The evolution of our traineeship: from Mendix to Mendix and AI

When we started our IT traineeship at JAM-IT, the starting point was clear: give people with the right analytical skills the chance to develop into a Mendix Business Engineer. Even if they had little experience in IT yet.

Mendix was the common thread from the very beginning. Trainees learned to build low-code applications, to work according to Scrum and to translate a question from the business into a solution that works in practice. That concept still works. But the world our trainees are about to work in looks different now. And so our traineeship could not stay exactly the same.

Software development is changing, and we are changing with it

Over the past few years, AI has taken up an ever larger place in software development. Not only in what gets built, but above all in how developers work.

At JAM-IT too, we experiment and work with AI during development more and more. We see how AI can help with preparing work, writing code, testing and reviewing, for example. At the same time, we also see that good software still calls for someone who understands what is happening and makes the right choices.

That brought us to an obvious question: if this is becoming more and more part of the job, why should our trainees only encounter it later on? That is why we have added AI-assisted development to the traineeship.

Mendix out? Quite the opposite.

The evolution of our traineeship emphatically does not mean we are saying goodbye to Mendix. On the contrary. Mendix remains an important foundation of the programme. Trainees follow Mendix training courses, gain certifications and learn to build web and mobile applications. Scrum and translating client questions into good software solutions also remain part of the programme.

What has changed is that a new way of working has come alongside it. During a hands-on course in AI-assisted development, trainees learn how to use AI professionally in software development. How do you give an AI tool the right context? How do you get the work properly thought through and planned first? How do you check the result? And how can you use AI to test and further improve work? The premise is not that AI takes over the thinking. A developer remains the one who steers, checks and makes the choices.

"With the AI course you learn the ins and outs of using Claude and how to get the most out of your prompts." - Vincent, IT Trainee at JAM-IT

From learning to build to learning to choose

And that may well be the most important evolution of our traineeship. We do not just want to teach someone how to build an application with Mendix. From day one, we want trainees to take on board that good software development is about understanding what a problem needs and deliberately applying technology to it.

During the traineeship, those things increasingly come together. Trainees work continuously on an internal application in which they apply what they learn straight away. First from Mendix and Scrum, later also with AI-assisted development, testing and improving. That way Mendix remains the solid base on which we once built the traineeship, while we add knowledge that fits the way the profession is developing.

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A traineeship that grows with the profession

Where our traineeship once started as a programme to become a Mendix Business Engineer, today we train people for a world in which Mendix and AI exist side by side. And software development will probably keep changing.

We find that interesting, in fact. Because ultimately we do not want someone to finish the traineeship knowing only how a particular tool works. We want to train a Business Engineer who stays curious, understands new possibilities and knows how to apply technology intelligently to build a good solution. Mendix is still the base for that. AI-assisted development is the next step we have added to it.