Investing in IT careers pays off at Capital One

In tight talent markets, investing in employees’ careers can be a key differentiator. Not only can upskilling and cross-training programs improve employee productivity and help close gaps in key skills, they are also proving to be essential tools for retention and recruitment, such as Capital One’s “whole person development” approach demonstrated through a range of training programmes.

Capital One has deployed several in-house professional development programs to close the skills gap while giving employees – and even non-IT employees – the opportunity to grow their careers and expertise in technology. These programs include a full-stack development academy and an in-house ‘tech college’, as well as opportunities to develop leadership and other soft skills.

At its core, however, is an IT culture centered on learning and “entrepreneurship,” says Mike Eason, senior vice president and CIO of enterprise data and machine learning engineering at Capital One.

A cultural engagement

Capital One employs over 11,000 engineers working in more than 2,000 agile teams. These teams run like a “small company,” says Eason.

“It keeps a large company very agile, creates that autonomy, and then drives a lot of that team dynamic and team culture into the other groups of people who release software every day and every week for our customers and our employees,” he says.

Capital One’s strong focus on team culture helps the company attract and retain talent, says Eason, as does its commitment to continuing education and ongoing career development.

Eason credits Capital One’s move to the public cloud in 2015 as one of the biggest catalysts for attracting new technical talent. Working on open-source projects and an agile environment have been “huge” for Capital One’s ability to “attract talent not just from finance, but from the entire technology industry,” he says.

But when the opportunities presented by working in the public cloud brought new talent to the company, Capital One’s commitment to career development has helped motivate them to stay. Looking beyond an employee’s technical hard skills and how they build relationships and influence and nurture others within the company, the company offers training focused on fostering leadership, public speaking and relationship skills, among other soft skills, that are important for everyone’s career.

That focus has “actually gotten a lot of senior executives from other technology companies who want to be more broadened in some of those leadership skills, and Capital One has that brand in the market, not just for banks, but for the entire country. So a lot of people have come looking for that investment in the whole person, rather than the engineering aspect of our talent,” says Eason.

CODA: Bring in new talent

However, tech training is another key component of Capital One’s recruiting and retention strategy. Capital One invests in its engineers through a variety of talent development programs, including the Capital One Developer Academy (CODA), a six-month software development program for full-time Capital One employees to learn the principles of full-stack development. It is aimed at STEM graduates who may or may not have a background in software development but are interested in learning more about the subject.

The program has been successful in attracting new engineering talent, with Capital One hiring about 700 employees from the CODA program each year, Eason says. Graduates of this program progress to Capital One’s Technology Development Program (TDP), a two-year rotating program that places employees in separate roles in two different engineering departments for a year.

Andrew Dorfman, senior software engineer at Capital One, heard about the CODA program at a job fair on the University of Delaware campus. A chemical engineer major with a computer science minor, he didn’t think a full-time job as a software engineer was possible because he wouldn’t pass the technical interviews. However, CODA gave him the opportunity to fill that skills gap and start a career in software engineering.

“CODA was the perfect way for me to get the education I needed to become a software engineer. CODA gave me the fundamentals I needed to be successful and grow into a stronger engineer,” he says.

After accepting the program, Dorfman attended the courses full-time, learning full-stack web development using JavaScript and Node. The courses also covered Agile, GitHub, React, Angular, Express, Mongo, Postgre and ORM in Node. He also gained hands-on experience working on an application for Capital One designed for screening customer lists.

Dorfman has changed roles three times since he started at Capital One, he says. While the CODA program helped him land his first role, the TDP helped him “find a new role and ease the transition.”

“From then on, I had every opportunity to find a team or project that I was interested in. I worked with the hiring manager and did interviews to see if it was right for me,” he says.

Capital One Tech College for further education

Another program, Capital One Tech College, was developed internally to give employees the opportunity to further develop their technical skills. Open to employees in and outside of IT, it provides access to thousands of free training and certification courses in topics such as agile, cloud, cybersecurity, data, machine learning and AI, mobile and software development. The Tech College offers both live classes and pre-recorded classes, allowing training to be tailored to employees’ schedules and learning styles.

The Tech College gives Capital One the opportunity to meet demand for emerging and cutting-edge technical skills that are difficult to find in the current market. For example, demand for machine learning is “huge” and Eason says the “war for machine learning talent is raging out there, and there just isn’t enough talent.” The Tech College allows Capital One to develop the required skills in-house while providing employees with opportunities to advance and expand their careers and skills.

Eason himself says he’s held about “15 different positions at Capital One” over the past 20 years and notes that the formal career development process helps employees find their passion without having to leave the company.

“We really want to invest in the whole person, rather than boxing them up by doing the same thing,” says Eason.

Since completing the CODA program, Dorfman has used the Tech College’s internal resources to “improve specific languages ​​and technologies.”

“Having the opportunity to learn new technologies on the job using these tools allows me to become a stronger engineer and gain new experience working with new technologies. I love that this is an option and that Capital One engineers are encouraged to take advantage of the learning and development resources. It proves that we’re a company that really believes in our mission,” says Dorfman.

Offer alternatives to the leadership path

Capital One also recognizes that leadership positions should not be the only career path open to engineers. Leadership requires your own skills and expertise and is not interesting for everyone. When a company’s only route is through leadership positions, companies often find themselves with executives who don’t really want to be there and engineers who leave for promotions, raises, or new projects.

Training opportunities are available for those at Capital One who want to pursue a leadership path, including a Distinguished Engineer path that allows them to “invest more deeply in engineering” while “influencing and mentoring people.” Engineers who are simply interested in solving problems also have the flexibility to move around different roles or departments in the company to keep things interesting.

“I think that’s important for retention and commitment – to be able to do something new and fresh. While what they’re doing is kind of cool, it might not seem like it after three years of doing something in the same place [exciting]’ Eson says.