In a bid to excite its growing network of engineers and help them unleash their creativity and imagination, Commonwealth Bank has played host to a two-day Engineering Symposium. 

The Symposium – held at the bank’s Sydney offices in South Eveleigh late last month – gave attendees the chance to hear from a range of keynote speakers from renowned companies such as Google, Atlassian, GitHub, Microsoft, DCVC and Tasktop.

Speaking about the Symposium, Commonwealth Bank’s Chief Information Officer for Technology, Brendan Hopper, said it was critical for the bank to host events such as this in order to deliver against its strategy of being a global leader in digital experiences and technology. 

According to Mr Hopper, for Commonwealth Bank to be a global leader in technology, it is imperative the bank recruits the right talent and then invests in that talent. 

“Having the right technology talent is the first step towards having the right technology,” Mr Hopper said.

“The next step is to invest in that talent. CBA’s world-class engineering excellence is about empowering our engineers with the tools and access to the systems they need to fully immerse themselves in the organisation and successfully reimagine products and services for our customers.”

During this year’s inaugural Engineering Symposium, the bank’s engineers had the privilege of hearing and learning from a number of industry leaders, including the University of NSW’s Professor of Quantum Physics, Michelle Simmons; Google’s Principal Software Engineer, Kelsy Hightower – who delivered a presentation on ‘How to foster a culture of experimentation’; Astronaut Dr Chris Boshuizen – who spoke about the lessons he learned from NASA and space travel; and bestselling author and Agile guru, Dr Mik Kersten – who gave a presentation on how to measure value delivery with the latest Flow Framework. . 

Mr Hopper said the two-day Engineering Symposium was a first of its kind for the bank and had helped deliver a heightened sense of passion in the engineering community to take on the bank’s ambitious strategy with a new lens.

“By surrounding our engineers with the best thinking both externally and internally, we have successfully sparked their imagination to tackle new challenges and make an impact, so our customers always get the best digital experiences when dealing with CommBank,” he said.

More information: Are you an engineering professional who wants to be challenged to do your best work? Discover your career with CommBank on our career’s page.