FDM’s client, a leading global financial services company, wanted to establish a site reliability engineering (SRE) Center of Excellence (CoE) that would enable them to scale quickly and streamline their SRE practices.

By centralizing SRE expertise and creating a hub for training, knowledge sharing, and innovation, the client aimed to promote SRE as a best practice throughout the organization. The CoE would facilitate the automation of processes, reducing toil, and optimizing productivity.

In addition to their technical goals, the client was committed to promoting diversity and inclusivity within their teams through recruiting candidates from under-served communities, promoting and enabling the opportunity to step into a rewarding technology career.

We worked collaboratively with the client on targeted recruitment, striving for diversity while ensuring technical capability.

We provided them with an initial cohort of 10 consultants who underwent a 12-week training program in our FDM Skills Lab. Consultants were upskilled in:

• Java
• Python
• Azure
• DevOps tools
• SRE concepts (including telemetry and observability)
• Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) practices

The consultants spent an additional three weeks learning core technical capabilities, before being assigned to the client’s CoE.

After six months of hands-on experience in the CoE, the FDM Consultants were reassigned to teams within the company itself, acting as Lead SREs and ensuring best practice.

FDM supported eight FDM Consultants with local relocation in Alpharetta, Georgia, while the remaining consultants within the initial cohort continued to work in London. Despite the international spread of talent, FDM ensured that everyone’s skills remained relevant, providing the consultants with individual coaching, including a primary focus on the Azure stack.

Following the success of the first cohort, the client wanted to further strengthen their DevOps and SRE capabilities. We provided an additional 12 consultants, who were assigned directly to the client’s CoE. Here, they worked closely with two FDM SREs from the first cohort to reduce training and upskilling time.

Using similar recruitment and selection processes, we targeted candidates from diverse backgrounds. The training was adjusted to Python-based learning, with additional content around ITIL practices and further content on Azure cloud technologies.

The consultants from the second cohort were then assigned to roles in Montreal and Singapore.

FDM Consultants are now assigned in the client’s company, acting as Lead SREs, reducing toil and automating where required. They are deployed across Data Squad, Azure Platform Squad, Wealth Management Squad, and IST Ops Squad, with two consultants retained centrally to continue scaling the CoE.

By partnering with FDM, our client benefitted from the following:

1. Niche skill sets
Through customized training aligned with the client’s unique requirements alongside FDM’s foundation training in core professional and soft skills, the consultants could seamlessly integrate into the client’s team and add value from day one.

2. Diverse talent pool
The client was able to build teams of entry-level talent across a diverse demographic from under-represented communities.

3. Scalable future talent pipeline
By supporting the client’s CoE, we have helped them develop a future-proof solution for scalable talent pipelines.

4. Ability to deploy across multiple geographies simultaneously
The client was able to simultaneously assign FDM Consultants across Alpharetta, Montreal, London, and Singapore. Our consultants trained together, managing time differences, to ensure they all had the same base-level skills before working on site.

5. Client-specific training
We adapted our training based on feedback and guidance from the client, ensuring that the skills of our consultants matched the evolving needs of the SRE function.

6. Dedicated partnership team
We maintained a high cadence of touchpoints, meeting weekly between the SRE leadership and the training cohorts, to establish a sense of community, eliminate uncertainties, and provide context for the training material and its real-world applications. This approach was further enhanced when the second cohort trained alongside the first, creating stronger ties and building a sense of camaraderie between the two groups.

“I joined the FDM Career Development Program and trained in the Java Developer stream (now known as the Software Engineering Practice). I’m currently working as a Public Cloud Site Reliability Engineer for the client.

“As an SRE, my job is to handle Incident Management, Change Management, and Toil Reduction amongst many other things.

“I have enjoyed being able to help build out pipelines and assist in meeting compliance standards for squads within our fleet. I love finding better and more efficient ways of doing things and being able to help implement that within the firm.

“FDM has helped me to hone and develop my skills as well as opened a door, so that I can showcase my ability to succeed in this industry.”

Sean Bordelon
FDM Consultant