Python Charmers is a leading global provider of Python training.

About Python Charmers®

We have provided over 500 training courses in Python at all levels since 2010. We boast years of Python experience and deep roots within the Python community, as both contributors to open source projects and speakers at Python events.

When not training or consulting, we develop and maintain a number of open source tools, including Python Future, a compatibility layer that helps developers write Python 3 code that runs unchanged on Python 2.

Our Expertise

We bring deep expertise in Python, as well as a commitment to client-centric problem-solving, to help you unleash the power of Python and address your challenges.

Our areas of expertise include:

Python for data analytics and machine learning
Python for science and engineering
Python for geospatial analysis
Python for financial applications
Python for visualisation and reporting

Our Values

The top four values we work and live by are:

Respect: We treat all people with respect – customers, suppliers, each other

Service: We add value wherever possible

Inspiration: We seek to inspire people with greater belief in themselves

Excellence: We pride ourselves on our expertise and our attention to detail

Mission

We are inspired by this mission:

To put awesome software skills and tools into the hands of innovators.

To date we have done this by training over 3000 people in amazing Python-based tools for data science and research.

Our Clients

We serve organisations big and small, including:

Tech companies: Atlassian, Cisco, Dolby, Lumascape, ...

Finance: banks, hedge funds, trading firms, asset management, ...

Energy companies: GDF Engie, Shell, AGL, Origin, Zen Energy, ...

Consultancies: PwC, Deloitte, SKM, ...

Government departments: Bureau of Meteorology, DST, NSW Dept of Finance, CSIT Singapore, ...

Research & Universities: Harvard, CSIRO, A*STAR, ANU, RMIT, ...

Other industries: mining, transport, environment, ...

High-tech startups

Our Philosophy

Our team of specialists combine exemplary communication skills
with deep expertise in Python development in a variety of applications.

Real World Focus

We are passionate about applying Python to the real world, to address real challenges and solve real problems.

High trainer to student ratios

To ensure excellent learning outcomes, we always provide enough trainers to help participants with the exercises. This means most of our classes have 1 expert on-hand for every 5 to 15 participants.

Hands On

We encourage an interactive class environment, with a blend of theory and application. We also encourage participants to bring their own data sets and offer individual assistance for participants to apply their learning to their current projects immediately.

Plain English

Our trainers are experts in Python, and are gifted communicators. We strive to teach using plain English, minimising the use of technical jargon and explaining terms when necessary. This has allowed us to teach Python to participants across a wide range of industries, professional backgrounds and age range.

Our Team

Our team of specialists combine exemplary communication skills with deep expertise in Python development in a variety of applications.

Ed Schofield

Director

Ed has consulted to or trained dozens of organisations in data analytics using Python, including: A*STAR, Barclays, the Bureau of Meteorology, Cisco, CSIRO, Dolby, GDF Energie, Geoscience Australia, IMC, Optus, Toyota Technical Centre, and Woolworths. Ed is the co-chair of the Python for Data Science miniconf for PyCon AU, co-organises the Python user group in Melbourne, and regularly presents at conferences related to Python and data analytics in Australia and internationally. He is a former release manager of SciPy and the author of the widely used future package. Ed holds a PhD in computer science from Imperial College London, where his thesis was in machine learning. He also holds BA and MA (Hons) degrees in mathematics and computer science from Cambridge University. He has 20+ years of experience in programming, teaching, and public speaking.

Robert Layton

Trainer & Consultant

Robert is a data analyst who provides analysis, consultancy, research and development work to businesses primarily using Python. Robert has worked with government, financial and security sectors, in both a consultancy and academic role. He is also a Research Fellow at the Internet Commerce Security Laboratory, Federation University Australia, investigating cybercrime analytics and data-mining algorithms for attribution and profiling. Robert is a regular contributor to the Python-based scikit-learn open source project for machine learning and writes regularly on data mining for a number of outlets. He has presented regularly at a number of international conferences in Python, data analysis, and its applications.

Henry Walshaw

Trainer & GIS Expert

Henry has 15 years experience in GIS, spatial analysis and application development, particularly in the natural resource management field. Henry’s core technical expertise relates to the development and analysis of large scale spatial datasets (primarily using Python), and communicating this understanding to people including subject matter experts and the general public. Henry has worked in government at federal and state levels, at Geoscience Australia (GA), the Victorian Government Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He has also worked in the private sector as Senior Spatial Consultant with Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) and we-do-IT. He holds a Bachelors in Computational Science.

