With students returning to university classrooms this month, the beginning of the recruitment season starts. Graduating students will focus on fairs and networking events to begin the process of getting a job after graduation. While these traditional methods are tried and true, students interested in technical careers should look no further than Appian’s new #LowCode4All program that was launched in April of this year.

#LowCode4All is designed to attract a new wave of Appian developers, from undergraduate students to military veterans, and unemployed individuals and career-changers. Appian’s goal is to eliminate two barriers to entry for joining the Appian community, certification exam cost and job placement.

About the #LowCode4All Program

After you are accepted into the #LowCode4All program, Appian will provide a scholarship that waives the $200 fee to take the Appian Certified Associate Developer Exam. Additionally, if you complete your online curriculum and pass the practice exam, you will receive access to a “Low-Code Ready” badge that can be displayed on your LinkedIn. This will act as proof externally to the Appian partner network of your abilities. Appian is also providing access to hiring recruiters through the Appian Partner network and job search skills support, such as resume help and interview tips. Appian aims to issue at least 1,000 #lowcode4all scholarships this year.

History of Appian Training

As recently as a few years ago, the main way to get trained up in Appian was through an in-person academy class at Appian’s headquarters. This is actually how I was trained! In the post-pandemic world, this is not a viable option for many individuals. Appian’s headquarters are located in Tysons, Virginia and traveling to their headquarters could be expensive depending on where you live. More recently, Appian has invested into online training to expand their reach. Specifically, they’ve invested into resources like Appian Academy, an online training and resource platform where individuals can learn and prepare to get certified, and Appian Community Edition, which provides free and unlimited-time access to the Appian platform and a dedicated Appian instance.

Why Should Someone Learn Appian?

Appian is a great place to start a career. The low code industry is growing. Low-code developers are expected to grow 27% by 2024, according to McKinsey/IDC. Appian has the duality of being easy to pick up, but can take years to master. This creates a platform that is less daunting to learn for an individual with a non-technical background, but also still complex and powerful enough to pique the interest of those experienced with other programming languages.

Careers within Low Code can be lucrative as well. Appian released a State of Low Code for Developers report that detailed that a higher percentage of low-code developers make over $100,000 than high-code developers. Even if you already have high-code skills, 81% percent of all developers polled believe that knowing low-code will increase their earning potential, with 86% of those developers believing their earnings will increase by 10–20%.

What’s Next for #LowCode4All

This month will mark the first fall semester university students will be in session since the announcement of #LowCode4All. I’m hoping that this will be used as an opportunity to spread this program across the country.

What’s most exciting about #LowCode4All is its potential to strengthen the partner network for organizations like Vision Point Systems. VPS has a training program for new hires without Appian experience to learn the platform and build high-quality applications. However, I’m interested to see how our training will evolve if individuals are highered onto the Appian team that already have context from their university classes or the #LowCode4All program. I hope as the program continues to evolve, partners will be able to play a more direct and incentivized role for getting individuals into the program. If you’re interested in applying to the program, you can apply directly here.

Author

Andrew Ramadan

I’m a Business Development Manager at Vision Point Systems where I guide existing and potential accounts through the entire customer lifecycle, overseeing discovery to account management and ensuring they attain desired outcomes from VPS services and solutions. I also assist our executive team in developing our go-to-market strategy for our services team and solutions, developed in collaboration with our technology partners Appian, Twilio, Intercom, and AWS.

Before this role, I spent five years as a technical consultant, primarily leading software development teams building on the Appian platform.

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