Last year, Amazon pledged to hire 25,000 veterans and military spouses by 2021 as part of our Joining Forces commitment.
We've found that veterans flourish at our company. Their mission-driven, results-oriented approach is fundamental to our culture. And that's why my team has focused on building programs to recruit veteran talent across Amazon and in cloud computing. Like our Amazon Veterans Apprenticeship program.
This program takes veterans who are a great fit for Amazon culture and helps them build the technical skills that they need to be cloud support associates — a high-demand technical role. The Apprenticeship offers intensive classroom training and structured on-the-job training so that veterans can begin to work and progress in a role that offers a career path in the high-demand tech industry.
Today I'm excited to announce that we will be expanding our Amazon Veterans Apprenticeship program to Dallas, a community with rich veteran talent.
Apprenticeships are not new or innovative — they’re a proven, age-old approach that combines theory and practice: formal, structured learning with supervised, on-the-job training under the supervision of an experienced worker or journeyman. In the U.S., these are most familiar to us in the skilled trades: electricians, pipefitters, sheet-metal workers—but the same approach is used today in tech.
University students studying software engineering typically spend two 10-week periods as interns at tech firms, working on structured projects under the close supervision of an experienced Software Development Engineer. Those internships help bridge the gap from theory to practice and familiarize students with the leading edge of technology.
Dallas is our first apprenticeship location outside of Seattle. With our strong and experienced partner in Dallas County Community College District, we've been able to accelerate our progress.
We are excited to launch our program in Dallas and are looking forward to learning and growing with our apprentices so that we can refine and scale the program to help meet America’s growing demand for tech talent.
