Landmark apprentice program for female engineers recognised

Envato’s Developer Apprentice Program was recognised in the Advocacy category as one of the finalists in this year’s B&T Women Leading Tech awards. 

The awards aim to recognise the brilliant work of female tech talent across the industry, in categories as diverse as design, engineering, sales, marketing, leadership and more.

The Advocacy category recognises companies that have supported the cause of getting more women into tech, with marketing agency Hype & Dexter winning the award. It was one of 12 awards handed out in Sydney yesterday. 

Originally launched in 2017, Envato’s Developer Apprentice Program is a dedicated 12-month intensive learning program that aims to provide new pathways for aspiring female developers in Australia’s local tech sector. 

Successful applicants receive a mix of classroom-style teaching and immersive work in developer teams across the business. Each apprentice develops real-world software development skills across broad areas such as planning, estimation, communication, collaboration, writing and testing code, deployment and monitoring their changes through to production. 

Chief Technology Officer Anthony Burgon said the program has had a significant positive impact across the business. “As a company, we speak prominently about supporting diversity and inclusion and this is another way we can put that into action. The program provides for considered learning across the business within a supportive framework where our apprentices end up working as developers within our teams, which in turn helps all of our developers participate in a learning and growth culture.”

“It sends the signal that we believe strongly in giving more opportunities for aspiring female software developers, and we’re extremely proud that this program has been recognised today.”

One of the program’s recent graduates, Engineer Brienna Macnish, said the program was “…deeply supportive, people-focused and built towards long term success in a way I hadn’t experienced in my professional life before. I’m incredibly grateful that this has also been my experience of the whole company so far, not just the Apprentice program.”