Your Free Prime Brochure

Learn more about our specialised developer program.




Why should I do this

Pacifica Prime is a 3 month program open only to PNG residents to prepare you for employment as a Software Engineer. With Pacifica Prime, you will improve your technical and soft skills to become an internationally competitive tech professional. At the successful completion of this program you will be offered employment at Pacifica solutions.

The process

learning

Fill in the online application form (includes terms and conditions)

Complete screening process

  • Online tests
  • Do an online course
  • Complete screening process
  • Take another test (to evaluate your knowledge of what you just learned

Interview online or in person

  • Assess attitude
  • Assess basic communication skills
  • Assess which stream you belong to

Project challenge

  • Provided with communication platforms
  • Complete a small assignment
  • May be working in a team or individual or both

Formal onboarding

  • Assigned to your stream

How we run the training - COVID19 and post COVID19

Our goal is to facilitate face to face classes especially for the soft skills and teamwork components of the training

During COVID we have converted a large proportion of the training into online formats

Your tutors for specific streams will interact with you over Google/Zoom meetings

The streams available

  • DevOps
  • Enterprise Development
  • Front End and UX Design
  • Back-end Development

A knowledge graph is used to categorise specialisations and round out gaps in skill sets and enforce quality approaches.

Tutors



Mike Lanier

Lead programing teacher

For the last decade, Mike Lanier has been helping programmers of all levels improve their skills, teaching classes for companies like LinkedIn, Adobe, Facebook, and more. Aside from coding, he’s passionate about music, neuroscience, and meditation.

Hasini Abeywickrama

PhD candidate at the University of Technology Sydney

Researching on incorporating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles into wireless communication systems. She also works as an academic at the university. Prior to starting post-graduate studies, she has worked as a senior software engineer at Virtusa Corporation.

Ryan Williams

Skilled programmer and teacher

Ryan is a diverse and experienced programmer having worked in a variety of startups and leading tech companies including Verizon Wireless, Yahoo!, Oracle and FedEx. Having recently worked with the Australian Defence Force, he is a reliable and structured teacher with a sharp ability to communicate his expertise.

Dhanya Himaja

Developer, open source software advocate

Dhanya's strengths are in understanding and providing cutting edge Quantitative and Analytical Solutions as a Developer, Tester and as a Devops enthusiast. She has a quest for learning new Frameworks and Design styles. She is in the process of designing and developing Full-Stack Web applications.

Sean Dotau

Blockchain expert and programmer

Sean is an avid technologist, always learning and always sharing. He started his career as a programmer, then focused on integration before becoming a trainer for IBM, Atlassian and Consensys where he has trained large multinationals such as LG, P&G and Union Bank in blockchain technologies.

Timetable

9.30am Review past work

10am Live broadcast from trainer on general skills/soft skills

12pm Lunch

1pm Live broadcast from tutor on specific elective stream

2pm Self directed online learning in specific stream

3.30pm Break

4pm Project work in specific stream with online tutor support available via chat

5.30pm End of day

writing

Support available

There are always staff on hand to help you throughout your journey to become a globally competitive technology professional. A support representative is available at our office to respond to any day to day requests that you have.

A program manager is assigned to each cohort of Primers and will guide you through the materials and also act as a facilitator for some of the project activities.

The stream tutors are also available at set times throughout your upskilling and can be contacted through the various communication platforms that we provide.

The soft skills lecturer will also be available at specific times throughout your journey to ensure you are working well and adopting the new methodologies that you are learning.

offboarding

Employment with Switch Maven Ltd

Switch Maven provides the manpower to service the contracts that Pacifica Solutions engage in with a variety of clients including local businesses, international corporates, governments and NGOs.

Pacifica Solutions help companies build high-performing distributed engineering teams by investing in the Pacific’s most talented software engineers.

Based in PNG, Switch Maven is catalyzing the growth of tech ecosystems across the Pacific while solving the global technical talent shortage.

Your Role

Use your knowledge in your core technology to delight our partners around the world.

Mentor and onboard junior engineers, by consistently displaying sound judgement, setting expectations, and working effectively, both independently and as part of a global team.

Collaborate excellently with peers and stakeholders in fast-paced distributed teams, through a love of constructive feedback, dedication and passion for technology.

Who are we looking for?

A minimum of 3-5 years of professional experience, during which you’ve built technical expertise and professionalism.

Required

  • Intermediate knowledge of at least one front-end framework — React, Angular, Vue
  • Working knowledge of at least one CSS framework — Bootstrap, Materialize CSS, Semantic UI
  • Intermediate understanding of JavaScript core language concepts — DOM manipulation, Fetch API, ES6 features
  • Working knowledge of unit and integration testing and testing frameworks/libraries — Jest, Jasmine, Mocha
  • Working knowledge of at least one task runner — gulp, npm scripts
  • Working knowledge of at least one module bundler — webpack, parcel
  • Working knowledge of at least one version control tool — Git, Mercurial

Preferred

  • Experience with architecture and design principles, building to consider maintainability, performance, security requirements, and impact.
  • Knowledge of code linting and formatting tools — ESLint, Prettier
  • Working knowledge of Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) architectural pattern.

What You’ll Get

  • Full-time compensation
  • Friendly working environment
  • Opportunity to work with the best Pacific tech talent available
  • A chance to contribute to the Pacific engagement with the digital economy

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability status.

Types of projects you will work on

There is a huge variety of work available through the engagements that Pacifica solutions makes. This includes:

  • Web development
  • Financial applications
  • Data migration
  • Cloud services
  • Dev Ops configuration
  • Architecture
  • Project planning
  • Testing
  • Refactoring legacy code
  • MVPs
  • System integration
  • Design and UI/UX
  • Enterprise configuration
  • Team structure

Depending on the project you are assigned to you will be allocated a development team with a team leader to ensure the project runs in line with the expectations of the client. Typically each team is composed of 5 team members but this can change depending on the size and scope of the engagement.

Ongoing training and development

Your learning journey never ends at Switch Maven. We keep monitoring your performance and create a knowledge tree and skills graph of your individual profile. We use this profile of you to identify gaps and possible pathways to excellence to ensure that we keep you moving towards the never ending goal of excellence.

We will keep you abreast of learning opportunities and encourage you participating in meetups, conferences, hackathons and other opportunities to learn or showcase your skills.

Terms & Conditions are included on the Student application form

FAQs

Will I get paid while doing this?

Pacifica Prime is a free program – open to PNG residents only – where you are given access to tools and resources to learn and prove your worth before you are eventually hired at Pacifica Solutions. We don't pay participants to go through the program.

Am I guaranteed a job?

Yes. If you successfully graduate from our Prime program you will be given a 2-year contract of employment.

Can I work while doing this?

This is a very intensive program that will require a commitment of a minimum of 40 hours per week. It may be possible to continue to work casual hours around the program commitment but this would be a rare exception.

Can I do this while studying at University?

Yes, you can, but you have to be at the tail end of completing your studies (final semester) and above 18 years old. You also have to have a study schedule that is flexible enough to allow you to commit at least 6 hours per day to the program.

How many applicants are there?

This is a new initiative launched in 2020. We have been experiencing a high volume of applications and expect to select only the top 10% of all applicants.

What if I have a bad internet connection at home?

We have made the office available for online learning components of the course. This means that you are able to participate in the course content from your home or you can attend the office and complete your training in this environment.

Your Free Prime Brochure

Learn more about our specialised developer program.




Apply Now

Our application process is through a detailed screening system, where we run a few tests and questionnaires to get to know you well

Start your application here.