How a Miami nonprofit is diversifying the next generation of tech talent

Born and raised in Venezuela, Javier Salgueiro and his family moved to South Florida while he was in high school. Always interested in technology, he transferred from Broward College to FIU as a junior, but while working several jobs to attend college, he found himself falling behind in his computer science classes and was searching the internet for courses or boot camps that could help him step up his game.

CodePath popped up. “I said, ‘This is too good to be true because it was all free,’” Salgueiro recalls. “But I applied because what’s the worst thing that can happen? I didn’t know it was going to change my career.”

He wasn’t sure what area of technology he wanted to pursue, but CodePath’s free Intro to Software Engineering course helped him zero in on that. Just to be sure, he also signed up for cybersecurity and mobile app development courses but dropped them because they didn’t excite him like software engineering.

Salgueiro, now a senior at FIU, also took a CodePath course on preparing for a technical interview, and he participated in CodePath’s Internship Connection Program, an eight-week virtual program that helped him learn interviewing techniques, whip his LinkedIn profile into shape and learn about internship opportunities.

He applied and was hired for a tech internship at American Express in Sunrise over the summer, and recently received an offer to be an entry-level software engineer there after he graduates with his computer science degree in the spring.

“I feel like CodePath went the extra mile with me and they do that with every one of their students,” he said.

CodePath, a nonprofit, is on a mission to transform computer science education and create the most diverse next generation of software engineers, chief technology officers and tech founders. Co-founded and led by Michael Ellison of Miami, CodePath brings free technology courses, mentorship and support to students and educational institutions across the country, with the goal of increasing the number of underrepresented minorities in tech jobs that often pay over $100,000. Today, Black people make up only 7% and Hispanics make up 8% of America’s tech workforce.

Funded by the Knight Foundation, JPMorgan Chase and Miami-Dade County, CodePath’s Miami work is targeted at three schools with large populations of Hispanic and Black students — Florida International University, Miami Dade College and Florida Memorial University. CodePath also serves Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. Programming is customized for each school’s needs, and students can earn college credit for certain courses.

Value of tech internships

“We are going deep to build new innovative partnerships with local institutions and local government to serve as an economic engine for the region. We’re excited about the partnership that we’re growing out with CIS departments to scale their offerings and link industry and classrooms with a focus on internship attainability,” said Victoria Angulo, CodePath’s director of partnerships.

She says students who engage in one technical internship as an undergraduate are 65% more likely to land a full-time tech role within six months of graduation. With two technical internships, that metric improves to 97%.

“We recently have expanded our Internship Connection Program that works with employers to bring a diverse group of candidates to the forefront. They’re coached by a CodePath Career Center team in order to help them land their first technical internship,” Angulo said.

For Ellison, CodePath’s CEO who moved to Miami from the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021, CodePath is what he wished he had when he was a student. He grew up in Maine in a low-income, single-mother household, and in college was interested in majoring in computer science but was completely unprepared to succeed in the courses and dropped out of that program. He went on to study economics, learned how to code on his own later in his career and became a successful entrepreneur, but he knows that’s not the story most students from similar backgrounds have. He founded CodePath to change that.

“I’m most excited about the momentum around our mission from all sides — this includes deepening our relationships with leadership at Miami Dade College and FIU, as well as increased interest in CodePath from local employers, funders and students,” said Ellison. So far this year CodePath has seen a 540% year-over-year increase in Miami-student registration for its Emerging Engineers Summit, where students are matched with more than 65 companies seeking early engineering talent, he said. “We’re also seeing local students successfully land and excel in high-paying tech jobs.”

In the South Florida area, CodePath has worked with nearly 700 students over the past two years, and more than 200 students and alumni have already landed technical positions.

Yunier Sanchez, a graduate of Florida Memorial University and originally a baseball player from the Dominican Republic, is one of those. He is now a security engineer at Restaurant Brands International, based in Miami, and he credits CodePath’s technical interviewing course for helping him land his position. Sanchez is also continuing to work on an app featured at CodePath’s South Florida Demo Day in June. The app, Tailored, will help tailors like his father connect to customers.

“CodePath is reaching between 10% to 20% of local computer science students, which will continue to increase as we deepen partnerships with local institutions,” Ellison said. Staying cutting edge is also key. “We are also leveraging major investments in AI to introduce Miami students to the future of AI native software engineering — and through additional AI-based support infrastructure, we are able to drive even greater personalization at scale for students across the region.”

Nationally, CodePath has a goal to help 100,000 students a year by 2030, but “our eventual goal is to reach all computer science students in the country with CodePath’s courses,” Ellison said. Today, more than 20,000 CodePath students and alumni from more than 500 colleges across the country now work at 2,000 companies. Most of them identify as Black, Latinx, indigenous, first-generation college and/or low-income.

“We’ve begun to replicate our place-based model in Miami to connect the tech education to employment pipeline across other regions and this work has opened up tremendous interest from catalytic funders,” he said.

That includes a recent $15 million gift from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott, the largest single donation in CodePath’s history.

“This funding will allow us to invest in our organizational infrastructure to have a deeper economic impact in Miami and other communities,” Ellison said.

Eva Sennrich, a senior studying computer science at FIU, is on track to graduate in the spring. When she moved from Nicaragua in 2019, she was initially pursuing a degree in interior design but “everything changed when I discovered CodePath and its amazing programs.”

She changed her major to computer science and joined CodePath’s Futureforce Tech Launchpad 2022, a Salesforce pre-internship program. “Since then, I started feeling I belong somewhere and that in this field, women like me are not just welcomed but celebrated.” She finished an internship at Salesforce this summer and will be returning as a full-time employee after she graduates.

Angulo said CodePath recently surveyed CodePath alumni, and those who answered from the Miami area said their yearly wages increased by $69,000 on average because of the courses. “That’s pretty life-changing stuff.”

How to help

Contributions to CodePath, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, can be made through a donations link on codepath.org. Employers inquiring about partnerships can contact CodePath here: codepath.org/employers/partner-with-us.