collage from Big Event 2025

Continuous Learning at SDG

Written by Bri Marshall
On February 10, 2026
Across our teams, our communities, our committees, and our customer work, SDGers are constantly expanding their skills, sharing their knowledge, and helping others grow. As a 100% employee‑owned company, we know that when we invest in ourselves, we invest in each other—and that investment strengthens our culture, our delivery, and our future.

Here’s an inside look at the rich learning ecosystem SDG has intentionally built.

A Framework for Growth

The SDG Learning Journey is SDG’s internal framework for supporting employee growth and continuous learning. It helps employees understand where they are in their development and connect with learning opportunities that align to their role, interests, and the work SDG does for customers. It provides structure, clarity, and purpose to how employees advance their skills.

SDG’s Learning Journey Advisory Committee helps enhance awareness and access to endorsed learning opportunities across the organization. Their Training Visibility & Partnership framework encourages employees to share feedback on courses, tools, and platforms—closing the loop so the entire company benefits.

This process ensures SDG’s learning ecosystem is not only robust but also continually improving.

Learning From Each Other

For nearly 20 years, SDG Presents has been a cornerstone of our internal learning culture. Employees share expertise—from technical deep dives to personal passions—in a supportive environment designed to help presenters grow and help peers learn something new. Each year, The Big Event brings the entire company together for a three‑hour micro‑conference of SDG‑led talks.

These gatherings showcase something special about SDG: our belief that the best learning often comes from inside.

Learning Through Community

SDG hosts more than a dozen Learning Communities—employee‑led groups centered on topics like AI, Agile, Cloud, Data, DevOps, Product, Writing, Java, Experience Design, and more. These communities meet throughout the year for discussions, workshops, guest speakers, and peer mentoring.

And because employee experience matters here, SDG also has Social Communities—from foodies and outdoor groups to fitness and gaming—recognizing that connection fuels learning just as much as content does.

Learning on Demand

Every SDG employee receives access to platforms like Udemy, opening the door to thousands of technical, leadership, and professional courses. This means you can explore new interests, upskill for your next project, or dive deep into emerging technologies whenever it fits your schedule.

It’s one of the many ways we ensure learning is continuous and accessible.

Key Takeaways

  • Treat AI coding agents like junior teammates: helpful, fast, and imperfect—always apply your own judgment.
  • Ask clear, focused questions and provide concrete examples to get the best results.
  • Re-edit prompts instead of correcting the AI mid-stream to save time and context.
  • Use AI most confidently for small, verifiable units of code, boilerplate, POCs, and test generation—always review the output.
  • Be cautious when working in unfamiliar languages, domains, or with advanced math, encryption, and regex.
  • Follow organizational and community guidelines, and be transparent when introducing AI-generated code into critical paths.
  • Remember: you own the code, the consequences, and the pager—AI is an assistant, not a replacement.