Learning Journal - Week 4 INDUSTRY EXPERT

 

 === Industry Expert Interview ===

Introduction

    For my interview, I decided to talk to someone who I work closely with. His name is Manny Valladares, and he is a successful web development contractor for various businesses. We've met from a non-related industry before, but I've been in contact with him ever since and I've never gotten the chance to sit down with him and understand what he does as his professional job, and the more I listened to what it is he does for work the more I realized he was able to adapt to a changing industry. As someone who is not entirely sure what specific industry I want to work in, I am interested in his story on how he built his personal networks, and adapted to a constantly-changing field and how he was able to remain competitive, especially maintaining his own private business. I also know he has a background in video game development and has close connections at Meta developing AR technology. One of the things that interested me the most is how he uses experience in sales to communicate with others, which is a field I also currently work in, and I was very fascinated to find out how he uses those skills to his advantage in computer science. And, I'm also currently helping my family run their business so I've had to learn tools like Shopify and product marketing, which I know he has a lot of experience with so I knew it would help me.

Summary

    Manny and I set aside some time and we spoke on the phone for about 25 minutes. I sent him a list of questions I wanted to ask ahead of time and we went over the topics. While I did get a recording of the call, he preferred that I keep it private as he did briefly share some information with me that is protected under an NDA so I will share a detailed summary of the questions I asked him and his responses, paraphrased.

 

 1. What do you currently do for work in this industry?

    Mr. Valladares explained his specific position. He explained that he is currently a self-employed contractor and he works with a variety of different businesses, ranging from cosmetic to medical fields. As a front-end web developer, he works closely with company executives, product management, and marketing departments to help these companies adapt to the new digital age of e-commerce and marketing. He made it clear that there are many thousands of businesses out here in the United States that rely heavily on optimized SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to reach a customer base and needed to keep their websites looking professional in order to help convert sales once the customer has made it to the website. He said that he signs a short term 3-6 month contract with each of these companies and they go over the specifics of what he's going to change and an idea for the end product. He also works in sales advising as a side job so that he can learn to improve his communication skills, and he uses that to his advantage pitching the value of his services to companies. He finds companies through word of mouth, connections, and also does extensive market research by looking through websites that fall well below the front page of Google searches.

2. How did you begin your career in this? What was your career path?

    Manny said that he began his career during his later teenage years. His brother was an employee of a specific cosmetic company and Manny joined in through the connection. During his time there, he had grown a passion for web development and offered the company, with the help of his brother, to uplift their website to bring in a lot more traction. The plan ultimately worked out well for the company, and as his brother moved on to other computer science projects, Manny stayed in web development and decided to become his own private contractor. After many years, he's grown a much larger list of companies he works with.

3. Did you get any formal education or training to prepare for this?

    Manny described that he believes that online learning resources were quite valuable to him for learning specific frameworks, programming languages, and tools such as React and Shopify. He also did get a formal Bachelor's in Computer Science at the University of California, Riverside.  It was also on the job learning with his brother at first that he really understood how to optimize SEO and design web pages and user interfaces.

4. Do you currently face any challenges in your career? If so, what are your biggest ones?

    His biggest challenge right now is competing against other businesses and he considers his line of work to be "unstable for most people". As a private contractor, he is up against larger companies that specialize in this exact line of work, but he mentioned that he advertises himself in a way to businesses where they feel like they get quick and reliable communication from him, and he has a portfolio of proof of the results he gets. He is still continuously learning new tools, especially AI integration and AI chatbots, and he is continuously improving his communication skills to stay ahead of the larger organizations.

5. From your experience, what kinds of technologies and trends are you seeing that are shaping the industry?

    Manny explains that he is beginning to see a massive favor in the direction of AI from a lot of the companies he's worked with. Mostly, he's seeing a lot of companies use AI to analyze industry trends for them, sales patterns, and especially integrating AI as chatbots for customers to interact with and ask questions. He mentions that people even see this trend emerging from large brands like Amazon with their Rufus model, Best Buy using AI for sales recommendations, and Airliners using AI to respond to questions.

6. Have you found any use out of AI in your job? If so, how do you utilize it?

    Manny does use AI as an occasional resource, but he doesn't rely too heavily on it for programming. He uses it to help learn about new industries that he signs up contracts with and to help him get a better understanding of the company he is assisting. He also uses it to help him quickly gather company websites similar to the business or idea he's working with and he builds inspiration from that company.

7. Do you think AI literacy is an important skill to have as someone in your line of work?

    Mr. Valladares states that AI should never be a tool needed to succeed, but he does believe it should only be used as assistance. He believes that AI can never truly replace a human or a team of programmers, but that AI uses pattern recognition to help programmers get insight on good, proven ways to approach situations and tackle problems. Because of this, he believes that people that know how to use these tools well can give themselves a strategic advantage to problem solving versus someone that doesn't use it, and especially someone in his sector of independent contracting who needs to be quick and understand new topics fast.

8. What would you say are some of the most important skills or traits to have in order to be successful in this industry?

    Manny says that the number one skill to have in his industry is adaptability. He states that he is in a highly competitive market, and it's not difficult for someone to get discouraged not being able to convince businesses to work with them. By being highly adaptive, you are able to learn the new technologies as they come out, and you are able to have a lot more tools up your sleeve. Companies see this as a better reason to work with you, especially if you can effectively communicate and showcase your abilities to them.

9. To any student trying to break into this industry and line of work, do you have any specific advice to give to them?

    "Don't be afraid to fall." He says you need to be able to get back up on your feet and reflect on your mistakes to better yourself. He also says that there is no better resource than connections, because that is what lands you so many opportunities in the first place. There are so many skilled and talented people out there in this world, but only those who take the time to search out for opportunity are the ones that will be successful.

Reflection

     I would like to take a moment to appreciate Manny Valladares for agreeing to sit down with me for about 30 minutes and going in detail over his specific line of work. It helped give me a really deep understanding of good ways to keep myself competitive, especially if I plan to work with companies selling a service to them. It's always been an industry that's resonated with me, and as someone that works independently to help my parents' business doing exactly what he does I felt a moment of relatability listening to his explanation. Listening to his opinion on AI, connections, and portfolios also helped put my learning from this week into perspective because he really emphasized the importance of staying on top of industry trends, and marketing yourself as skilled and resourceful in as many ways as possible, regardless of specific sector. Because of his insight, I now know that there are also a lot of hiring opportunities aside from major companies, as there are a lot of upcoming companies that value marketing and website presence a lot for their success, and it shows me that I could potentially find work as a web development contractor or even utilize AI more and work as an industry trends advisor.

Future Steps 

    Manny helped put into perspective the importance of learning new tools as much as I can, so as I really hone in on what industry I want to work in specifically I will spend a lot of time determining what tools I need to learn to get into it, and also I will begin to talk to more industry experts in various fields to learn how their opinions differ. I don't plan on stopping my connection building here; I intend to find even more resources from various sectors and ask them similar questions to get as much insight as I can.

    Overall, this has been an incredibly eye-opening learning experience, and I'm excited to work on my portfolio and improve my communication skills to learn how to pitch myself to potential future employers, and now I have the tools set on the table in case I ever wanted to be self-employed!