Removing Systemic Barriers to Tech Jobs

Now more than ever, tech companies are looking for diverse, highly-skilled talent to fill high-paying roles. However, existing employment practices are biased, unproven, and end up excluding diverse and talented candidates. At the same time, companies demand mid-level to senior engineers, but most don’t develop diverse, junior-level talent. Pursuit’s solutions to these problems are Pursuit Commit, Pursuit LevelUp, and Pursuit Dev Shop. They are proven, industry-informed, customizable solutions, and show it’s possible to redesign and implement inclusive systems of hiring and career development. We have successfully implemented solutions at leading companies, inspiring others to follow suit. We need your support to expand our reach, furthering a demand-driven model for hiring. Our solution has the potential to be scaled beyond tech into other sectors, allowing for widespread adoption. Doing so will allow for more opportunities for racially-diverse talent to be hired and retained into high-paying, business critical careers, across all industries.  

Over the next ten years, the software engineering field, with a median annual salary of over $106,000 (Glassdoor), is expected to grow 22% whereas the average growth for all industries is only 4% (BLS) indicating massive opportunity and growth. However, the hiring for these roles tend to exclude minorities and entry-level candidates. Minorities and women tend to underperform in high-pressure technical interviews, which include problem solving and questions that are not relevant to the job responsibilities or day-to-day activities (WSJ).  Another barrier for this talent pipeline is unnecessary degree requirements, which disqualify 70% of African Americans and over 80% of Latinx candidates (NPR). Over standardized hiring practices coupled with exclusive tech networks (The Atlantic) are biased, unproven, and end up excluding diverse and talented candidates from access to high-paying jobs. To offset these practices, a handful of companies are dropping the degree requirement in an attempt to recruit a more diverse workforce (NPR), as they understand that a diverse workforce equates to profitability. Those companies in the top-quartile for ethnic diversity outperformed those in the lowest by 36% in profitability (McKinsey). However, without a proven consistent solution, companies will continue to overlook massive amounts of diverse and talented candidates.  

Pursuit is a social impact organization that transforms the lives of adults with the most need and potential by training them to become software developers, launch careers in tech, and become leaders in the industry. On average, our Fellows increase their annual salaries from $18,000 to $85,00, which amounts to about $2M in additional lifetime earnings. We do this through a two-part, four-year Fellowship that includes Core, a rigorous, year-long training; and Advance, a three-year career development program. 

Employment partnerships with mission-aligned companies offering high-paying tech jobs are essential to our model and the success of our Fellows. Through years of building these relationships, the team has identified three types of solutions: Pursuit Commit, LevelUp, and Dev Shop. They are proven, industry-informed, customizable and show it’s possible to redesign and implement new and inclusive systems of hiring and career development.  

With Pursuit Commit, we work closely with employer partners to build and integrate hiring models into existing processes. Through Pursuit LevelUp, we partner with companies to identify, recruit, and train their blue-collar and non-traditional workers to become software engineers. 

Lastly, through Dev Shop, we employ recent Pursuit grads for project-based work with employer, government, and foundation partners.

Pursuit works directly with historically marginalized communities to provide economic opportunity and create the next leaders in tech. Our solution has the most impact on low-income minorities and women that are pursuing careers in software engineering. Tech careers have historically been out of reach for minority populations. Even as recent as 2020, women only comprise 19.6% of software engineers. Black/ African Americans and Latinx communities are markedly worse as they only comprise 6.2% and 5.9% of software engineers (BLS), respectively. One of the largest barriers to entry into the tech field for marginalized communities are college degree requirements. As a result of being underrepresented in high paying career opportunities these communities also have the lowest median family wealth. Black/ African Americans have $24,100 in median family wealth and Latinx families have $36,100 in median family wealth compared to $188,200 in median family wealth held by White families (Federal Reserve).  

Pursuit’s solution is driven to produce economic opportunities for marginalized communities to build generational wealth through procuring high-paying jobs. We intentionally serve individuals from groups underrepresented in the industry. Our Fellows are 44% women, 95% minority (including 63% Black and/or Latinx), 36% immigrants, 55% without a college degree, and 100% low income individuals. On average, our Fellows increase their annual salaries from $18,000 to $85,00, which amounts to about $2M in additional lifetime earnings.

