Harness is a modern software delivery platform that provides solutions for Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Deployment (CD), cloud cost management, and developer experience. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company serves enterprises worldwide, empowering them to streamline and automate software development. 

Ravi Lachhman, Senior Manager of Product Education at Harness, and his team sought to build an innovative, scalable training program as part of Harness University that could meet the needs of developers, partners, and enterprise customers.

Challenge

“We needed a way to certify real-world skills, not just multiple-choice answers. Instruqt’s hands-on assessments allow us to validate technical competency at scale.” –Ravi Lachhman, Senior Manager of Product Education at Harness

Ravi and his team needed a way to efficiently train a growing number of customers, partners, and internal teams across diverse technical backgrounds as the company grew quickly. Traditional training methods, such as static documentation and instructor-led sessions, were proving to be resource-intensive and difficult to scale. Additionally, ensuring that users could gain hands-on experience and validate their skills in real-world scenarios was a pressing challenge, requiring a more automated and interactive approach.

Key challenges included:

• Rapid product evolution: As a fast-growing SaaS company, frequent product updates made it challenging to keep educational content current.

• Diverse learner backgrounds: Customers, partners, and internal teams had varying levels of technical expertise, requiring tailored training approaches.

• High friction in training delivery: Previous training relied on static documents and manual account provisioning, leading to inefficiencies and increased operational costs.

• Limited scalability: Instructor-led sessions and internal training environments could not meet customer demand for hands-on learning.

• Certification complexity: Validating real-world skills with hands-on assessments was cumbersome without an automated solution.

Solution

“With Instruqt, our training is no longer just theoretical—it’s hands-on, immersive, and scalable. Our developers learn by doing, which translates to faster adoption and better product proficiency.” –Ravi Lachhman, Senior Manager of Product Education at Harness

Harness partnered with Instruqt to transform its education strategy by creating an engaging, hands-on training environment that closely mirrored real-world scenarios. This shift enabled users to gain practical experience with Harness products in a controlled, risk-free setting, ensuring they could confidently apply their knowledge.

• Interactive, browser-based labs: Developers could engage with Harness products in a controlled, ephemeral environment without requiring local setup.

• Automated account provisioning: Instruqt’s integration allowed seamless, temporary access to Harness instances for training and certification.

• Hands-on certification exams: Advanced levels of certification included practical assessments, ensuring validated skills through real-world tasks.

• Self-paced and instructor-led training: The platform supported both self-service modules and guided workshops, catering to different learning preferences.

• Scalable partner enablement: Harness expanded training to global partners, offering live, instructor-led sessions and maintaining high engagement.

Results

“The hands-on labs have transformed how we measure competency. Now, we can confidently say that certified users have real, applicable skills.” –Ravi Lachhman, Senior Manager of Product Education at Harness

By adopting Instruqt, Harness achieved measurable business outcomes that directly impacted revenue, customer engagement, and operational efficiency. The hands-on training model not only improved certification completion rates but also substantially reduced support tickets, freeing up valuable internal resources. The scalable nature of Instruqt-powered labs enabled Harness to expand its partner ecosystem and accelerate customer onboarding, ultimately driving a significant portion of closed-won revenue in 2024. 

Key results include:

• Increased certification completion rates, leading to higher customer competency and engagement.

• Reduction in support tickets, as certified users required fewer troubleshooting requests.

• Scalable training delivery, moving from manual processes to a fully immersive global learning platform.

• Faster time-to-value (TTV) for customers, enabling them to deploy and optimize Harness solutions more efficiently.

• Partner and ecosystem growth, improving technical readiness and self-sufficiency among partners.

Outlook

Harness continues to evolve its education strategy with Instruqt, expanding course offerings, deepening automation, and further integrating real-world use cases. By bridging the gap between learning and doing, Harness ensures its customers and partners can maximize the value of its platform with confidence and efficiency.

Visit Harness University here.

Watch the full webinar with Ravi