The Role of Gen AI in Enhancing Professional Skills at Ascendion | Sandipan Das | Senior Manager | Experience Engineering Ascendion

Future technologies like Gen AI are revolutionising the modern workforce. Varied talents, diversity, inclusivity and other such factors aren’t merely a rule anymore, but organizations are going above and beyond to put these into practise. Innovation, new challenges to explore and a strong community to learn and grow with, drives every tech professional. The question of “what next,” “how to,” fuels them and every opportunity at Ascendion, a software engineering firm that focuses on Generative AI and the talent space, has been powered by this desire.

Building Professional Skills Through Inclusive Opportunities

Staying “relentlessly curious,” is a value of my workplace, which I resonate with. It’s a flat organization where ideas thrive with open-door policy that helps collaborate with peers globally. Programs like “Circles” provide us access to work with experts across domains and encourages community-led learning, innovation, and mentoring group.

For instance, my experience as a Circle leader in Backend Engineering has helped other members to become masters in their areas of expertise, forge ahead with purpose, and impact lives. This promotes learning, collaboration, global engagement, celebration, mentorship, IP development, and thought leadership.

Ascendion’s mentorship programs have been instrumental in breaking down barriers, pairing individuals from varied backgrounds, and creating an environment where myriad perspectives have an environment to coexist. The Junior Mentoring Program (JUMP) is another avenue that prepares a digital-ready workforce and provides diverse professionals for client’s digital needs.

Additionally, specialized technical training via certifications and upskilling programs is a top priority. The Corporate Professional Development Program offers a wide range of quarterly classes online and enables Ascenders, the term for Ascendion’s employees, to participate in workshops and engage with industry professionals.

For women, “Motherverse,” is a special program that helps women on a career-break, get back to work. It offers a seamless transition into the workplace by providing them with training, mentorship, and networking opportunities in future technologies like Gen AI.

Gen AI in Individual Learning, Training, and Personal/Professional Development

Ascendion has embedded GenAI into their products and services. The Digital Ascender (DA) is a GenAI-based tool designed to support software engineering endeavours. Working on the DA tool has been a learning experience in itself, paving the way to unders for our clients.

DA helps improve developer efficiency through the automation of diverse phases in the software development life cycle. These include story creation, product roadmap generation, code generation and review, unit testing, bug identification, additional functionalities and more! Furthermore, it facilitates the generation of automated documentation for both legacy and newly developed code. Notably, the implementation of DA has demonstrated a substantial increase in developer productivity, with a measured improvement of 35%.”

Personal Reflections

I’ve greatly benefited from participating in the GenAI circle, that helped me hone my proficiency in Large Language Model (LLM) design and development. As a member of Ascendion’s AI/ML, GenAI Circle, and a Solution Architect, I got an opportunity to deepen my knowledge in vector embeddings with various data types, learnt advanced prompt engineering solutions to generate seamless and efficient AI experiences. My team actively supports and guides me in completing certifications that provide a comprehensive foundation for skill development.

I love the fact that I get to learn beyond work. The growth mindset at my company enables me to continuously learn with an active research and development community, likeminded innovators and pushes me to constantly seek