OutSystems Training
When I became the VP of Developers, one of the mandates from our CEO was that he never wanted to hear customers complaining about not being able to find OutSystems developers. We made that a top priority, and, two years later, we’ve gotten great feedback from our customers about their ability to find the developers they need. No talent shortages here!
With step one completed, it was time to tackle a new mission: grow the pool of senior OutSystems talent.
We have been addressing this cross-region, cross-industry opportunity, engaging closely with our customers along the way. Just recently, I spoke with Eduardo Romano, Head of Digital Channels at Entel, and the Head of Bank Development at North American digital bank client, and they shared a few of their most successful programs for attracting and retaining developers.
In this blog post, I'll highlight a few successful approaches our customers have embraced, hoping to inspire you to achieve similar successes.
How to upskill your OutSystems talent
In case you don’t know, Entel is the leading telco in Chile and Peru. And the North American digital bank client is located in the United States. The conversation was interesting because, although they’re both major enterprises, their IT setup and region-specific challenges are quite different.
Entel: When talent is not available
When Eduardo Romano, Head of Digital Channels, joined the company in 2020, OutSystems wasn’t well-known in Chile and Peru. Therefore, finding OutSystems developers, let alone senior developers, was hard.
Eduardo shared: “We wanted to have access to senior talent, but the answer I got was, ‘hire junior talent and wait five years’—which I couldn’t accept.” So, he developed a few innovative programs that have helped him build a truly digital factory.
Newbie academies
Entel runs yearly academies for recent university graduates to equip them with the skills needed for several technologies critical to running the company’s operations. Eduardo explained: “We train about 20 developers in OutSystems, Google APIs—whatever we need on our technology stack.”
After a year of training, each trainee is assigned to one of the technologies they learned, where they continue to grow and develop their expertise. "Just last year, we added six new OutSystems developers to the team," Eduardo added.
Top Gun Academy
The Top Gun Academy is exclusive to OutSystems developers and is designed to train senior talent. Every year, Entel assesses the technical and soft skills of its developers and sends the top five to the OutSystems offices in Portugal for two-week, deep-dive training. After concluding the training, these developers mentor other OutSystems developers to accelerate their training. Check out this video, where Eduardo explains this program.
Digital bank: When developers are skeptical about low-code
The challenge for the Head of Bank Development at the digital bank client was different, but it's one I've heard many times during my 20 years at OutSystems (we have even launched a video series about it).
When he joined as Head of Bank Development, he inherited a team of, let’s say, conventional developers. He shared: “I’m talking about C#, Angular developers who were very apprehensive about low-code.”
With plans to move more technology under his scope to OutSystems in the next two years, he needed to come up with training that was challenging and motivating–and allowed people to grow in different areas of technology.
Rotating training
Like Entel, the digital bank trains its developers in multiple areas through a rotational program. The Head of Bank Development explained that when he first rolled out the program: “Developers spent two months learning OutSystems, two months learning web development, two months learning Salesforce, and so on. The training adapted to our technology needs at that point. But as we evolved the program, we started to focus on the platform: UI, workflows, back-end development including integrations and APIs, etc. We used the guided paths available on the OutSystems website.”
Once the training is completed, developers are tasked to enhance functional apps to promote hands-on experience with the platform. “For developers that show greater aptitude, we give them an actual business problem to solve from scratch,” he concluded.
Internships
The digital bank has also launched an internship program for computer science students. The Head of Bank Development explained: “These are young people who don’t have experience in development and, thus, don’t have preconceived ideas about development and low-code. We trained them in OutSystems, using the online training available to augment our teams.”
“One of our latest interns has been experimenting with ODC using the available information online and has already launched her first app within 2 months.”
Distributed development
To expand the use of OutSystems at the bank, the Head of Bank Development has launched a program where his team loans a senior developer to a business unit that isn’t currently using OutSystems to support them with an app they need. “The senior developer guides and mentors the business unit until they have an MVP. At this point, we step back and let them run with it.”
Extra tips
While both organizations initially faced distinct challenges, Entel and the digital bank implemented several common strategies alongside their custom programs. Here are a few extra tips they shared:
- Get the support of OutSystems partners to augment your development team. Located all over the world, they are true OutSystems experts and can support teams onsite or remotely. If you’re looking for the best partner for your needs, check out the Partner Center.
- Invest in a Technical Success Manager (TSM). TSMs are an OutSystems service that provides guidance and advisory for continued technical enablement, from onboarding to expansion.
- Join an OutSystems Bootcamp, led by an expert who teaches your developer team how to use the platform's core features. It’s also a great opportunity to answer any questions your developers may have about the platform.
Take your OutSystems team to the next level
You may be wondering if these strategies actually work. Well, with these programs, Entel has built a development factory with over 90 developers—and growing. As for the digital bank, it has achieved a retention rate of less than 10% turnover over the past three years. So you tell me.
If you’re looking to upskill and grow your team, I also invite you to check out our official programs, including:
- The OutSystems Community, where you can ask questions, access reusable apps, share ideas, and connect with other OutSystems developers.
- Our comprehensive online training and certifications.
- The Mentorship program, where your developers can find mentors based on expertise, location, language, availability, and more.
- Our User Groups—technical events created for the Community by the Community.
Last but not least, join us on September 30 - October 1 in Lisbon for the ONE Conference, our annual conference this year with tracks and sessions dedicated to our developers.