Dr Juan Nunez-Iglesias

Trainer & Consultant

Juan Nunez-Iglesias is co-author of the book Elegant SciPy, published by O'Reilly Media. Juan is a core developer of the scikit-image Python library, and has contributed to many others in the scientific Python ecosystem, including SciPy, NetworkX, and Matplotlib. He has taught and presented at the SciPy conference in Austin, EuroSciPy, PyCon Australia, the Advanced Scientific Programming in Python summer school, and Software Carpentry workshops. He is currently a research scientist at the University of Melbourne, where he uses image analysis and computer vision to study brain connectivity, malaria parasites, and other biological questions. Juan has Bachelor's degree in Biomedical Science from the University of Melbourne and both an MSc in Statistics and PhD in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics from the University of Southern California.

Errol Lloyd

Trainer & Consultant

Errol's background is in computational neuroscience. He has been using Python for modelling neurological systems, digital signal processing, data analysis, and empirical research for 7 years.

Prior to joining Python Charmers in 2020, Errol trained fellow researchers from both the sciences and the humanities in a variety of software solutions to research problems, including data and natural language analysis in python, data visualisation, interactive dashboards with front-end javascript, and version control and collaboration with git and GitHub.

Errol is an advocate for open source software and reproducible research in science, and is passionate about empowering others to use code in enhancing their productivity. He is currently completing doctoral studies on visual processing in the brain at the University of Melbourne.

Testimonials

“The course was delivered by trainers who were extremely knowledgeable in their field. It was really good to learn from the best!”

- Marius Roman, Transurban (Melbourne)

“Great course. Enjoyed it and will follow up with some practical implementation of some of the work.”

- Adam Grace, Optus (Sydney)

“One of the best training courses I've been on.”

- David Scurrah, Bureau of Meteorology (Melbourne)

“I loved it. Ed was inspiring.”

- Onoriode Coast, CSIRO (Narrabri, NSW)

“Really impressed by Python's capability and excited to use as alternative to MatLab, as is free and better supported.”

- Carsten Hofmann, OMC International (Melbourne)

“Very comprehensive intro to every aspect of python. Highly qualified trainer. Beyond my expectation on every aspect.”

- Baichuan Sun, CSIRO (Clayton)

“The VM setup and USB is great. Ed is an excellent instructor - he presents well and welcomes any questions. He is clearly a super smart guy who has a great grasp on what he is teaching - able to just prototype on the fly and the course overall really opened my eyes to python.”

- Jack Hendy, Optiver (Sydney)

“Course content was well presented and easily digested. Practical exercises were an essential part of the course – a good ratio of lecture/play was achieved. Well done Ed and Henry!”

- Steve Zegelin, CSIRO (Black Mountain Laboratory)

“Simply awesome!!”

- James Park, Cisco (St Leonards)

“Both Ed and Henry presented well…. The course structure was adjusted to suit the participants quickly and easily.”

- Jenet Austin, CSIRO (Black Mountain Laboratory)

“Excellent training course, excellently presented. Perhaps the best that I have had in the area of IT / programming.”

- George Grozev, CSIRO (Clayton)

“One of the best programming courses I have attended - thanks!”

- Giant Billen, IAG Insurance

“This course has shown me how I could have done the work I was doing just last week 10x more efficiently in Python.”

- Maruf Rahman, Geoscience Australia (Canberra)

“It was a pleasure ... Shared feedback from all involved was that it’s been one of the most beneficial and well delivered training courses we’ve been a part of.”

- Dylan Matthews, Simply Energy / GDF Suez (Melbourne)

“Was the most fulfilling and rewarding class I have taken since "general relativity" at uni. Was extremely well run. Excellent all round!”

- Dr Millicent Maier, Australian Astronomical Observatory (Sydney)

“Very impressed with the course, delivery. And depth of knowledge of Ed and Henry. Far exceeded my expectations and has greatly improved my core skills as well as inspired so many new ideas for my current work / projects. Thank you!”

- Kelsey Druken, National Computational Infrastructure (Canberra)