Algorithms, I poured months of my life into learning them. These days I spend my free time consuming knowledge and learning new things about software development. Beyond that, I spent countless hours learning computer science fundamentals and other web development fundamentals through various sources, to name a few: Udemy, Udacity, Teamtreehouse, Pluralsight, MIT OpenCourseWare, and a few classic books from Kent Beck and Uncle Bob Martin. I attended Lambda School to learn full-stack Javascript, including React, Redux, Node, and Express. ![]() Let's start with this - I haven't graduated from college, I'm not a genius, I wasn't born knowing how to write code, I poured blood, sweat, and tears into learning the craft. ![]() In my case, my sponsoring team did not have a spot for me but I was able to network and received interviews with several different teams. Being accepted into the apprenticeship program is by no means a guarantee that you will convert to full-time, but it is an opportunity. You can learn more about the program at the program's homepage at If you perform well during the apprenticeship and your sponsoring team has an available spot, you may be invited for an interview at the end of your apprenticeship to convert to a Full Time Employee at Microsoft. Think folks who learned to code, but may not have gone through a four year computer science program. Microsoft LEAP program is a 16-week modern apprenticeship aimed at recruiting a diversity of talent from non-traditional technical background. It's starting to get difficult replying to each person individually, so I thought I'd write up a little article about my experience and hopefully help future LEAPers. I've been getting many requests recently to talk about my experience at Microsoft's LEAP program.
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