Meet Sloan Gwaltney

Tell us a bit about your Pega journey - What motivated you to learn how to use Pega?
As I was starting at Revature, they had a high demand for Pega developers among their clients. I was asked to learn Pega. As I started to dig into and understand Pega, my desire to learn was accelerated and I decided to learn even more than I was required. As part of this process, I achieved my PCSSA. During the training course for the PCSSA, I saw things built in 5-10 minutes that I spent hours configuring frameworks for in Java and Javascript. The more I saw this pattern repeat, the more I wanted to learn.

How has Pega shaped or impacted your career?
Within a month of getting the PCSSA certification, a lot had changed for me. I went from being lucky someone hired me without a heavy technical background, to having recruiters on a consistent basis message me about positions and opportunities. I confidently go into work everyday feeling like I know what I am doing and am able to work with others to implement even the most challenging of requests.

"Pega gave me the confidence to go into work every day feeling like I know what I am doing and am able to work with others to implement even the most challenging of requests.”

How is Pega changing the organization where you work?
Everyday at work I am experiencing 15+ year old Java programs being decommissioned as we build a Pega application that not only does the job more effective and securely, but is also modern. On a daily basis, we get feedback from end users. That feedback is often implemented into the application less than a month later.
We are able to quickly adapt on the fly to meet ever changing demands and requirements because of the well-designed nature of Pega. When needed, we are also able to integrate our Pega application with existing applications and APIs in order to not redo what already works.

What message or advice would you give to anyone who is considering a career as a Pega Developer?
Try it and stick with it! It can take a little time to piece everything together and get a solid understanding of the tool, but it is incredibly powerful and can open doors. It took me a little time to get comfortable with Pega, but once I did the rewards were immense and I was able to quickly see my hard work pay off.