Abbie: Hey Jeremy, it would be great to hear more about Learn Elixir. Please could you give us a brief introduction to yourself and your background?
Jeremy: My name is Jeremy Graham and I’m a Co-Founder of Learn Elixir. I handle the business side of things like if someone books a call and wants to ask questions about enrolling. My business partner Mika Kalathil is the Elixir expert among us and is really the star of the show since one of the main reasons people like to join our class is because they get to connect with him every week and leverage his years of experience.
Abbie: I really appreciate you answering these questions for us. How did Learn-Elixir.dev come about?
Jeremy: Our first startup was a flop so after that crashed and burned we decided to form a development agency from the ashes, this was back in May of 2019. With the idea of "CTO as a service" and Elixir as our tech stack, I set out to find us some clients. A couple of contracts later and Mika was hiring for a vacancy but had to go through nearly 100 technical interviews to find someone who could pass what he considered was a relatively straightforward test. This prompted us to look at the educational environment within the Elixir community and we noticed mostly everything seemed to reiterate the basics. This explained why self-taught Elixir devs seemed to have general gaps in knowledge or bad programming habits, there was no feedback loop to course-correct them otherwise. You don't know what you don't know. So overnight we decided to pivot and make the community its first end-to-end solution to teach developers at any level of experience how to master programming with Elixir.
Abbie: It sounds like there was definitely a gap in the market for Learn Elixir. Who is your target audience?
Jeremy: Typically someone with the goal of breaking into the job market and finding their first full-time remote Elixir position. This can be difficult for self taught individuals because as I’m sure you’ve noticed, most companies want to hire the senior developers. Knowing this we’ve built relationships over the years and are getting more and more recognition for producing high quality talent ensuring our developers know the best practices of a production level quality of code before we start working with them on opportunity preparation & placement.
Abbie: Please could you give us an idea of what’s involved in the course?
Jeremy: Our course is a lifetime membership so students will have the same access to everything on day 1 as they would year 10.
The curriculum itself is designed to help someone start with the fundamentals in case they need to unlearn bad habits before they can learn best practices and by the end, have the knowledge base of a senior Elixir developer. There’s 132 videos, 30 comprehension quizzes, 9 assignments, and 2 major projects. With the assignments and projects we require a code review and you can only pass with 100% before moving on to the next level. Code reviews are initially done with our AI to scan for common mistakes so students can instantly get accurate feedback before resubmitting. Once the AI approves the code review it then passes on to MIka for a human review to ensure the best practices of a production level quality of code.
Regarding the mentorship aspect of our class, Mika is available on Google Meet every Wednesday at 12-noon Pacific time. This is when students can get specific answers to their specific questions. This time is entirely student driven meaning any questions they have about anything Elixir whether it’s about the curriculum, an assignment, how to ask for a raise, the best way to deploy their startup… anything!
We also have a private Slack channel in the Elixir workspace where students run networking events or talk about our class. We also have our AI in there in case someone wants immediate and accurate feedback about anything Elixir, we’ve trained it well!
Opportunity preparation & placement always seems to be a hot topic for us too. First we focus on updating your resume, GitHub, & LinkedIn with our recommendations, tools, and examples from your fellow alumni so you can stand out as the obvious applicant. Next we would offer warm introductions to our hiring partners or trusted agencies to get your foot in the door and your resume to the top of the pile. And lastly, if all else fails, we would review the recommended Elixir-specific job boards and network new relationships with hiring managers or C-level executives and recommend you for qualified positions.
Abbie: That sounds great, it’s brilliant you offer lifetime support to the Developers who join. What skills will they learn from the course and how will these skills benefit them in their future careers?
Jeremy: Essentially, everyone learns how to become a talented Elixir developer all in one place. All you need to do is progress through our curriculum at your own pace and join as many live coaching sessions as possible. We can’t carry you across the finish line but we can provide you with the resources and tools and guide you through our class to save yourself years of trial and error troubleshooting trying to brute force your way solo. It takes a community to raise a developer. Feel free to connect with our current lifetime members and ask them how their experience has been so far.
Abbie: Roughly how long does the course take to complete?
Jeremy: There’s 10 levels in total and we estimate that people can pass each level in roughly 4 - 10 hours depending on their previous experience or general comprehension. That being said, the curriculum itself is entirely self paced so you can progress as quickly or as slowly as your schedule allows. The only fixed times are the weekly live coaching sessions every Wednesday at 12-noon Pacific time but they are an optional resource if you need to connect with an Elixir expert and get specific answers to your specific questions. The most common path we’ve witnessed is that a developer will score 100% on their midterm project code review, go through our opportunity preparation and placement modules, get some work experience, and come back to us once they feel they have the bandwidth to continue into our more advanced material.
Abbie: How do you generally find people who want to enrol on the course?
Jeremy: They find us! The most common answer I hear back when I ask this question is that they were researching educational resources and our name kept coming up.
Abbie: Are there opportunities for beginners as well as Developers who already have some Elixir experience?
Jeremy: We start with the basic fundamentals so we can welcome all developers at any skill level into our class. The more experienced people will of course progress much faster and virtually speed run through the first few levels until they reach the more advanced topics like architecture or how to go distributed.
Abbie: Are the majority of people who sign up to Learn Elixir new Developers or experienced Developers who would like to switch technologies?
Jeremy: We mostly see experienced developers who want to transition their career into Elixir and are looking for the best way to achieve that goal on a guided platform within roughly 3 - 6 months.
Abbie: It seems Elixir is continuing to grow in popularity, are you seeing an increase in people wanting to join Learn Elixir?
Jeremy: We’ve been doing this for about 4 years now and we’ve seen a steady consistent growth within the community from countries all over the world.
Abbie: Are people able to see a preview of the course before signing up?
Jeremy: Absolutely, we encourage it! Start your Free Preview and experience levels 1 & 2 for yourself.
Abbie: Great, thank you! Lastly, what advice would you give to people who would like to start their journey with Elixir?
Jeremy: Do a little bit everyday; consistency is key whenever you’re learning anything new, it lets your subconscious saturate. Work your way through all the free resources available first to make sure Elixir really is the next language you want to master then set some goals and figure out who can help you achieve them. The community is amazing, people are extremely welcoming and kind so don’t be afraid to ask questions. Also, the paradigm shift from OOP to FP tends to give everyone a little bit of trouble so don’t worry about it 😀
Abbie: Thank you so much for telling us about Learn Elixir & what’s involved in the course. It sounds like a great way for Elixir newbies to develop valuable skills to further their knowledge & careers.
Interested in signing up to Learn Elixir?
Jeremy has kindly offered a discount for our readers. To redeem, please use the coupon code ‘beamrec’ for a 10% discount on any of their Plans & Pricing. Or take a look at their ‘Buy Now & Pay Later’ offer with a 75% upfront discount in exchange for 10% of your first year's annual salary after you're hired; Book a Call with Jeremy to see if you qualify.
For more information, please take a look at the links below or get in touch with Jeremy!
Website - https://learn-elixir.dev/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/school/learn-elixir/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/ElixirLearn
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/LearnElixir