WiseTech founder Richard White will pay students $300k to study while working at his company

Richard White says more women complete his ‘Earn & Learn’ program than those who study pure university courses despite it not having diversity quotas. Here’s why and how you can apply.

WiseTech billionaire founder Richard White is offering 100 students the equivalent of $300,000 to study at university while working at the software giant – doubling last year’s intake – in an effort to ease the nation’s chronic tech worker shortage.

WiseTech CEO and founder Richard White.

About 50 students participated in the program this year, which Mr White said were performing better at the company than graduate software engineers, thanks to its practical focus and well-honed mentorship.

He said the program – dubbed Earn & Learn – also had a higher intake of women compared with undergraduate university courses. This was despite WiseTech not adopting any diversity quotas for the program.

“Our core selection criteria is ability and talent,” Mr White said.

“But when you do that at a broad scale, like we’re doing here, you actually get quite a diverse mix. We have much higher female intake into this program than the universities are getting to into their programs. We’re essentially pretty much blind to this because we select on talent … and what comes in is by its nature very diverse.

“The last thing you want to do is hire people because of a background and then find they struggle. You don’t want to hire people because of a cultural diversity and find out their technical skills are poor. We want to higher them because they’re the best people for the job.”

Asked why more women preferred to join WiseTech’s program rather than pure undergraduate courses, Mr White highlighted its real-world focus and how it helps accelerate careers.

“We put quite a bit of effort into the culture of the company and the way people develop themselves. I think that takes a lot of the edge out of thinking about ‘I’m going to university for four years with a bunch of nerds and learn something that I’m not really sure about’.

“This doesn’t occur here. This is much more socially minded, and it’s very integrated into the culture of WiseTech and I think it presents a more balanced way of creating diversity.”

Richard White with this year's cohort of Earn & Learn students. He is doubling next year's intake.

Mr White said the company’s Earn & Learn participants had achieved high distinctions in 85 per cent of their first and second-year programming subjects at University Technology Sydney.

The program, which launched in 2023, offers students employment, including access to WiseTech’s employee share program, while they study part-time at university. They graduate without a HECS debt and end up being paid the equivalent of $300,000 during their program, which takes four years to complete.

It is centred on a concept known as the flipped classroom, whereby students learn theory at home and do practical work in the classroom, or in WiseTech’s case, the office.

Australia will need an extra 300,000 tech workers by the end of the decade. Universities are struggling to meet this demand, producing about 6000 science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) graduates a year.

Rianna Libdy, one of WiseTech's Earn & Learn students.

The shortfall threatens to stall Australia’s transition into the so-called “smart economy” and reap the benefits from the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, which the Albanese government expects will inject an extra $600bn a year into the national economy by 2030.

Damian Kassabgi, chief executive of the Tech Council of Australia – where Mr White sits on the board – praised WiseTech’s program as a way to encourage more people to consider technology careers.

But Mr White said it partially solves the tech worker crisis.

“We’re doing a lot of work to make that program far more visible,” he said. “But we also have an obligation to grow the company at the very senior levels as well.

“You can have very, very talented juniors that come in and grow very rapidly, but you always, always need to build at the high end, so that you’ve got the very strongest and best.

“They are software architects and software senior software engineers. That’s how you get the breakthrough ideas.

“You don’t get breakthrough ideas from someone who’s just joined the company from the classroom. They will become very good. But we’ve got to build with those senior people as well. So it’s a combination of the Earn & Learn program – the very senior hires, as well.”

Valin Kennedy, one of WiseTech's Earn & Learn students.

WiseTech donates 1 per cent of its pre-tax profit – which totalled $366.7m last year – to the Grok Academy.

Following its sponsorship, Mr White said the number of students accessing the Grok Academy platform in 2023 was 82 per cent higher, and 40 per cent were female.

“There’s a lot of learning at WiseTech that is given to staff and a lot of effort put into their development, and that’s a very attractive thing to senior people who want to continue to develop their career,” he said.

“They want to work in a place that’s also giving back to the community. There’s a very happy culture. They’re doing great things, and it’s fun,” he said.

How to apply: The Earn & Learn program is open to students who are attending their first year of university in 2025.

The company said no previous coding experience was necessary but people must be “eager to learn” and have full working rights in Australia.

The application process has four steps. Potential participants must submit an application via WiseTech’s website by November.

The next step is an introduction call and testing, followed by an interview. Applicants are then notified of the outcome and if they’re successful start on January 13 next year.

Originally published as WiseTech founder Richard White will pay students $300k to study while working at his company