CHARLOTTE — Wells Fargo set out to reach 50% cloud certification among its 30,000 engineers at the start of 2022; and by the end of the year, the $1.8 trillion bank saw 46% of its engineers reach that status — up from 0.03% at the top of the year.

“We didn’t get all the way to 50%, but we got to 46%, which is pretty remarkable,” Steve Hagerman, chief technology officer at Wells Fargo, said Thursday at Bank Automation Summit U.S. 2023 in Charlotte, N.C.

The San Francisco-based bank is focused on ensuring that its team of engineers is equipped with cloud certification to create commonality, basic training and understanding of “specific skills around data, solutions, architect, developer security,” he said, noting having a common cloud vocabulary throughout the team “is important.”

The training is provided by Microsoft Azure fundamentals certification course AZ-900, Hagerman said.

The bank also encourages teams outside of the engineering department to participate in the training, he said. “We encourage all of our non-engineers to take this training as well. For example, my HR partner is Google Cloud-certified.”

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