Enabling Splunkers to Grow Their Careers

Career development can mean a lot of different things, depending on how you look at it and who you talk to. At Splunk, we know career development isn’t always a single, one-directional path. (Surprise, it doesn’t ever actually look like that stock photo of the team climbing up the single mountain to reach the flag at the top!) Instead, we see your career as an adventure with opportunities in all directions and a variety of paths, peaks and valleys to explore. 

“As someone who started at Splunk as an engineer, and then transitioned into management where I am now, one of my favorite things about working here has just been the support I've gotten from leadership for my entire career. I've been here eight years, and I've been able to move around to different product areas and try new things. It's been super supportive and a great place to spend my working hours.” - Cecelia Redding, Sr. Manager, Engineering

To help guide each of our Splunkers as they navigate their career journey, we follow the Three Es (plus one). This is based on the Three Es (or "70/20/10" model): Education, Experience and Exposure, with the addition of an extra E: Evaluation. By balancing each of these areas as a foundation, we’re able to build out programs and policies that will help Splunkers in any role or organization to thrive in their career at Splunk. 

Experience

We believe experience makes up the largest piece of any career growth path. A key way we support this is to make sure that each Splunker understands the experiences they need to have to achieve core outcomes in their current role, as well as what experiences are needed for other roles in their path. This way, Splunkers know what they can continue to work on to excel in their current role, while knowing what they need to work towards to take that next step. To make this more clear, we’ve provided some critical  roles with a career framework guide. The framework shows the required skills and general responsibilities of different roles to help show the possible career paths available, both laterally and vertically.

“I had an opportunity to act as an interim manager for our public sector customer success teams that cover our Department of Defense and Intelligence community customer set, stepping in as an acting manager for someone on maternity leave. This was the first time I’ve been able to manage [people] at Splunk, and I think it really just set my career in motion. It gave me an opportunity to showcase my skills and what I could bring to the table as a leader, as a collaborator with other sales leaders, which ultimately then led to a permanent role for me in a different territory.” - Noah Van Dyke, Senior Manager, Customer Success and Experience

Equipping Splunkers with options to build up the skills and experiences to take the next step is critical! Working with their managers, many Splunkers have been able to shadow other roles at Splunk or participate in a stretch project. Not only does this help expand skills and experience, but also helps with exposure, getting to know other teams and Splunkers. 

Exposure

The second largest piece of the career development is exposure. This means making sure Splunkers have the right visibility and connections across the business to understand how we operate, as well as share knowledge and build up their personal brand. 

An easy way to gain exposure at Splunk is through our Splunk Cafe program, which allows Splunkers to meet new Splunk employees across the globe either for casual conversation or more formal mentorship. This enables Splunkers to grow their network and make valuable connections, both inside and out of their teams, and across all levels!  

In addition to building connections, recognizing employees for their accomplishments is fundamental to our approach to career development and increasing exposure. Every team has their own program catered to their organization that allows them to recognize Splunkers for the work they’re doing, while exposing colleagues and leaders to the interesting projects our teams are working on. For example, on the Customer Success team, the leadership team hosts a quarterly “call down.” Managers nominate stand out Splunkers, and selected Splunkers then have a surprise meeting with the leadership team to celebrate their awesome work! 

Education

Continuous learning is critical to any kind of growth. But how do you know where to start? Sometimes just getting started can be the most daunting. That’s why we provide employees with “A Splunker’s Guide to Career Development.” This step-by-step guide educates Splunkers on the options available and provides them with assessments of current skills, strengths and gaps; development plan templates; and a career conversation checklist. This way, every Splunker learns how to hold a meaningful conversation with their manager about where they want to go, and how they can get there. 

Now, while we’d like to think we have the smartest employees in the world, sometimes the skills and answers you need are outside of the organization. Splunk offers reimbursements for courses related to your role. We also bring in experts to help Splunkers learn new skills, offering on-demand courses for a range of skills and even career conversation labs. 

“Splunk offers tuition reimbursement, and it actually covered my entire tuition to get my Master’s degree, which is great! I took time doing online courses and separated them out so I could complete Master’s in about a year while I was still working as an individual contributor for my team during that whole time.” -  Clara Merriman, Manager, SSCOE Search

Evaluation

So, how do you know that all of your efforts are leading you to the career you see in your dreams? That’s where evaluation comes in. Receiving outside feedback from peers and leaders, custom to your own goals and journey, is critical to make sure that all of the other E’s are working to get you where you want to be. 

At Splunk, research and data is in everything that we do, and our 360 feedback process allows employees to gather feedback, data, and research from fellow colleagues, project partners and collaborators to learn more about their performance, achievements, and opportunities for growth. This allows Splunkers to keep a pulse on how they show up across the business, gather ideas from colleagues on career steps to consider, and reflect on how they can improve and grow in their careers.

Of course, we encourage regular touch bases with managers and leaders to make sure Splunkers are staying on track with their goals. Sometimes, you need designated time for those bigger reflections, though. That’s why Splunk has a quarterly career conversation structure for each Splunker to do some self-reflection and review their career goals with their manager, discussing how they are meeting those goals and how to continue growing. 

There are so many ways a person can grow. We hope that while here, Splunkers can find a role (or a few!) that inspires them to help us create a more resilient digital world. Learn more about how we support career development on our careers site.