Vinted Engineering Academy: everything you need to know

We have a selection of paid entry-level programmes which are designed to support new graduates or career changers just starting out in the workplace here at Vinted. These entry-level programmes are currently divided into two categories: Academies and Internships. 

The Engineering Academy programme was specifically designed to accelerate new starters’ tech careers at Vinted; plunging them into our world of exciting work at the forefront of innovation, to collaborate on cutting-edge products with our experienced (and brilliant) teams. Read on to deep-dive into this intensive and exciting career start at our tech-heavy scale-up.

The Academy in a nutshell

The Engineering Academy is a 12-month programme designed to support people at the beginning of their tech career at Vinted. For the first two months, you’ll work through a challenging training programme, which is then followed by ten months of career development. By the end of the programme, you should have a solid enough foundation of knowledge and experience to hit the ground running in your work. That’s right! Engineering Academy participants are paid employees. You’ll continue to be employed at Vinted even after the 12 months, putting your new learnings to good use as you progress in your career.

The routes into the Engineering Academy differ with each yearly intake, depending on requirements. Some of the areas which we’ve welcomed talent into include: Backend, iOS, Web, Quality Assurance, Site Reliability, Security and Data Engineering areas. But who knows what we might lean into in the future!

A hands-on technical induction

The initial two-month technical induction is led by our own teams, consists of hands-on training sessions, and covers a wide range of activities. We host a mixture of general engineering workshops (e.g. best practices with Git, how Kubernetes works at Vinted) and area-specific training (e.g. how to develop for iOS at Vinted). During this time, you’ll get to see first hand how our value of co-creation is fostered in everyday working life, as you’ll be collaborating as a team with other Academy participants to develop real-world and hypothetic tasks. You will also receive regular 1:1s with your assigned mentor in the first two months to ensure that you’re on-track, and happy with your progress.

Career development support

After the intense training comes the development plan. By now, you’ll be working in a product or tech team, but for the next ten months, you’ll continue to be supported by our People team with personal skills training that will help you in advancing your career. Everyone receives information differently, so with this in mind, we designed the Engineering Academy to be conducted in a variety of formats, including in-person training, online streams, some self-study, and a lot of practical hypothetical and real tasks. Not only will you continue to develop your tech skills, you’ll also have the opportunity to develop your interpersonal and soft skills by participating in development workshops: Managing Yourself, Becoming a More Agile Learner, Sense, Decision Making and Dealing with Complexity, Driving your own career, and Influencing Others.

A unique entry-level programme

Aside from our structure, we’re unique in our approach to working at Vinted. Employees don’t just work, they collaborate, co-create, and nurture one another. And this approach grows great professionals, not just in formal skills, but from a personal development perspective too. The same goes for our entry-level programmes. Academy participants are supported by team members and mentors and encouraged to co-create with their peers while doing group projects. It’s an environment where everyone is listened to, and everyone is heard. Every idea or thought is valid and important, and we think that it’s this attitude that makes us thrive together.

Who should apply

The Vinted Engineering Academy is open to everyone with the necessary background knowledge or skills – it’s not somewhere where you’ll learn the basics. Just like the people we build our products for, we’re a diverse bunch, and we believe that the coming together of many different backgrounds makes us stronger. 

We’re here to nurture future tech talent. From iOS, Web, and Backend Developers, to Security Engineers, our academy is a blend of students, recent grads, self-taught people, and those with some professional experience in coding skills. Whether you learned from university, or by coding in your free time, if you live and breathe engineering, this is right up your street.

If you’re a university student, we’ll support your studies by accommodating your schedule as best as possible, but we would expect you to dedicate at least 32 hours per week to the academy. However, the Academy is not solely for students and graduates. We welcome applications from people who are requalifying or changing careers at any life stage. It doesn’t matter to us how you got here, what matters is your coding skills, and passion for all things engineering.

The selection process

This consists of several stages. When the Academy Programme is open for intake, you’ll be able to apply via the job ad. Here, you can answer some general questions, and attach your CV or links to your GitHub, portfolio or projects that showcase your technical skills or code.

Selected candidates will then be asked to carry out a scenario-based Vinted Value Assessment, which was developed by psychologists to determine if your values align with the Vinted ways of working. 

The next stage is a technical task to demonstrate your skills and analytical thinking, which you can carry out in your own time.

The final part of the selection process is the interview. You’ll get the chance to meet your future team, who will find out more about you by asking questions relating to your skills background, your motivations, and how you approached the homework task. This will be an hour-long online interview, and you’ll be left with plenty of time to ask the team your questions as well.

Think you’d be a good match?

Together, our dynamic teams and our culture of aiming high, taking ownership, co-creation, care, and growth make us the perfect environment to foster creativity and professional development while contributing to our positive global impact. We can’t wait to welcome our next batch of tech talent into our teams, who will join us in our mission to make second-hand the first choice. For updates on the next Academy intake, or just to see more of what we’re up to, take a look at our Vinted Engineering blog.