To shape the success of Pursuit’s training and hiring, we take Fellow feedback very seriously.  During training, Pursuit Program staff proactively reach out via surveys, and also hold 2+ hours of office hours a week for Fellows to come to them with any issue. Core Program staff, who meet with Fellows 1:1, do so to understand root causes of any challenges, and then respond accordingly. Our Employment team offers a similar approach for Fellows who have graduated and are looking for their next opportunity. We also collect Fellow feedback on their interview experience and what they’re seeing in the job market, and use this data to hone Pursuit programs that prepare Fellows for interviews.

There is a glaring lack of racial diversity in tech. Many tech companies want talented, diverse software developers, but are reluctant to change exclusionary hiring practices or invest in cultivating entry-level engineers. Our solutions, (Pursuit Commit, LevelUp, and Dev Shop) are industry-informed, customizable, proven, and effective mechanisms for removing barriers to hiring low-income, non-white adults. These solutions reduce biases in hiring, and provide opportunities for equitable access to high-paying jobs in software engineering, empowering low-income adults to build generational wealth. Pursuit’s solutions also demonstrate it’s feasible and beneficial to make the long-term investment to attract and retain entry-level, racially-diverse talent.

Pursuit has spent the last three years learning and iterating on our hiring partnerships. We have successfully executed Pursuit Commit year over year at Citi, Twitter, Thumbtack, Andreessen Horowitz, Moody’s, and several others. Pursuit LevelUp has been executed at Blue Apron and Uber, with the latter renewing its contract year over year. We are currently about to execute new contracts with Union Square Ventures, Audible, Blackstone, Greenhouse, and a half a dozen other companies for over 100 allocated hiring spots in total. 

We have defined the employer partnership solution and how it can be marketed and operationalized. We have been able to monetize these partnerships to a small degree to help offset costs to Pursuit. However, funding to execute the marketing and operations would be catalytic in helping Pursuit scale these partnerships to other companies and industries, getting exponentially more Fellows hired, and more importantly, igniting a trend across industries.

Most companies want to be more diverse and inclusive, but only some have set clear goals, and ever fewer have allocated the resources and buy-in needed to overhaul current employment practices. Pursuit’s employer partnerships solve this by providing actionable steps and industry-based knowledge that enable companies to 1. gain the buy-in needed internally to let go of exclusionary hiring practices, and 2. operationalize new inclusive hiring and retention practices. 

Pursuit’s model is unique because unlike recruitment firms, we have vertically integrated the Fellow selection process, training, employment, and career advancement (for up to three years after employment). Therefore, we are able to adjust each step to meet specific needs of an employer partner.

Pursuit has been able to successfully implement Commit and LevelUp to dozens of leading companies, and this year we are on track to secure about 100 spots for Fellow alumni and those set to graduate this year. From 2021-2024, Pursuit will train nearly 1,000 Fellows, with a goal of securing allocated spots for each Fellow, using our employer partnership solution. This will unlock $1BN in lifetime earnings for just Pursuit Fellows. As more companies see what’s possible, competitors across the industry are more likely to follow suit. The Commit, LevelUp, and Dev Shop models also have the potential to be adjusted for industries beyond tech into other sectors, allowing for widespread adoption. Doing so will allow for more opportunities for racially-diverse talent to be hired and retained into high-paying, business critical careers, across all industries.  

Pursuit’s currently serves nearly 700 Fellows and alumni. To adjust to the changes brought by the pandemic, our 7.0 cohort was halved last year to two classes. Our standard class size is 36 Fellows. Cohorts over the next three years will be 5 classes of 36 in 2021 (Year 1: 8.0 cohort), 8 classes of 36 in 2022 (Year 2: 9.0 cohort), and 11 classes of 36 in 2023 (Year 3: 10.0 cohort). In Year 1 we will serve 180 Fellows. Year 2 we are projected to serve 288 Fellows and in Year 3 we will serve 396 Fellows. We will serve about 937 Fellows from 2021 to 2023.

We will be projecting cohort sizes for years 4 and 5 over the next year.  

1. Serve more low-income New Yorkers and achieve financial sustainability: We are measuring this through the quality and consistency of program outcomes, neighborhood-based partnerships, and implementing Pursuit Bond 2.0. 

