Envato expands female engineer pathway program

Envato’s Developer Apprentice Program, an industry-leading pathway that provides training and entry-level software engineering experience for aspiring female developers, will double in size as part of a new intake in September. 

Now in its fifth year, the Program includes a full-time role in Envato’s engineering team, where the apprentices are trained and coached by a dedicated mentor in a fully immersive and collaborative environment. 

Envato will now host four apprentices split across two intakes; the existing one in June and a just-announced second round in September. Nine apprentices have graduated from the program since 2018 with six still employed in various roles in the engineering team at Envato.

Chief Technology Officer Anthony Burgon said the time was right to expand the popular program, with the company recruiting a second full-time mentor to expand the number of available places. “Ever since we launched the program, the demand has always exceeded what we could support, and that’s only increased in the last 12 months.”

We’ve always wanted to expand to provide more opportunities for women wanting to start a career in tech and we’re very glad we can now do more to help.”  

Apprentices are embedded in delivery teams and are involved in all aspects of the business, where they build, deploy and support software solutions for the whole of Envato. The program aims to provide a dedicated and alternative means for female engineers to commence a career in the tech sector, regardless of their experience level. 

“Envato’s Apprentice Developer Program is the holy grail of first jobs as a developer,” comments recently graduated apprentice and Junior Engineer, Faith Sylvia. “I was supported entirely in the all-important transition from boot camp to junior developer and could take the time to learn foundational principles properly.”

“I also benefited from the rotational nature of the program; the apprentices rotate through six delivery teams within the company throughout the program, allowing for a good breadth of understanding of different codebases and technologies.”

The program has received widespread recognition across Australia’s tech sector, including being shortlisted for a Women Leading Tech award in 2021 and the Tech Diversity Awards in 2018. 

The program’s expansion comes as the Tech Council of Australia released a new report on how the country can grow its tech workforce to 1.2 million by 2030.

“That we’ve already had nine graduates in the few short years we’ve been running this program speaks to the success of the curriculum we’ve built in-house, and the commitment we have to make sure that a career in tech can be accessible to anyone,” concluded Burgon.