Meghan Bushman has spent more than seven years helping shape the way Atlas Tech and its team members learn and grow. As Director of Learning and Development, she now oversees learning strategy for a team that has expanded to 4x its size since her first day. We sat down with Meghan to talk about what that scaling means for a company’s culture and how her unique perspective has helped Atlas Tech create meaningful pathways for career and personal growth across the agency.
Tell us about your role as Director of Learning and Development.
I’d say my role is really about understanding where our team is today, where Atlas Tech is going and how learning can help bridge that gap across all our departments.
We’re really intentional about the learning experiences we create here. I don’t believe in pushing content out just to say we offered training. That way of doing things doesn’t truly serve anyone. Learning is more than just a box to be checked. Whether we’re developing our Tiered Leadership Development Program or a Career Path to Mastery, what we do needs to be useful to the people it’s created for.
I’m doing that by meeting people where they are. We’re all working in the same direction, and we also all have our own goals. Someone may want to become a leader. Someone else may want to hone their technical skills to support a team, rather than manage it. Both paths are valuable, and our job is to give each team member the tools to keep growing in the directions that make the most sense for them.
It’s been an exciting challenge shaping our programs over the years, and I think we’ve landed in a really great spot. Our learning library is curated, but what really makes it unique are the ways team members can engage with it.
At Atlas Tech, learning isn’t limited to your specific field or project. The catalog is open to all. That puts ownership of tech learning into the learners’ hands. If there’s something you’re interested in or a direction you want to explore, access doesn’t have to be the thing standing in your way.
Atlas looked very different when you joined. What has it been like growing alongside the company?
When I joined Atlas, there were around 100 of us. Even though team members were spread out, at that size, you could generally get a sense of what was happening across the company. You knew when someone needed help.
As we grew, that obviously became a bit more difficult.
One of the things I noticed early on was that a lot of challenges could be traced back to training and “tribal knowledge.” Your experience and development could depend heavily on who you reported to and what knowledge existed within your immediate team.
At the time, Bryan Miller was CEO, and he gave me the freedom to “roll with it.” Honestly, some of our early leadership development was literally me sitting in a room with leaders talking about how to have conversations with team members and how to have touch points and approach different situations.
What’s really rewarding is seeing where some of those people are now. Team members who participated in those early conversations have gone on to become project managers, portfolio managers and important contributors to major initiatives across Atlas.
I’ve had the rare opportunity to grow alongside the company by building learning infrastructure that supports our growth. Learning technology plays a pivotal role in getting the right content to our team when they need it.
Atlas Tech team members have 100% access to technical training 24 hours a day. How do you encourage people to actually take advantage of those opportunities?
You can’t just buy a learning platform, fill it with content and call it a day. It’s not a set-it-and-forget-it situation. Curation matters so much!
We have to understand what people need, what they’re interested in and where the organization is heading. When we know that, we can create learning experiences that are relevant rather than simply giving people another giant catalog and telling them to go learn something.
I mean, we all have jobs to do. We have customers to support and deadlines to meet. It’s just the truth. But, luckily, we genuinely enjoy what we do here. I think that this open, interest-driven approach to growth (and leadership’s support in all that) plays a big part.
If we’re asking the team to spend their time learning something, I want there to be a reason for it. So, our role is to make professional development accessible and useful while giving team members the freedom to take ownership of where they want to go.
What has kept you at Atlas for more than seven years? What’s your favorite part?
I like how quickly we adapt — both in our industry and internally as a growing team. I like how quickly we can hear of an issue and trust the experts. (I love our subject matter experts!)
I love that I can trust the people that I work with. I know they have good intentions and that they’re doing what they can to make us better.
I mean, overall, I just really do love my job. Does that mean it’s not hard? No, but I would not trade it for where Atlas Tech is today.
What excites you most about the future of learning and development at Atlas?
We work in technology, and there are so many tools available to our people now. There’s just so much knowledge to be had right now. What excites me most is figuring out how we make that knowledge instantaneously available when someone actually needs it.
That’s where I see learning going: being proactive, not reactive.
Rather than waiting until someone encounters a problem and then trying to find training that might help, how do we become a proactive source of knowledge in the best way that we can?
I’m going to push as hard as I can and in the coolest directions I can.
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Whether you’re early in your career or a seasoned expert, Atlas Tech offers a path to grow, innovate and lead alongside the industry’s best. Join a team that is deeply committed to your professional development and the mission at hand. Learn more about our culture and explore our open roles to start your career journey with us today.
