How I trained a team of junior programmers using videos and WhatsApp

I would like to share with you, how I am currently training (for the first time) a team of junior programmers remotely using custom videos and a WhatsApp group, I hope you find this experience useful to you in one way or another.

Let’s start from the beginning, as an independent programmer, I decided that I need to hire a programmer (or maybe more) to help me with specific tasks when I get new projects.

so I modified my personal website and added this sentence:

“Are you a programmer who wants to work with me? Apply here.”,

and when they go to the application page, there’s a form they have to fill with some basic stuff such as their name, CV, skills, etc.. and a descriptive text as well, I will share with you part of that text below in order to get a general idea about what I was looking for:

Details about the job

Are you a junior programmer who is interested to help me to accomplish certain tasks?

The type of the work is task based, that means I assign a task (or more) to you that may literally just take few hours or less to finish, some tasks may take few days though.

Regarding the tasks themselves, they may range between different technologies and languages such as: NodeJS, php (Laravel, Wordpress, Drupal), HTML, CSS, React Native, E-commerce, hardware programming and even research regarding a specific topic, but let me be clear regarding some points:

You don’t have to work on all of these, you may simply be interested to work on HTML tasks only, or to help me doing some research related to an e-commerce plugin, etc.. (you can specify that in the form at the end of this page)

You don’t have to be knowledgeable about any of the above, as long as you have good work ethics and you are interested to learn, I will guide you through the process.

For now, this is not a part-time or a full-time position, it is just something you can do on the side in case you have some free time and you want to earn some extra money.

Expectations

here’s what to expect if you decided to join:

I like to work in an organized way, I may provide you with videos and/or documentation that I personally made to help you with your task(s) and I will guide you as well.

Working with me will hopefully be a smooth process, since I am a programmer like you, so we can communicate better, and I can explain the tasks in a way that makes sense to you.

And I shared a link in a specific WhatsApp group (I didn’t want to share it everywhere, at least as a start), and I get many applications, and here’s the cool part, instead of interviewing them one by one, and going back and forth, I made a video and I explained to them what I am looking for and I went into some details, and I sent them a link to the video (which was an unlisted YouTube video), and also I mentioned to them that if they weren’t chosen to work with me, they can still join the training program.

and most (if not all of them) were interested to join the training program even if they weren’t picked, so I invited them to a private WhatsApp group and I started working on video tutorials that I published online and asked them to watch them and there’s a specific deadline or else they will unfortunately be removed from the group, and then later I started asking them to send me the programming files that they worked on based on the tutorial, now, some of them didn’t fully commit and they were no longer part of the group but a good part were committing and were benefiting and following the tutorials, and I was also flexible regarding the deadline, so if someone wasn’t able to finish the “assignment” in time for one reason or another, I just need to know in a private message before the deadline and not after.

Now, in case you are in a similar situation, I highly encourage you to experiment with making good quality videos and share it with the team, it is a very efficient and scalable way to teach and train, and make sure that the videos are really organized and clear, and provide your team with a chat group where they can ask questions and receive the needed support.

After a while of sending videos, we had a Zoom call where I get to know them more and we bonded as a team, it was a nice experience, it felt really good how these programmers are from different areas in Lebanon with different technical backgrounds but we were all meeting in a single place to work together, and all that started by simply creating an online form, then by creating some videos and by communicating through chat.

and yes this will take time and effort, but I feel that benefiting from the technology, setting some clear rules, and communicating efficiently can help you train teams, build projects in a fraction of the time compared to using other methods that aren’t as efficient.

Now, the training is still in progress, we finished a good part so far, and I had another Zoom meeting with the team to discuss the next step (which is handling actual projects).

And as the team are learning, I was learning as well, since it was the first time for me that I do something like that, and finally, I hope you learned a thing or two from this story that is still unfolding in realtime.