Empowering Tomorrow’s Technologists: Our Journey with GitHub’s “All In for Students” Program
Fidelity was honored and excited to recently be a part of GitHub’s 2024 “All In for Students” initiative, an online program for undergraduate tech students from underrepresented backgrounds. The program offers open-source education, training, and internship opportunities. Fidelity associates, serving as career mentors and “hackathon” judges, were truly inspired by the passion, collaboration, and self-starter attitudes these young technologists possess. This is just one example of Fidelity’s involvement and investment in young tech talent. Being involved in initiatives like the “All In” program corroborates Fidelity’s diversity and inclusion values, which aim to strengthen the communities in which we live, work, and serve.
Members from Fidelity’s Cloud and Platform Engineering (CAPE) team were heavily involved in the program. The Fidelity team loved every minute of this experience, including dedicating time to mentorship, workshops, keynote speeches, and hackathon judging. Their involvement started in November 2023 with career readiness workshops, interview prep, and mentoring sessions. Two members of Fidelity’s CAPE team led a workshop on “Code Review Best Practices,” covering continuous delivery principles, DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) team metrics, and the effective “Definition of Done.”
While our Fidelity associates played the role of mentors, teachers, and motivators, they were also humbled by how much they got from the experience. “I appreciated Fidelity’s role in these students’ journeys, exposing them to real-world programming challenges and more. It’s quite inspiring to see Fidelity’s commitment to nurturing student talent and developing future leaders. I wish all of them a bright future…hopefully with Fidelity!” comments Joshua, a principal digital analyst at Fidelity, who spoke to the students during the “Career Advice: Fireside Chat” panel.
A memorable moment came when a future Fidelity software engineering intern announced her acceptance into the program. She expressed gratitude to GitHub and Fidelity for providing her and her peers with a platform to enhance their skills in open-source software, gain valuable career insights, and access job and internship opportunities. We were excited to welcome this student, along with hundreds of others, into our internship program this summer!
The program ended this past March, and our Fidelity mentors proudly watched the students graduate from the program. Ger, a product area leader at Fidelity, gave the closing remarks at the ceremony and had some inspiring parting words for the students. “This program showed us all the value of a workforce that is diverse in thought, in background, in learning style, and in life experiences.” He encouraged the students to practice what they learn in books by finding an open-source project to contribute to, opening a repository, and then creating. Another piece of advice from Ger was to use their GitHub repository as a portfolio when they go to an interview to show their future employers that they’re self-learners, self-motivated, and can work independently and as part of a team.
Overall, Fidelity was thrilled to participate in GitHub’s program and is grateful for this partnership. We look forward to continuing to serve our communities through more programs such as this one.
Are you passionate about technology and helping others find a career they’re passionate about? We invite you to explore our open roles and apply today at Tech.FidelityCareers.com.
The Featured Blog Posts series highlights posts from partners and members of the All Things Open community leading up to ATO 2024.