By Rochelle Maruch Miller
Undaunted by rain, winds, and poor weather forecasts, a standing-room-only audience converged at Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst last Sunday evening to attend “Future Tech Jobs for the Frum Community,” an open-house event hosted by WayFind. From the Five Towns, Far Rockaway, the five boroughs, and beyond, they came–young men and women transitioning into the workforce from yeshiva or seminary, recent college graduates, and people thinking about changing careers. Braving the inclement weather that night, they took the first step towards exploring career options that could ultimately change their future.
The event provided information about an abundance of job opportunities for the frum community in the rapidly expanding technology sector. At a panel discussion moderated by Mordy Golding, director of content at LinkedIn, and Avi Singer, CEO of showd.me, panelists included Chaim Fried, founder and CEO of OWAL; Sruli Derdik, principal engineer of Platform Services at Adobe Systems; Rachel Geisler, software engineer at Google, and other frum professionals enjoying successful tech careers at Fortune 100 companies.
Following opening remarks by Natasha Srulowitz, co-founder of WayFind, Mordy Golding delivered a powerful presentation, “Why Technology?” affirming the many benefits a future in technology affords the Torah-observant individual.
Next, “A View from a Tech Employer” provided participants with a firsthand perspective from Clark Valberg, co-founder and CEO of InVision, a digital product design and collaboration platform. Many of the world’s smartest companies, including Twitter, Netflix, Hub Street, and Amazon, use InVision to power their product design process from start to finish. As a frum Jew who had dropped out of college, Valberg credited his success to drive and creativity. He explained the lifestyle his employees enjoy–working remotely from home, on a time schedule they control, with many freedoms and benefits and endless opportunities.
Avi Singer followed with a presentation on “Technology and the Frum Lifestyle,” highlighting the benefits available. The panel discussion addressed many of the aspects people consider in a job–what they do, the environment, the lifestyle, and the consideration their workmates have for their frum way of life. Such advantages include flexibility, a shomer-Shabbos friendly work environment, the ability to work from home as needed, respect for an employee’s religious standards and dress code, and the like. It’s more accessible to our frum lifestyle, a better fit than many other career choices young men and women often settle for because they feel “it’s what everyone is doing.”
“Google, for example, has created a working environment that affords its employees many benefits,” one of the panelists explained. “These perks have become the norm throughout the tech industry.”
After the panel session, people stuck around to talk one-on-one. The feedback following the event was very positive, as evidenced by the following messages received after the open house:
“I find the advice that you and the panelists gave incredible.”
“I went to the open house last night and I was very impressed by who I saw. I really liked the guest speakers and I liked the information they shared throughout the night’”
“I missed the open house last night but I heard amazing feedback from my friends.”
The event gave audience members a rare insider’s look at the industry, providing them with insight from the perspectives of employers and employees alike. Graciously sharing their knowledge and expertise in their fields, the guest speakers supported their advocacy of tech careers for the frum community.
To help the frum community get the job skills required for lucrative careers with growth potential, WayFind has partnered with General Assembly, an industry leader preparing people for technology careers, to create gender-separate boot camps. A boot camp is a technical training program that teaches the parts of coding, UX (user interface) design, or data science with the biggest impact and relevance to current market needs. They teach people with little or no technical background what they need to know to be job-ready at the end of the program.
WayFind will launch with a course on full-stack Web development at the end of January, with UX design and data science to follow.
These boot camps are immersive for 10—12 weeks, which means that students spend their days–Monday through Thursday 9—5, and half a day on Friday–in class, learning and doing group projects. They will have homework at night. They will be working hard. “We want people who really want to do this–who are serious about it, can make a commitment to give it their all–and we can feel confident putting them into a job,” says Adele Dubin, co-founder of WayFind. “For those who do not have a college degree, Rabbi Harry Rozenberg was there to talk about how to incorporate these boot camps into a college degree. We have partnered with the best to provide you with the best training.”
WayFind is planning informational sessions on these topics. The one on full-stack Web development will take place in the beginning of November. For further information, please call WayFind at 516-253-1147 or visit www.wayfindcareers.com.
