In September 2022, EPAM Kazakhstan joined the Tech Orda program after joining the Astana Hub Technopark.  

The Tech Orda program was launched in 2021 in response to the annual Message of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, in which he noted the importance of training specialists for the developing IT sector. The program gradually scaled up, involving new IT schools and providing an opportunity for students to get a quality education and IT skills.  

Under the terms of Tech Orda, each participant receives a grant (voucher) in the amount of up to 600,000 tenge from Astana Hub, which covers training in an IT school. Candidates need to go through three stages for enrollment, which include the IT Fundamentals course (checking basic knowledge and level of English), an assessment of the level of knowledge and an interview with a recruiter.   

In the first stream of the program, EPAM Kazakhstan received more than 2,000 applications from candidates aged 18 to 45 years. 150 students were accepted for training on Astana Hub vouchers. A total of 246 participants studied under the program.   

Alexey Aksenov, Director of EPAM Kazakhstan: “We saw a large number of talented guys from various regions of Kazakhstan who are eager to master IT professions. Therefore, we decided from EPAM to almost double the number of places for the program and sponsor the training. The program has shown its importance and timeliness, especially in the current conditions, when the IT market is rapidly developing and requires more qualified personnel.” 

The training program includes independent study of materials provided by EPAM, online workshops, consultations with mentors who share their experience, practical tasks, as well as a final project where students can demonstrate their knowledge.  

Students from various regions of the country can study under the program. In the first stream, geography covered such cities and villages as Almaty, Astana, Karaganda, Aktau, Aktobe, Atyrau, Kaskelen, Kostanay, Taldykorgan, Pavlodar, Akshat village (Chingirlau district, Uralsk), Alga village (Aktobe region), Akkol village (Zhambyl region), Uralsk, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Shymkent and Kyzylorda.  

The program participants have successfully completed six months of training in Java, .NET, Front-End, Node.JS, Business Analysis, Big Data and Android. 

21 students continued their studies at the second stage – in the EPAM laboratory. After completing the program in the laboratory, students with good results can join the company's team.  

Ganibek Nurpeisov, following the results of the Tech Orda program, was enrolled in the EPAM laboratory, where he continues his Front-End training:

“I wanted to master all the necessary skills for a novice developer, and Tech Orda provided all the opportunities for this, also together with EPAM. I chose EPAM for its reputation in the field of software development, as well as interesting career opportunities that I learned about. I'm glad I was able to get into the EPAM lab. This is a great opportunity to work on real projects with a team of professionals, develop your programming skills and improve your soft skills. I would like to join the EPAM team after graduating from the laboratory.” 

After the first stream of the Tech Orda program and training in the EPAM laboratory, 3 students became employees of the company. One of them is Diana Zhubanova, a graduate of the program in Engineering Data:

“My friends applied for courses at other schools in the program and advised me to register. I chose EPAM, and I liked that they were interested in our development here. In addition to theoretical materials, we also had online lectures once a week, sessions for additional questions or practical assignments. At the end of the course, each participant underwent a final interview on all the topics covered. A few months after graduation, I was already assigned an interview with a manager to work in the company. Initially, I took the course for myself, so it was unexpected and nice to receive an offer from the company. Of course, I didn't refuse such a cool opportunity.”  

In the fall of 2023, Astana Hub launched the second Tech Orda stream, EPAM Kazakhstan also joined the program and received more than 6,000 applications.  

This year, three trainings for experienced engineers have been added to the program for novice specialists. Among them: Cloud & DevOps, Product Management and Big Data. Candidates enrolled in these trainings are Middle and Senior specialists who want to improve their expertise or change the direction in which they work.