The Developer's Career Path: Discover's Approach

Angel Diaz, Vice President of Technology, Capabilities, and Innovation at Discover Financial Services, spoke with TNS Host Alex Williams at at the Open Source Summit in Vancouver, BC. Diaz emphasizes the importance of learning and collaboration among engineers. He leads The Discover Technology Academy, a community of 15,000 engineers, which he describes as a place where craftsmen come together rather than an ivory tower institution.Developers and engineers at Discover define and develop processes for software development. They start their journey by contributing atomic elements of knowledge, such as articles, blogs, videos, and tutorials, and then democratize that knowledge. Open source principles, communities, guilds, and established practices play a vital role in their work and discovery process.Discover's developer experience revolves around the concept of the golden path, which goes beyond consuming content and includes aspects like code, automation, and setting up development environments. Pair programming and a cultural approach to learning are also incorporated into Discover's talent system.Diaz highlights that Discover's work extends beyond their financial services company, as they share their knowledge and open source work with the external community through platforms like technology.discovered.com. This enables engineers to gain merit badges, such as maintainers or contributors, and showcase their expertise on professional platforms like LinkedIn.Learn more at thenewstack.ioThe Future of Developer CareersPlatform Engineer vs Software EngineerHow Donating Open Source Code Can Advance Your Career