When it comes to job searching, sometimes you just know when you’ve found “the one.”
For some job seekers, it’s the industry. For others, the opportunity. What drew Michael Marcus to IT management consulting firm CapTech was the chance to solve complex problems while developing and refining his skill set.
When he interviewed at CapTech, Marcus was enrolled in an online certificate program for mobile and cloud development. The company let him complete his certificate and even reimbursed him for part of the cost after he joined the team.
“The emphasis on training and employee development is refreshing,” said Marcus, who is now a senior manager and data engineer.
Built In Colorado spoke with Marcus to learn more about his role, the cutting-edge technologies his team uses and how CapTech stays ahead of the curve by investing in its employees.
Tell us about your role. What do you love most about it?
A big part of my job is helping clients solve complex problems — and as a software engineer, solving problems is what I most love to do. My favorite problems are just challenging enough to be interesting and just large enough in scope to make a big impact while still being fairly well-defined. I’m very proud of the solutions I’ve been able to create for our clients.
Are you working on any big projects right now?
My current client is undergoing a very large initiative to move the entire enterprise out of traditional data centers and into the cloud. My team is one of many agile teams working on re-architecting one specific application, which currently runs on a mainframe, to a microservices-based architecture running on AWS.
The work is very sexy and relevant to what’s currently going on in the industry.”
What makes this project so exciting?
We get to play with the kinds of technologies and architectures you hear about at conferences — like Spring Boot, Apache Kafka and event-driven microservices. The work is very sexy and relevant to what’s currently going on in the industry. The environment is very developer-friendly as well: We use GitHub and Slack for collaboration, and the entire build and delivery pipeline is completely automated. We’re bringing back a ton of knowledge to CapTech and improving our own skills in the process.
What makes CapTech’s culture different from other places you’ve worked?
The emphasis on training and employee development is refreshing and one of the big reasons I joined CapTech. During my job search, I was working toward an online certificate in mobile and cloud development. CapTech let me finish the program and reimbursed me for a portion of the cost. I have always found self-directed training to be crucial in maintaining and expanding my skill set, and it has been wonderful to work for a company that understands this as well.
Collaboration is key in the consulting industry. How do you collaborate, both as a team and across departments?
My leadership style is very inclusive, in part because I’m always surrounded by smart people with great ideas. There is definitely a culture of soliciting great ideas from anywhere and everywhere. We have recently instituted a series of innovation challenges to explore emerging technologies like natural language processing, machine learning and augmented reality. There have been some really cool ideas that arose from that.
How does CapTech support team members' professional aspirations?
CapTech’s coaching culture allows us to grow and develop our careers in ways that fit with our lives and individual aspirations. There’s a clear path in place for people who want to advance into leadership positions, but CapTech also values those who want to contribute solely through client delivery.
As a coach, I have team members who embody both philosophies. One team member has a young son and doesn’t have the time or desire to take on internal obligations. Nevertheless, I’ve been able to help him advance his career through development of his technical skills and subject matter expertise.
CapTech’s coaching culture allows us to grow and develop our careers in a way that fits with our lives and individual aspirations.”
What characteristics are needed to be successful in your role?
Flexibility and intellectual curiosity, which happen to be two of CapTech’s core values. In our industry, we can’t rest on our laurels. We need to keep learning and shifting direction in order to stay relevant. Though I consider myself primarily a Java developer and architect, I enjoy learning new languages and platforms so that I can be ready for whatever comes next.
