How to become a programmer in Australia

Programming is the most romanticised way into technology and the one where the gap between the advice and the reality is widest. So before the route, here is who should not take it.

Four reasons to pick something else

You want the fastest route to an IT job. Programming is not it. Entry-level developer roles are fewer than entry-level support roles by a wide margin, and they take longer to become competitive for. If the goal is to be working in technology within a year, support, systems or cloud will get you there sooner.

You do not enjoy being stuck. Most of programming is not writing code, it is finding out why the code you wrote does not do what you expected. If an unsolved problem at 5pm ruins your evening rather than interests you, this is going to be a long career.

You are hoping to avoid people. This is the most common misconception and the most costly. Professional development work is relentlessly collaborative: code review, requirements, standups, explaining to someone non-technical why their request is harder than it sounds.

You want a qualification to do the work for you. No qualification makes you a programmer. It can teach you the foundations and prove you finished something, but the thing that gets you hired is code you have written that someone can look at.

If none of that put you off, the rest of this is the honest route.

What a Certificate III actually gives you

Precision matters here, because this is where people are most often misled.

The ICT30120 Certificate III in Information Technology is twelve units and one of them is introductory programming, in Python. There is also a version weighted towards it, the Focus on Programming variant, which puts more of the elective weight there.

That is a foundation. It is not a developer bootcamp and nobody should sell it as one. What the qualification does well is give you the whole context a junior developer actually works inside: building simple web pages, cloud services, privacy and intellectual property, identifying and reporting security threats, handling personal information securely, and working collaboratively in the ICT industry. Developers who understand that context are more useful than developers who only know syntax, and far more employable at the junior end.

It is 100% online and self-paced with no exams, there are no formal entry requirements and no ATAR, and most students finish in 12 to 18 months while working.

The part that is on you

Here is the uncomfortable arithmetic. A qualification proves you completed a structured course. A hiring manager for a junior developer role wants to see code.

So the qualification is half the job and the other half is portfolio, built in parallel rather than afterwards:

• Finish things. Three small projects that work beat one ambitious project that does not. Finishing is the skill being assessed.
• Put them somewhere public. A repository someone can open is worth more than a line on a resume.
• Write down what broke. A short note on each project explaining the problem you hit and how you solved it demonstrates the thing employers actually screen for.
• Read other people's code. It is the fastest way to stop writing like a beginner and almost nobody starting out does it.

The route most people actually take

Very few people go from no experience to a developer job directly, and the ones who do usually had an unusual amount of time to commit. The common path has a step in the middle.

Foundation first, with the Certificate III. Then a technical job that is adjacent rather than perfect: support, test, data entry at a software company, junior web work. Then internal movement, because a business that already employs you and knows you are reliable takes a much smaller risk promoting you into a developer role than hiring a stranger with a portfolio.

That route is slower than the one in the advertising and considerably faster than applying for junior developer roles for eighteen months from outside the industry. Our guide on getting into IT with no experience covers the first move in detail, and it applies here more than people want it to.

Where it goes after the Certificate III

The step up is the Certificate IV in Information Technology (Programming), which is where the programming content stops being introductory. Web development is the neighbouring path and often the easier first job, because the work is visible and small businesses hire for it.

If you are not certain programming is the right corner of IT for you, read which IT specialisation is right for you before you commit, because the Certificate III covers all four areas and six months in you will know which one you actually looked forward to. For the full breakdown of the qualification, see the Certificate III in Information Technology explained.

Upskilled is a Registered Training Organisation, RTO No. 40374, and you can compare the level on the Certificate III in IT courses page. Payment plans are available and an education consultant can give you current pricing.

Career information here is general and indicative. A qualification is not a licence or a registration, and completing one does not guarantee a job or a particular salary.