In early July the PBA team conducted a census of our graduates of PBAs 1 to 4. The aim was to see really how effective we have been in creating sticky developers and founders in the ecosystem.
We omitted PBA5 graduates as the course has only recently finished and many are in interview processes etc at present. We will incorporate wave 5 numbers into the census in September once people have been through interviews etc.
Below are some headline results of the census;
36 Founders active in the ecosystem
11 known to have joined the technical fellowship, 7 more candidates in process
14 Speakers at Decoded 2024
Of the 224 graduates of waves 1 to 4, 132 are known to be active in Polkadot, 59%.
Here is a link to a sheet which shows details of the above result; having a look through this is a good way to understand more about the impact that our graduates are having on Polkadot. We do not/cannot directly reveal names but github accounts and websites are included where necessary and available. If you are a PBA Alum from PBAs 1 to 4 contributing to Polkadot and you don’t appear in this list, please get in touch with Tim.
It is important to consider the cost to date per entrant into the ecosystem to see how we compare to other talent attraction channels. The total cost of PBAs 1 to 4 is $4,465,000/132 = $33,825 per graduate currently in the ecosystem. This number is comparable to what a team would pay a recruiting agency to hire a mid to senior developer, however the agency fee would not include any educational or cultural value add. The PBA also significantly reduces onboarding time/costs for ecosystem teams who hire our grads, perhaps by around 6 months, a saving of circa $30k to $100k per hire in wages and other costs.
The PBA team is working to reduce the per head cost of education by creating PBA-X and changing the format of the in person PBA course from PBA6 onwards. Details of these projects will be introduced in our next referendum.
Of the 42% of graduates who are not in the ecosystem at present, many have stated to us that they are seeking a way into or that they are open to joining or rejoining the Polkadot ecosystem. Therefore during the second half of 2024 we will put renewed effort into reconnecting Alumni with ecosystems teams with initiatives such as the PBA Alumni job board, https://pba-alumni-jobs.myjboard.io/ and efforts to get Alumni working on open issues for ecosystem teams for tips. We’re also exploring the idea of creating PBA Alumni teams to go out and compete in hackathons.
