Started with Engineering
My first job out in the wild was as an Automation Software Engineer. Routinely assigning projects today that were due yesterday, the position demanded a blistering pace. More importantly, my workflow involved researching user requirements as well as programming and testing my code’s suitability for these needs.

User Feedback
Through four years of attending our users’ meetings, scheduling one-on-one interviews, and soliciting feedback as part of the software testing phase, I filled the role of researcher and designer along with all the other standard software development tasks. I went home feeling the most energized and motivated on days when I interacted with my users.

Career Pivot Idea
So why not make it my job to do only that? It was around 2015, as I moved to a business analyst role in the Sales and Marketing IT department, when I heard about a type of job called “User Experience Designer”.

Data + Design = 😍
A graphic designer by training, the work appealed to me on a new level. Not only do UX professionals make visual design decisions, they also rely on research and data collection to make design decisions. I was instantly hooked. The next question was how to truly karate-kick my way into the field.

Practice, practice, practice
I realized that my analyst tasks overlapped many of those that a UX designer performs, but I needed more practice with surveys, wireframing & prototyping. I also wanted to put more software tools in my toolkit. Quitting a full-time job, I took a leap of faith and I enrolled into Bloc’s UX Design apprenticeship and haven’t looked back since.

What I do now
My dream to work as an Interaction designer has come true! Besides working full time, I have many outdoorsy hobbies and volunteer as a designer with Code for PDX. I am always looking new opportunities that takes design seriously through collaboration, honesty, and ethically correct practice.