Comcast career path program turns front-line employees into software developers

Comcast has been quietly pushing ahead with a program that enables a portion of its base of front-line workers – primarily field technicians and call center reps – to shift gears and pursue a career in software development.

That program, called Grows to Code, has already had one cohort of 12 Philadelphia-area front-line employees successfully complete the program. The second cohort of 31 employees that's also focused on front-liners in Philadelphia, along with a handful of employees in Denver and a couple from the operator's Central region, is now underway.

Comcast, which sparked the program prior to the pandemic, developed the idea as part of a plan focused on expanding the company's software development pipeline in what continues to be a super-competitive market for attracting top tech talent, explained Comcast EVP and Chief Information Officer Rick Rioboli.

In addition to helping to expand that talent pipeline, he said the program also provides Comcast with software developers with a "unique perspective" on the organization with respect to the business, Comcast's customers and the front-line tools and systems that Rioboli's team builds. On top of that, Grows to Code established a new career path for front-line employees that typically follow a more linear trajectory that can end once they become experts in their respective field, he added.

Grows to Code is designed for "massive upskilling from one entire career space to another," Rioboli said. "It created this whole new career path where they could sort of jump out of being a tech or call center agent, and jump into this whole new space of software development."

Comcast teamed up with LaunchCode, a nonprofit organization that helps people learn to code and land jobs in the software field, to form the basis of a 13-week coding-focused "boot camp" for front-liners who are accepted into the program. What follows is a ten-week "apprenticeship" that is more tailored to Comcast's software development group. Employees who participate in the six-month program are paid full-time, at their average hourly rate and complete all the coursework as part of the 40-hour per week program.

Rioboli estimates that Comcast received "hundreds" of applicants from Philadelphia-area employees for the first 12-person cohort. Applicants are selected from several criteria, including time with the company, performance and recommendations from managers, as well as essays submitted by the applicants themselves. Given the rigors of the program, Comcast also sought to find candidates that are "highly motivated" to get through the program successfully, he added.

The 12 people picked for the original cohort, which had to be done virtually because of the pandemic, made it through, entering the team as an entry-level software development engineer. That first group was also tied to Rioboli's organization, which includes a customer experience technologies group focused on the residential lifecycle, touching areas such as sales and marketing, service activation, provisioning and billing, and support services systems.

Examples of employees in that first group include Shelina Watts, who originally was a field tech with Comcast. Her final project focused on a passion of hers – restoring, painting and designing older sneakers, according to information supplied by Comcast. She used her new coding skills to build a searchable encyclopedia of sneakers that was also used for her annual sneaker drive. Another is Emmanuel (Manny) Mwalpopo, a Comcast line-tech for more than ten years. Mwalpopo, who taught himself about computers as a child by putting together his family's first laptop, now works on a team dedicated to monitoring Comcast's network performance, according to the company-supplied bio.

Competition for software engineering talent remains fierce

Grows to Code took shape amid a broader, ongoing demand for software talent. Comcast, which has effectively become a software company in the wake of massive projects such as its cloud-based X1 platform and the pivot to digital and cloud-based tools and systems, likely finds itself competing for such talent against companies such as Facebook, Amazon and Google.

"For the past several years, the demand for tech talent has been increasing," Rioboli acknowledges. "Coming out of [the pandemic] I see that only increasing right now."

The second cohort for Grows to Code is set to end its initial boot camp with LaunchCode at the end of August, to be followed by the ten-week apprenticeship.

Comcast intends to tap into its pool of front-line workers to establish additional cohorts around coding and software development along with thoughts about expanding into other areas designed to "re-skill or upskill" employees in areas that aren't completely focused on software development.

"This is just the beginning," Rioboli said.

— Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading