First let me say that it is my belief that it was my age (I'm just over 50) that was the reason I was passed over for the apprenticeship and was treated the way I was treated. First, a brief background. I have worked with Macs for many years, repairing the hardware and helping clients with OS X and IOS issues. My business took a hit as the mac hardware became less and less repairable, so two years ago I went back to college to validate knowledge I already had and to fill in any gaps in that knowledge with the view to getting a job in networking - security, systems administration etc. I maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA through all my courses. In the spring of 2017 I took a course in introductory IOS programming. (I already had some Java and Python experience) I fell in love with Swift and xCode and even turned in 2 final projects, one which was the very basic app that was assigned and the other which was the app with all the functionality and features you would expect from a professional app. My professor was very impressed and told me about the apprenticeship program at Intrepid which takes in computer savvy applicants with some programming experience and a strong interest in IOS development and works with them "Code Camp"style to turn them into junior IOS developers. I was a perfect fit she said and if I was interested she had a friend who was the IOS director and she would give me a strong recommendation for the program. I said I was very interested and so she contacted her friend and made the recommendation. I sent them my resume and was soon contacted to set up a phone interview. This was a simple screening call and it was scheduled and confirmed for 6/21/17 at 11:30am. It would last about 30 minutes and they would call me. The day came and I sat by the phone from 11:00am till nearly 1:00pm. No call came. I sent an email to the person conducting the interview asking if they wanted to reschedule and got no reply. I emailed again in case they hadn't received my first one but still nothing. After 5 days I finally emailed the IOS director who had been my initial contact and asked what happened. He said that things were busy and that was most likely what happened. (Really? Too busy to even send a brief email?) The woman who'd set up the initial interview emailed the next day and after a brief apology set up another appointment for the screening interview. This time she did call but the interview lasted all of 10 - 15 minutes and it was painfully obvious that she was just going through the motions. She said she would call by the end of the week and let me know what they'd decided. No call ever came. I believe that at some point between their enthusiastic emails setting up the first interview and the time of that actual interview itself someone figured out my age from the dates that I was in high school. (My birthdate was not on my resume) This is the reason no one called. They couldn't be bothered once they knew how old I was. Writing to the IOS director got me that sad excuse for a screening interview that followed.

The process was very pleasant. I was called for an initial conversation and to setup a phone tech screening. After the tech screening they flew me out to Boston for an in person interview. The company was very welcoming and really open about their policies and ideals. Once the tech interview started it involved three different developers that specialized in different areas and asked very different questions. Overall it was a very good experience and I received an offer shortly after.