2. Employment Partnerships: Pursuit intends to grow this initiative to achieve the following outcomes:

• Grow the number of hiring commitments from partner companies from 20 to 100 annually

• Increase the hiring rate of Pursuit Fellows from 80 to 85

• Increase the industry retention rate from 75 to 90

• Increase salaries of fellows - average of 85 (starting salary) to 95 (after the end of 4 years)

3. Roadmap for National expansion: In the near term, Pursuit has planned what expanding the Fellowship training model nationally would look like, while piloting and testing the Staff Augmentation B-Corps in NYC. Based on the lessons learned for each of these phases, we envision expanding the training and staff augmentation B-Corps together to locations that lack a skilled workforce and careers in technology.

Pursuit’s solution team is composed of 39 full time staff members and 4 part time contractors.

Pursuit’s team is well-positioned to deliver this solution because of our unique experiences and background. In 2011, our CEO Jukay Hsu, a second generation Chinese-American immigrant, launched Pursuit as a community advocacy group focused on increasing economic opportunities in technology for low-income communities in Queens, New York, the most racially diverse county in America.  

With this vision, Jukay and his co-founder Dave Yang, begin engaging community groups, elected officials, and local stakeholders to advocate for the benefits and opportunities created by tech. Through these conversations, they learned that many people in New York City have talent, grit, and heart, but existing pathways into tech sector jobs were out of reach for most. In response, Pursuit began experimenting with workshops featuring high-quality tech education and skills for low-income adults. What we learned shaped what would become the Pursuit Fellowship. 

Pursuit Team is made of passionate individuals with a wealth of different experiences and knowledge that reflect those of our Fellows. We are immigrants, women or non-binary, Black, Latinx, Asian, Middle Eastern, from low and middle income backgrounds, and former Pursuit Fellows. All of our instructors have been through educational experiences similar to the Fellows they are teaching. These diverse perspectives give every department, including our Program Team and Instructors, firsthand perspectives on executing the programs we deliver to our Fellows. 

Pursuit aims to bring in diverse candidates for roles at all levels we are looking to fill. The decision depends on the hiring manager, who is encouraged to consider candidates that are women or non-binary, non-white, and come from diverse cultural and professional backgrounds. Pursuit does not require a college degree for any of its roles. 

As a result, of the 14 colleagues at the Director level and above, 50% are non-white, 29% are women, and 57% are first or second generation immigrants.  

Pursuit is also currently searching for a Director of People who can build on and grow existing efforts within the company to see and recognize backgrounds and cultures that reflect the diversity that is present in the staff, and our headquarters of Queens, New York City, the most racially diverse county in the United States.

Pursuit is applying to Solve to receive access to funding in grants and investments, join a powerful network of peers, for validation on the impact of Pursuit model, and to gain exposure in the media and at conferences.

Regarding the Employer Partner solution in particular, the funding would be critical in helping us scale our efforts to diversify software engineering. The exposure, funding, and networking could inspire more companies to see that it’s possible to redesign exclusionary hiring practices, and move them to action.

Pursuit most needs support in handling legal and regulatory matters. Our employer partnerships involve increasingly complex contracts. Additionally, we are not sure if it makes more sense for the revenue from our employer partnerships to sit on the non-profit or the B-Corp side of Pursuit. Lastly, to execute the Pursuit Dev Shop Solution, we will need advice on regulations regarding whether the Org or the B-Corp is able to hire and pay Pursuit Fellows while executing on contracts from government and foundation entities.

Pursuit is currently partnering with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL) at MIT on a five-year RCT, launching in 2022.

Previously applied to this opportunity.

Pursuit's solution and programmatic work focus on making STEM careers, specifically software engineering, more inclusive and accessible by recruitment, training, and hiring partnerships that focus on low-income, minority, and women as traditionally under-represented communities.

Pursuit’s programs are designed to provide economic opportunities to low-income, minority, and women communities by transforming them into software engineers able to attain high paying jobs and create generational wealth. Our employment partnerships are designed to remove barriers to access to high paying jobs by helping companies understand their exclusionary and biased hiring practices and providing a diverse and talented workforce.