No degree? You can still work with us.

College tuition has been skyrocketing in most countries around the world in the twenty-first century. Between 2000 and 2013, the average level of tuition and fees at a four-year college rose by 87 percent (discounting inflation) and the total level of student debt outstanding at more than $1.2 trillion in just the United States. More countries than ever before (where you’re required to pay for education for ex: India) are on the same trajectory as the United States which makes it harder and harder for more students to go to college without burying themselves in substantial amounts of debt.

The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn’t need to be reformed — it needs to be transformed. — Sir Ken Robinson.

On the other hand, we see the rate at which education is being decentralized (from universities / colleges) is growing exponentially. With more EdTech startups like Coursera, Khan Academy, Udacity it makes it as easy as having a smartphone / computer with a decent internet connection to have access to the best quality education out there. In today’s world its as easy as starting a YouTube channel if you want to teach the world something that you want to. A lot of such channels already exist and few of them that I personally really like are CrashCourse, PhysicsGirl, Veritasium, Vsauce, and more (most of these are Physics, but you get the idea) and we have open course-ware ( like MIT Open course-ware and more) from the world’s best universities in almost every topic for free. Growing tuition fee coupled with little or no increase in the quality of education or even decrease in quality in countries like India where we have a huge explosion of universities and colleges to fuel the economic growth with very little (or no) growth in the number of quality educators. All of these combined makes it less and less relevant for traditional education to sustain. Few people (like Peter Thiel) even calls it the education bubble (just like the housing bubble that exploded in the United states in the last decade).

With the rise of the internet it’s easier than ever before for EdTech startups to focus on making great content which can be distributed to millions of people around the world. …and with rise of new technologies like Virtual Reality quality of education will dramatically rise.

Think of [virtual reality] in terms of education. I mean, the classroom is probably the single space that we all know that hasn’t change at all since the beginning of time. It’s a chalkboard, seats, and a teacher up front. But imagine if we can bring the best teachers in the world into that classroom. And a student can put on a headset and suddenly be at the bottom of the ocean studying science. Or be in the Globe theater watching actors rehearsing in the 16th century. Or be in the Sydney Opera House while a concert is happening. -Sir Kevin Spacey

Its certainly not the case that you need to be formally trained to write great software. I learnt writing software when I was 12 (without going to university or any other formal training, of-course). All of the skills of writing software can be learned online and this will be true for more and more industries / verticals (and not just software) in the future. More and more companies (not just software companies) will consider having a traditional university degree as a optional requirement to hire you and with exponential growth of specialized courses (and nano degrees) from EdTech companies, we see traditional university degrees may not be worth the investment in the future.

We at CloudBoost NEVER ask for a college / university degree when we think of hiring someone. When we make a software hire, few things we look for are his/her GitHub profile (quality of code written on GitHub) and the quality of projects (preferably side-projects) he/she has worked on in the past.

We also work completely remotely and we think this will be true for more and more software companies in the future. With tools like Slack, Skype, Trello and more you don’t need an office to work and can work from anywhere in the world. In the past we’ve hired from countries like Canada, United States, Chile, India, Pakistan, Uganda, Nepal, Bangladesh, and more. It can be a lot more fun working remotely when you can choose the place / country where you want to work from. Few of our hires in the past have also traveled the world while they were working with us.

Hiring people without considering a university degree was just one of many experiments we do that played out really well for us. If you’re running a company (particularly a software company) — we would urge you to give it a try.

If you’re someone looking for an opportunity to work and like what we’re doing, and want to work with us. Feel free to email us the links of projects you’ve worked on before and your GitHub profile at careers@cloudboost.io. and yes, We hire people from anywhere in the world.

P.S :

• CloudBoost is an equal opportunity employer. All aspects of employment including the decision to hire, promote, discipline, or discharge, will be based on merit, competence, performance, and business needs. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical​​​ condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or ​expression.
• If you’re under 23 and are working on something great. We recommend you to apply to programs like Peter Thiel’s Under 20 fellowship.
• If you’re are unable to pay your tuition for traditional education. You can check out fellowships / grants online (like Gandhi Fellowship for Indian students) or you can even write to us at foundation@cloudboost.io. 1% of what we make is committed to the efforts like funding and improving education (ONLY for Indian students for now). We think education is the lever which when pulled right can literally multiply the pace of innovation and technology in this world.
• Most people say, education is the same as its been in the last two centuries. You get packed with a bunch of other students in the class and one teacher / professor is delivering a lecture in the front. Yes that’s true, but education that happens outside of classroom than inside of classroom has increased dramatically. Radio’s, television, internet and now VR — all of these has changed (and will change) traditional education piece by piece. You learn about different cultures, science, and more from television for example.
• I personally like the Sir Ken Robinson talk. Do schools kill creativity?. Its definitely worth watching.