What It Does: Andela specializes in creating opportunities for sustainable careers, connecting technology specialists to long-term employment, and creating access to international job roles. Andela also focuses on product management and programming.
Mission: Andela's mission statement is sharing insights and knowledge to unearth biases, reframing what's possible, and connecting brilliance with opportunity.
Size And Presence: Andela's workforce in Nigeria comprises a few employees in its office in Lagos. It's the only office the company has in Nigeria.
Best Known For: Andela won two awards - Best HR Recruitment Strategy and Employer of Choice at the 2018 edition of People Magazine Awards. At the 2018 edition of the Great Place to Work Awards, Andela won a hat trick of awards - Best Workplace for Generation - Millennials, Most Fun, and Friendly Workplace, and Best Company to Work For in Africa.
The Good Bits: Andela has a great working environment filled with friendly and collaborative individuals. The work-life balance is good. It has spacious and well-maintained workspaces.
The Not-So-Good-Bits: Andela's pay can be better. The job security there isn't great.
Andela is still regarded as a startup as it has a very young history that's not up to a decade. In 2014, Jeremy Johnson and four other co-founders brought this establishment into existence. Later that year, the firm launched its first Lagos-based recruitment call on Twitter. Andela received 700 applications for just four software engineering spots. Four years after its inception, Andela celebrated the first two sets of engineers that graduated from its 4-year program, the Andela Fellowship.
At the time, Christina Sass was the president of the company, but she stepped down in 2019 and took up an auxiliary role as the chairperson of the Andela Alumni Group and the Andela Advisory Council. That same year, the company decided that its Fellowship program won't be the only gateway for junior engineers to gain employment at the firm. The company broadened its recruitment requirements for mid-level and senior engineers in Lagos and other African cities. In 2020, the company became fully remote.
The company's culture is its identity and DNA. It's defined by four core values fondly named EPIC - Excellence, Passion, Integrity, and Collaboration. The firm is emphatic about its excellent standards, which reflects in its hiring process, sense of professionalism, and adherence to its code of ethics. It demands the same level of excellence from its employees. Andela is a highly collaborative environment where employees form a greater bond via shared work and team assignments.
The company has a great working environment that emanates positivity and warmth. Such an environment feels like a home for new intakes, including fresh graduates. Andela is a fair employer with no discriminatory bias towards gender, socioeconomic background, religion, and ethnicity.
From the onset, Andela recognizes that its employees and what they have to offer are its greatest strength. The company goes all out to invest in the professional development of its employees and freshers by providing several internal programs that will equip them with relevant skills and expertise. Its fellowship program is an example. It's a 4-year training experience that equips IT/software engineers for life at the firm. Through guidance and support, the participants in this program make it to the finish line and become accomplished employees.
The hiring process takes about a month. It entails a meeting with the recruiter for the initial screening. Those who make a good impression will go on further for another meeting with the hiring manager. The next stage is a value and culture-based assessment to evaluate your compatibility with the organization. The final evaluation process follows shortly after. The company offers the job to applicants who scale the final evaluation.
A fresher working at Andela earns an average pay of ₦1.3 million annually.
Andela co-hosts CodeNaija Hackathon with other reputable tech firms as a means to empower black people in technology.