A new kind of junior talent pipeline
A global payment technology platform partnered with Turnberry to design a cohort-based approach for developing junior engineers, accelerating onboarding and creating a repeatable pipeline of early-career technical talent.
Client challenge
A global payment technology platform needed to strengthen its pipeline of junior engineering talent to support its Engineering Operations organization. Traditional hiring methods were not producing enough early-career engineers with the right technical foundations, and onboarding new hires required significant time and attention from senior engineers. Leadership wanted a more sustainable model for bringing in junior talent who could ramp up quickly and contribute across engineering initiatives. At the same time, the HR team sought a way to build a reliable pipeline of well-prepared engineers – without investing heavily in a traditional campus recruiting program.
Our solution
Turnberry designed and launched a junior mobile engineering cohort aligned with the client’s Engineering Operations team. The cohort included four associate-level engineers — two Android engineers and two quality engineers — with computer science degrees, Java experience, and interest in mobile development or quality engineering.
Rather than hiring to existing mid-level requisitions, Turnberry worked with the client to reshape several roles into more junior opportunities focused on strong technical fundamentals and growth potential. The team also implemented a customized evaluation and onboarding process, including a technical coding challenge and a one-week onboarding program focused on coding fundamentals, Android development within the client’s technology stack, and quality engineering best practices.
Results
The cohort ramped up more quickly than previous hires, enabling the engineering team to gain productive capacity sooner while reducing onboarding demands on senior engineers. Managers began leveraging the consultants across multiple initiatives, improving collaboration across engineering teams and giving junior engineers exposure to different areas of the organization.
For the HR organization, the program established a repeatable pipeline of high-performing junior engineers without requiring the client to build its own campus recruiting infrastructure.
