Too often, though, we expect our software engineers to discover, engage in, and accomplish this learning on their own. Kristen Foster-Marks believes that this upskilling can be made more efficient and effective when strategically planned and orchestrated at team and engineering org levels.

In this talk, she’ll share how she – as a member of her company’s Technology Center of Excellence – collected, analyzed, and took action on data from a strategic needs analysis that sought to answer the question: “What do our engineers most need to learn in order for us to achieve our strategic objectives in 2023?” Along with an overview of the process and resultant data, she’ll share her team’s retrospections on that process – including some of the mistakes they made – as well as how they used the data to influence engineering leaders to endorse company-organized upskilling efforts.

Engineering leaders will walk away with a blueprint for how to replicate this research in their own organizations, as well as – Kristen hopes – some inspiration for creating internal upskilling opportunities for their software engineers.