Report: Goldman Sachs Aims to Boost Engagement, Retention of Developers

As Goldman Sachs works to build technology and software to optimize the experience of clients, it reportedly also aims to improve the experience of the software developers who create those tools.

Where the bank’s developers used to ask “how” questions about projects, they’re now invited to answer “why” questions in terms of the reasons a project is being done, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Wednesday (Oct. 19), citing comments by Goldman Sachs Chief Information Officer Marco Argenti during a WSJ CIO Network members event held online.

“That is a big change,” Argenti said in the report.

To encourage developers to be engaged in their projects, Goldman Sachs invites developers and engineers to work with business development teams to outline the reasons to introduce a new product or service before developing it — rather than simply being told to create the product, according to the report.

This has boosted the developers’ sense of empowerment as well as the bank’s retention of developers, the report stated.

A Goldman Sachs spokesperson confirmed the content of the report in a phone call with PYMNTS.

Argenti was an Amazon Web Services executive before joining Goldman Sachs in 2019 in one of the bank’s moves to sharpen its tech focus. More recently, in July, the bank named Google veteran Jared Cohen to co-head a new innovation group — the Office of Applied Innovation — with George Lee.

Read more: Goldman Names Google Vet Jared Cohen to Innovation Post

In a memo obtained by CNBC at the time, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said that Cohen and other leaders at the bank would “specifically identify and advance commercial opportunities for the firm that are at the intersection of a changing global marketplace, shifts in the geopolitical landscape, and rapidly evolving technology.”

Argenti’s comments at the WSJ event come two days after Goldman Sachs announced the creation of three new operating segments: Asset and Wealth Management, Global Banking and Markets, and Platform Solutions.

See more: Report Says Goldman Sachs Names Heads of 3 New Operating Segments

The Platform Solutions segment will embed digital platforms in the ecosystems of Goldman Sachs clients, the bank said in an earnings results presentation released Tuesday (Oct. 18).