--- title: "Talent Success and Academy | Azendo" description: "How Azendo specialists are selected, trained and developed, including AI certification before assignment, and why that keeps retention high." url: "https://azendo.co/talent-success-academy/" --- # How our software specialists are developed. Most delivery companies treat training as something that happens if there is time. We run it as a programme, because retention is the thing our model depends on most. 3.3 years Average time a specialist stays with Azendo 2 managers A Talent Success Manager and a Workplace Experience Manager, for every specialist assigned Every Friday A client satisfaction score lands in your inbox Unlimited LinkedIn Learning access, through our enterprise partnership ## Development plans, coaching and review. Beyond certification, each specialist has a development plan, regular coaching and performance review handled on our side. You get the benefit without carrying the HR work. Development plans are set with each specialist individually and reviewed quarterly, covering both technical depth and the communication skills that decide whether remote delivery works. Coaching is delivered in-house rather than bought as a course allowance nobody spends. Step 01 1:1 meetings Bi-weekly well-being check-ins and monthly coaching and development meetings with every specialist. Issues surface while they're still small. Fixed cadence Well-being check-in Every 2 weeks Coaching and development Every month How have you been feeling since our last check-in? 10 Could you highlight a few wins? 8 Step 02 Development and training A development plan built with the specialist and reviewed monthly. Courses, internal training and one-on-one coaching where the gap is. Draft plan → Review → Issued Cross-functional team leadership Now 6 → target 10 Leadership course, module A28 Aug One-on-one training with a senior specialist05 Sep Step 03 Client feedback loop A client satisfaction scorecard reaches you every Friday. Anything rated below four triggers a response from us before it becomes your problem. Every Friday, on repeat 8.5 Recent average 4 Areas scored < 4 Triggers action Step 04 360-degree performance reviews Quarterly reviews that gather input from the specialist, their manager, their peers and you. One picture of performance, not four opinions. Quarterly, run by Talent Success Self-assessment The specialist scores their own work Client You score delivery and collaboration Manager The team lead on daily performance Peers Colleagues who work alongside them Step 05 Growth tracks and promotion readiness Skills, training and review history build a live profile. When someone is ready for the next step, you see it before you have to ask. Skill profile, kept current Cross-functional leadership9 / 10 Code review ownership8 / 10 Client communication8 / 8 Promotion ready — flagged automatically once history and targets support the next step in the growth track. ## AI certification before assignment. Every specialist completes [AI certification](https://azendo.co/blog/ai-engineering/prompt-engineering-is-not-a-role/) before assignment, whatever their discipline. That is a deliberate response to a live shift in the market, where prompt and context skills have moved from a specialist job title into a baseline expectation for engineers. It is also why a team trained to one standard stays interchangeable on the things that matter. Two specialists who have been through the same programme review code the same way, which is what keeps quality steady as a roadmap grows and the [committed monthly capacity](https://azendo.co/pricing/) changes shape. A Talent Success Manager, for every specialist assigned Assigned to every specialist from day one, running the 1:1s, development plans and reviews above. A Workplace Experience Manager A dedicated role focused on day-to-day wellbeing, office life and events — separate from career development. LinkedIn Learning, for everyone An enterprise partnership gives every specialist free access to LinkedIn Learning's full course library. An internal resource library Playbooks, guides and recorded sessions specialists can draw on between formal training. Sparring and knowledge sharing Regular sessions where specialists bring real problems to peers and seniors for a second opinion, not just scheduled training. See it for your role Every service line runs on the same Talent Success framework. [See our service lines →](https://azendo.co/services/) The commercial effect is retention. Specialists who are learning stay, and in an assigned-team model that is what protects your product knowledge. It is also why our engagements are quoted in years rather than months. How we develop people follows directly from [our values](https://azendo.co/our-values/). Every specialist assigned to your project has a Talent Success Manager behind them. Chiang Mai, Thailand — five hours ahead of Northern Europe ## Meet the specialists behind your roadmap. Thirty minutes with a service delivery manager. You will hear what we would deliver, what capacity it takes and what we would not take on. [Get in touch](https://azendo.co/get-in-touch/) ## How specialists on an assigned development team are trained Every specialist completes AI certification before assignment, whatever their discipline. That is a response to a real shift: prompt and context skills have moved from a specialist job title into a baseline expectation for engineers, and we would rather that be true of everyone than of a few. Beyond certification, each specialist has a development plan reviewed quarterly, covering technical depth and the communication skills that decide whether remote delivery works. The commercial effect is retention, which is what protects your product knowledge in an assigned-team model. A specialist who stays three years carries context a replacement would need months to rebuild, and that is the thing a [staff augmentation](https://azendo.co/staff-augmentation/) arrangement cannot offer, because retention there is nobody's obligation. That combination is why a [dedicated software development team](https://azendo.co/services/dedicated-development-team/) here is quoted in years rather than months.