Most developers know that in the rapidly innovating world of enterprise technology, acquiring new skills is not optional. This is no truer than for the cloud developers of EY, a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services with clients in nearly every major industry around the globe. These professionals work on some of the most advanced Microsoft technologies available and find themselves consistently reskilling in the face of cloud innovation or pursuing new knowledge to open up career opportunities they may have never considered before.<\/p>\n
Two cloud engineers with EY recently participated in the Cloud Skills Challenge (CSC) as part of their professional development. The CSC impacted their professional development while opening the door for them to explore new skills, platforms, and career opportunities.<\/p>\n
EY and the CSC to promote developer skilling<\/strong><\/p>\n EY relies on Microsoft products such as Azure to support their global businesses. Since EY continually looks to leverage whatever they can from these products, they put a serious emphasis on their cloud development teams and their ability to stay on top of the latest trends from Microsoft.<\/p>\n Due to the need for continued skills training, many of the EY developers were already familiar with Microsoft Learn and its interactive learning opportunities. In fact, EY already pushed Microsoft Learn certification so that cloud developers would stay on top of the relevant skills they would need.<\/p>\n \u201cI do it [Microsoft Learn modules] every day before I go to sleep,\u201d said Veronica Gomez, a DevOps Engineer with EY. \u201cI work, I have a family, I have two little kids. It is difficult for me to focus normally. It allows me to work on my career.\u201d<\/p>\n Microsoft Learn provided the foundation for self-directed learning, but EY found that scaling their desired skilling outcomes while motivating their cloud development teams was a challenge for their global operations. That\u2019s where the CSC helped them.<\/p>\n The CSC is a training experience where learners can follow pre-determined course paths that link Microsoft Learn modules based on their topics, like Azure fundamentals, machine learning, or Power Platform.<\/p>\n More importantly, the CSC leveraged certification and competition to drive skilling. Completing a module earns users points that are measured on a leaderboard. Successful completion of learning paths provides users with badges and certifications on the associated Microsoft product, while top performers stand a chance of winning bragging rights and unique prizes.<\/p>\n The combination of the gamified learning elements and guided paths built on top of the flexible Microsoft Learn modules allowed developers at EY to skill at their own pace, but with fun objectives and logical learning paths. \u201cI was starting to get certified on many Azure projects, so I knew that Microsoft Learn was beneficial,\u201d said Alejandro Peczan, Cloud Architect at EY. \u201cI started to get an interest in Learn, then I kind of came to the CSC and decided to participate.\u201d<\/p>\n