Do keep in mind that the author already knew some programming before he started his apprenticeship:

"They did things differently than everyone else. Most of the company used an esoteric programming environment called Rosie SQL - which seemed like death to my Demo Szene honed sensibilities (Assembler, Pascal or bust!) - these guys used Delphi."

MathWorks is doing a similar thing to

"The first 3 months in the cafeteria meant I quickly met everyone in the company and learned what kind of coffee or tea they liked."

Mathworks starts everyone off in support, to make sure they know the products and the customers.