CSC Career Growth & Development

How does your team cultivate a culture of learning, whether that’s through hackathons, lunch and learns, access to online courses or other resources?

We approach learning with a simple concept: If it benefits you and provides business value, go for it! We use traditional education, online courses, certifications, team tabletop exercises, lunch-and-learn sessions and team collaboration.

As for continuous learning, nothing is off the table. If a team member or leader discovers an opportunity to learn a new skill, we fully encourage them to move forward. That could be through an in-person workshop with the team or a third-party vendor, or a series of videos and online resources. We want our team to feel enabled to chase learning opportunities.

We also emphasize the importance of hard skills just as much as soft skills. There are many resources to learn coding, infrastructure as code, cloud compute and more. But learning critical skills such as effective communication, handling difficult situations and time management are usually more challenging to find. As a team, we hold regular sessions called “Quinn’s Quips,” where we share real experiences and lessons learned on these topics and then supplement them with additional educational resources.

How does this culture positively impact the work your team produces?

The culture we’ve instilled has allowed team members to embrace the mindset of, “I may not have the answer right now, but I’ll find it!” This thought process has established us as a team that can be trusted, relied on and gets things done. Whether it’s learning YAML, AI skills and development, engaging with experts to understand Azure policy and security or trailblazing cloud technologies, our biggest impact has been in producing stronger client relationships.

For example, we needed a Microsoft Defender for Cloud expert. We asked one of our engineers if she could take on this challenge, and she agreed without hesitation and an enthusiastic “Absolutely!” She learned the tool and positioned herself as the expert. She’s now a critical point of contact when our clients have security or best practice questions. They know they can contact our team and specifically her for help. This is just one example of where cultivating a community of learning has created a positive relationship with our clients.

What advice would you give to other engineers or engineering leaders interested in creating a culture of learning on their own team?

Make the time and make it a priority. It’s a leader’s responsibility to empower engineers to feel comfortable making time for their own education. Check in with your team regularly to make sure they have enough capacity dedicated to learning. If they don’t, help them adjust their commitments so they can find the time. As an engineer, hold yourself accountable. Block your calendar, commit your time and prioritize self-improvement. Set a measurable goal that learning is going to be your top priority.

Open communication between engineers and leaders is also critical. Leaders can point engineers in a direction, but it’s up to the engineers to communicate if it’s the right path. If you prefer visual learning over reading a textbook, express that. If you think it makes more sense for you to learn about Mongo databases instead of SQL databases, share that thought. Create a space of frequent, open communication, where the avenues and content of learning make sense for the engineer as well as the team.