Elegant Brothers' Developer Training Institute Established in 2019
Recruiting Over 150 Students for 6th Cohort... 10-Month Training Starting February Next Year
Employment Rate Reaches 90%
Jae-sung Park, Director of Tech Course Education Development at Woowa Brothers, is introducing 'Uteco'. Uteco is the abbreviation for Woowa Tech Course, a software talent development institution established by Woowa Brothers, the operator of 'Baedal Minjok'.
"You don't necessarily have to be involved in software development like coding. If you have experience immersing yourself in a specific field such as dating, studying, or hobbies, you are welcome. Having immersion experience makes studying more enjoyable and work more fulfilling once you get a job."
On the 5th, Jae-sung Park, Director of Tech Course Education Development at Woowa Brothers, emphasized 'immersion' to job seekers attending the 'Wooteco' admission briefing held in Songpa-gu. 'Wooteco' is an abbreviation for Woowa Tech Course. It is a software developer training center established in 2019 by Woowa Brothers, the operator of Baedal Minjok. On the day before the recruitment of the 'Wooteco 6th class,' about 80 job seekers visited the venue in person at the briefing held on the 5th, and approximately 1,800 people participated in real-time chat online while listening to the briefing.
Wooteco is known as a shortcut to employment at so-called 'Nekarakuba' (Naver, Kakao, Line, Coupang, Baedal Minjok). The employment rate for development positions among graduates from the 1st to 4th classes reaches 90%. Woowa Brothers also hires outstanding graduates as full-time employees. Jinyoung Choi (Advertising Product Team at Woowa Brothers) is a graduate of Wooteco's 4th class. Choi said, "Other educational institutions usually have fixed curricula, and students only study those, but Wooteco allowed free exploration within a broad curriculum, which I liked," adding, "I also enjoyed the process of studying while sharing different thoughts with other students." Ji-woo Park, who joined Woowa Brothers' B Mart Service Development Team as a Wooteco 4th class graduate, said, "The best part of Wooteco was the community," and added, "Communicating with coaches currently working in the field and collaborating on team projects with fellow students helped me grow faster than studying alone." Among the 16 Wooteco coaches, 13 are full-time developers at Woowa Brothers. The rest are veterans with experience working as developers in the industry.
Park Ji-woo and Choi Jin-young (from left), who graduated from the 4th class of Elegant Tech Course (Wuteco) and joined Woowa Brothers, are talking about their Wuteco educational experience.
Director Park, who oversees Wooteco, joined at its founding in 2019 after working as a web backend developer at Naver and as a professor at 'NEXT School,' a software talent training center established by NHN. To cultivate customized software talent desired by companies, he incorporated his field experience into the curriculum. Starting with web backend education for the 1st and 2nd classes, the web frontend course was added from the 3rd class. From the currently ongoing 5th class, the mobile Android course has also been included in the curriculum.
With the end of COVID-19, the demand and salary for developers are not as high as before. Instead, the trend has shifted to hiring multiple passionate junior developers rather than one highly paid senior developer. Director Park explained, "Although IT technology is rapidly advancing, universities cannot keep up, so the manpower shortage remains," adding, "Since COVID-19, it has become a trend for companies to create talent training centers like boot camps to compensate for the lack of skilled personnel."
Recently, an era has opened where ordinary people who do not know coding can easily create applications using drag-and-drop methods, such as with no-code and low-code platforms. Generative AI technology, like ChatGPT, which writes code based on simple input requirements, is also rapidly advancing. Director Park said, "While ChatGPT can be used as a tool, the logical thinking underlying it must ultimately be done by humans," and added, "In the 6th class curriculum starting next year, we plan to incorporate how to effectively utilize ChatGPT."
On the 5th, the 'Wooteco 6th Class' admission briefing was held at Wooteco Jamsil Campus located in Sincheon-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul.
In the 6th class of Wooteco, there will also be time to experience entrepreneurship, unlike before. Director Park said, "During the 10-month training period, four months are spent on projects, and I felt it was a waste that programs or business ideas developed and discarded during this time were lost," adding, "Next year, we will collaborate with entrepreneurship education institutions to allow students to experience the process of commercializing our projects."
Wooteco will begin recruiting new students for the 6th class from 3 p.m. on the 6th. The application deadline is 10 a.m. on the 16th. Unlike previous classes where applicants were limited to job seekers and prospective developers, this time experienced developers with work history or those currently employed in the field can also apply. The program will accept about 80 for web backend, 40 for web frontend, and 30 for the mobile Android course, totaling approximately 150 students. The education will be conducted over about 10 months starting from February next year.
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