Onramp Elevate is an 8-week program designed to give aspiring software engineers from non-traditional backgrounds the training and tools they need to land their first role in the tech industry. 

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The Elevate program gives candidates insight into the core competencies needed to be a junior developer and equips candidates with the technical and metacognitive skills, and emotional intelligence to successfully navigate any hiring process. 

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Every mentor will manage a small group of learners. Mentors encourage peer learning and collaboration within the cohort. Onramp is always welcoming new mentors and we are pleased to work with the following engineering leaders and professionals for our inaugural cohort.

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Frank Klink, VP of Software Engineering at Wells Fargo

Frank Klink is a political economist by training (and by former practice) and a currently practicing professional in the areas of software engineering and data science. His interests span these domains and their interconnections. Currently, he works as a software engineering manager and architect at a large financial institution and maintains an independent praxis centering on Bayesian decision modeling, deep learning, and the use of generative AI/large language models for generating programming code and related software artifacts.

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Scott Russo, Director of Engineering at Capitol One

Scott has 15 years of experience working in engineering and information technology and is presently a people leader at Capital One. His experience ranges across writing firmware for nuclear power plants, developing software including in the AWS cloud, learning and development, cybersecurity risk assessments, and ethical hacking. He was inducted in the CEH Hall of Fame for Top 100 Ethical Hackers in 2023. In his free time, Scott enjoys spending time with his family and dog, practicing martial arts, and giving back via mentoring and teaching others.

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David Miller, Software Engineer at AWS

David is a software engineer at AWS based in Brooklyn living with his wife Alana and their three cats. He has a non-traditional background, having worked in marketing and advertising before learning to code at a data science bootcamp. During this time he realized the engineering path was more for him and has steadily pivoted from the world of data to software since then. He’s looking forward to helping his mentees break into tech as he did just a few years ago.

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Wade Matveyenko, Engineering Manager at Handshake

Hi, I have been a technology professional for over 30 years. I started as a developer at IBM, moved into software consulting, then worked at a startup for 8 years, where I became an Engineering Manager (2008). I moved to Amazon in 2010, where I lead various AWS teams, an Alexa team, and finally a team at Twitch. I am currently an Engineering Manager at Handshake, where my team focuses on the internal developer experience.

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Jay Reddy, Software Engineer at care.coach

After spending most of my life being premed and some of it in medicine, I opted into a career in software development. I did the 4 month in-person course at App Academy and shortly after I was hired at an AI/Healthcare company. I’m now coming up on one year as a software engineer working primarily on backend technology while dabbling in some frontend!

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Dan Sullivan, Software Engineering Program Manager, Weber

Dan has multiple decades of experience facilitating connected product development. He's hired and managed dozens of people from a variety of backgrounds, largely focused on design. Dan wants all teammates to contribute and thrive in healthy work environments.

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Dustin Vannoy, Sr. Specialist Solutions Architect, Databricks

I'm a data engineer working as a Specialist Solutions Architect at Databricks to help customers design and troubleshoot challenging use cases. I have 17 years experience solving business problems with analytics and big data solutions, with a good amount of software engineering work mixed in. I currently focus on building data platforms and pipelines in Databricks, and I often use Kafka, Python, and Scala to develop solutions. I am co-founder of the Data Engineering San Diego meetup. I am co-founder of the Data Engineering San Diego meetup and encourage others to grow their data skills by making tutorials, mentoring others, and speaking at events.

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Stephen Young, Sr. Software Engineer & Team Lead, Customer.io

Stephen is a backend Go developer & tech lead at Customer.io where he is helping build and scale a platform to help marketers send messages people want to receive. Outside of work he loves tea, martial arts, and travel with his partner and their cat. You can find him online @hownowstephen.