We are thrilled to announce the launch of SADA University, an 8-week training program designed to develop cloud infrastructure and data engineering talent from within our organization. With an emphasis on diversity and inclusion, the program’s mission is to onboard and upskill new and existing members of our team to make an incredible impact on the performance of the customers we serve, while also continually improving, refocusing, and expanding that process as we learn more. Led by SADA CTO Miles Ward and Managing Director Bob Bae, SADA University’s curriculum is based on real-world problems that our experts have solved for previous customer engagements.
“At SADA, we understand that nobody’s born a cloud hacker, and that credentialed, experienced abacus developers earn very little. The only durable, valuable skill over the long run is the ability to learn new things,” said Ward. “One of the objectives of SADA University is to learn how to learn.”
Miles Ward, SADA, CTO
As a Google Cloud Premier Partner with multiple Specializations, SADA has gained global accolades and awards, including the Google Cloud Global Partner of the Year for 2018 and 2019, leveraging the entire Google Cloud portfolio, including Google Workspace, Google Anthos, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Google Data Analytics and Machine Learning, Google Maps Platform, Google Chrome, and Google Cloud Search.
“SADA knows more about what our customers will want in the future and has more access to relevant projects, examples, and experts than any other educational environment,” says Bae. “SADA is the best place to learn how to do what we do; and we get better at that every day.”
Bob Bae, SADA University, Managing Director
The SADA University pilot program included a small group of four students—two existing SADA employees from the Google Workspace team and two new recruits. “Diversity and inclusion are critical components of our thriving organizational culture. In selecting candidates, SADA has and will continue to make a strategic effort to recruit from underrepresented talent pools as well as from the existing employees that wish to move into different areas of our practices,” said Orkideh Shahidi, VP of People Operations at SADA. “Our pilot program included three incredible women from diverse backgrounds, and we are looking forward to recruiting more candidates that have diverse backgrounds from both a technical and cultural lens.”
The first cohorts went through six weeks of intensive instruction, immersive hands-on labs, and exciting guest lectures led by various members of SADA’s executive leadership team. They shadowed customer engagements, built a new integration with SADA-internal tools, and presented their work to the whole company. It’s a full plate! The curriculum focused on data engineering in Google Cloud as well as topics related to business, sales, and customer success. Some specific student goals include:
- Designing, building, and implementing data systems that fuel machine learning and AI analytics
- Using existing tools/developing new tools to process data
- Designing models and processes for data transformation
- Managing data sources for reporting
- Architecting/integrating a variety of tools to connect systems
- Designing/administering database systems to secure info
After the first six weeks of instruction, the students dive into shadowing delivery teams to experience firsthand how we are helping our customers solve their business challenges.
