Financial services group Barclays Africa will train 126 young developers in SA as part of a skills development internship programme that will run for 12 months.
The developers, who come from across Gauteng, will receive training in agile software development at the Barclays Africa digital academy at its headquarters in downtown Johannesburg.
The programme will run four intakes of developers over 12 months (30 developers per intake), who will work on practical projects for the majority of the time during their three-month period.
The developers will receive weekly training for best practice in software development on a variety of technology platforms and frameworks. They will also spend their time on developing soft skills for the corporate environment, as well as entrepreneurship training.
Evans Munyuki, head of digital, retail and business banking at Barclays Africa, says the programme focuses on the skills needed to develop digital banking products and solve eight business-specific challenges for the banking group.
Monyeki notes industries across the globe are being disrupted by new technologies, agile companies, and innovative products and services.
He says Barclays Africa's skills initiative aims to stimulate a sector that remains largely underdeveloped, and alleviate the digital skills shortage. "In order to remain relevant, we must partner and collaborate. Investing in a unit at the digital academy will allow Barclays Africa to remain agile, able to innovate rapidly and remain customer-centric."
Developers will also be offered an opportunity to join the banking group after they have completed the internship programme.
"Our hope is that they will be recruited into Barclays post the internship," says Munyuki.
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