Optus to train 2000 staff in AWS skills

Optus is the latest big Australian company to create an internal ‘cloud academy’ that it will use to train about 2000 staff, with a goal of 600 achieving AWS accreditations, over the next three years.

The academy was announced as Optus struck a strategic collaborative arrangement or SCA with AWS, under which it will “build a dedicated business unit that works with AWS Professional Services ... to provide customers with an improved path to build new applications on AWS” and to scale existing deployments.

Optus said its staff training would cover “skills across cloud … through a mix of formal training courses, tailored immersion days, hackathons, and game days.”

Optus was already an AWS advanced consulting partner before entering the SCA.

“As part of our strategy to become a leading supplier of integrated cloud solutions in Australia, we are excited to double down on our relationship with AWS and bring Optus’ network reach and our proven expertise in cloud, security, and data to more Australian organisations,” Optus Business managing director Chris Mitchell said in a statement.

The training and closer ties with AWS are also expected to “accelerate Optus’ own digital transformation”.

Insurer IAG, e-conveyancing player PEXA, retailer Kmart Australia and ‘big 4’ bank NAB have similarly set up academy operations to train staff in cloud skills.