Tuatara drives business growth by unlocking meaningful tech careers for Veterans
For Veterans, leaving military service isn’t just a career change—it’s a new way of life. That transition is often difficult. Veterans bring fantastic leadership, energy, discipline, and problem-solving skills. However, they face significant obstacles to employment due to lack of recognized certifications, contacts, and industry-specific experience.
Steve Cundy knows this struggle firsthand. A Veteran of the United States Army 75th Ranger Regiment, he’s the founder and CEO of Veteran-owned Tuatara Consulting, a ServiceNow partner that’s building its business by embracing military talent. Steve explains, “When I left the military, I faced huge challenges entering the civilian workforce. And I wasn’t alone. I’ve seen highly capable Veterans fail to land jobs just because they didn’t have the arbitrary number of ‘years of experience’ required for a given role. Their skills were incredibly valuable and applicable, but their talent was overlooked.”
Breaking down barriers for Veterans by partnering with ServiceNow
Determined to change the system, Steve launched Tuatara in 2020. From the outset, Tuatara’s mission has been to provide the opportunities that transitioning Veterans deserve. According to Steve, “There’s all this professional military talent out there and employers aren’t tapping into it nearly enough! We knew if we could unlock this talent, we could change Veterans’ lives while building our business. That was an opportunity we couldn’t miss for so many reasons.”
To realize this vision, Tuatara teamed up with ServiceNow via DOD SkillBridge. ServiceNow is a committed DOD SkillBridge partner, providing ServiceNow training and career opportunities to Veterans through its RiseUp with ServiceNow program. Steve says, “This is the perfect match. RiseUp with ServiceNow gives Veterans foundational skills and platform certification, and we complement that with real-world experience through our Military Fellowship Program. And since Veterans are still on the military payroll while they are participating in SkillBridge, this makes the approach economically viable for us, the Veteran, and our enterprise customers!”
Delivering extraordinary ServiceNow talent for a rapidly growing business
Now, a growing pipeline of Veterans is coming through the joint ServiceNow/Tuatara initiative. They spend seven weeks with RiseUp with ServiceNow and then spend another ten weeks at Tuatara embedded in a customer’s project team—which Tuatara refers to as a Digital Factory. Steve enthuses, “The results have been fantastic. We’ve had over 30 Veterans come through the program, and we’ve hired 26 of them. And the others are all employed at other companies. In fact, part of Tuatara’s commitment to fellows who participate in the program is that we will help them find a job even if we’re unable to hire them.”
And the program isn’t just delivering entry-level talent. Because of their military background, participants have extraordinarily strong problem-solving skills and the drive to succeed. That means they progress quickly into more senior roles. Steve gives an example, saying, “One of our real stars is Tyler. He’s a former Army Ranger and Sapper, and he’s an incredibly talented guy. He was having a difficult time finding his first opportunity after exiting the military. He came into our program, and absolutely knocked it out of the park. Customers instantly fell in love with him, and so did we! Now, he’s one of our senior engineers and he’s on the fast track to becoming an architect. Tuatara cracked the door of opportunity open for Tyler. He kicked it in and never looked back!”
Growing a thriving business while doing the right thing
Asked why other organizations should consider doing the same thing as Tuatara, Steve says, “Look. The first thing you need to understand is that this is in our DNA. Part of our core mission is to give Veterans the break they deserve. But it’s also great business. And thanks to the partnership with ServiceNow—and DOD —the costs are modest. Why wouldn’t you do it? We get extraordinary people. Sure, you can try to offshore to keep down costs, but we get 3 to 4 times the value out of Veterans we hire right here. It’s a no-brainer. As military community supporters, we’re proud to be setting the example for others to follow. Anyone who wants to grow their business while doing the right thing should seriously consider this.”