How You Can Accelerate Your Career in Technology

“Now hiring” signs are everywhere these days, with companies in nearly every industry looking to staff up in the age of the Great Resignation. And with the rapid pace technological change and adoption, technology organizations are seeing a shortage of workers to fill much-needed roles. In fact, according to a recent CompTIA Tech Jobs Report, employers posted approximately 340,000 unfilled IT jobs in January. And in tech-sector organizations alone, the number of IT jobs increased by 178,000, and that number is expected to keep climbing.

So, how can employees climb the technology career ladder — whether they’re looking to break into the industry or are highly seasoned tech professionals? At Rackspace Technology®, we’ve created a culture of continuous learning that enables our Rackers to grow personally and professionally regardless of what stage they are at in their career journey. 

In our latest Rackspace Technology Live episode, our Chief Technology Evangelist, Jeff DeVerter, met with Juan Rojas, Chief Information Officer, and Lara Indrikovs, Director of IT Portfolio Strategy and Agile Operations, to discuss opportunities for technical career development and personal growth at Rackspace Technology.

“We’ve effectively enabled a career architecture for everybody,” said Juan Rojas, Chief Information Officer. “It’s less about [your professional] experience and more about structure and attitude. We have the right type of structure so you can break down employment barriers.”

Technical Onboarding Program

We’re committed to helping Rackers build skills and enabling advancement into new career paths through upskilling solutions like our Technical Onboarding Program (TOP). Rackers who are accepted to this full-time, 90-day program get paid to participate in formal learning, while gaining the certifications needed to become cloud engineers, cloud native software engineers, and data engineers. 

TOP upskills Rackers who are looking to change career paths by moving to high-growth areas of our business, like Rackspace Professional Services and Rackspace Elastic Engineering. The program has allowed us to grow and hire talent from within by moving them into in-demand roles aligned with our emerging solution strategy.

“Watching our Rackers develop is the driving force and motivation for our team - it's more than our mission, it's our passion. We're continuously updating our learning resources, certification offerings, course topics and more to evolve with and anticipate industry trends and business needs,” said RaChelle Streetman, Director of Global Talent Development. “It's really remarkable how you can come into Rackspace Technology in one department and totally transform your career track and move into a new area of the business."

Rackers who complete the TOP program will help customers tackle some of their most complex challenges through hands-on and consultative engagements. Investing in the development of Racker expertise enhances our ability to deliver Fanatical Experience™ for our customers. Rackspace University offers a variety of training and development resources to help grow Rackers’ skill sets and deliver the future for our customers.

Technical Career Track

Another opportunity is the Technical Career Track (TCT) program, which is designed to evolve professional development for seasoned employees looking for growth beyond people's leadership. To join the elite program, a candidate requires an internal nomination followed by an in-depth selection process. 

In 2021, 13 Rackers were accepted into the TCT program, and earned the title of principal or senior principal engineer or architect. The 2021 intake included Sergii Kozlov, Regional Technology Lead and Rick Martire, UK Government Principal Cloud Architect from the EMEA region. 

Kozlov explained, “TCT is so much more than just a focus on all things technical. It allows Rackers to advance their careers by solving real customer problems and working on strategic projects alongside senior leaders.”

Both Kozlov and Martire work within Rackspace Professional Services department and will continue in their roles. But now, they will have more comprehensive development expectations for themselves.

And although the TCT program is technical by nature, it is not limited to only technical roles. “Rackers have so many development routes available to them, so they are not limited to the roles they have today,” said Martire. “It’s possible to change the direction of your career.” 

At Rackspace Technology we believe internal subject matter experts (SMEs) are critical to providing invaluable business insights. That’s one reason why we invest in opportunities that allow our SMEs to make decisions that move our business forward. 

"Building leadership within an organization means a lot of things,” said Travis Runty, Vice President of Technical Support and Global Cloud Operation, and the executive sponsor of the TCT program. Often it is confused with direct line leadership, but programs like TCT provide our most senior technologists with the ability to provide thought leadership and grow their career to the Director and VP level."

Learn more about how our culture empowers employees to take control of their career path by encouraging them to develop holistically.

Click here to watch the full Rackspace Technology Live: Career Fair episode.