Tech Talk / Panel @ Magento: Professional Journeys in Tech

Hey Coders,

This month's tech talk is brought to you by Magento, an Adobe Company.

Magento will host a panel of 5 technical professionals from diverse professional backgrounds -- user experience and design, frontend development, systems architecture, and devops -- who will share about their journey into the tech industry and provide insights about their career and current role at Magento.

The discussion begins with panelist introductions, followed by a moderator-lead Q & A with audience participation.

Panelist details are listed below.

Andy Terranova, Frontend Senior Software Engineer
Andy currently works on the Progressive Web Apps (PWA) Studio team at Magento, He has previous experience in gaming, mobile apps, and web development. Andy has been in Austin for 10 years and lives with his wife and two small children.

Soumya Ashok, Senior User Experience Designer
Soumya Ashok’s journey as a designer started in 2002 with print media and it has been a long road to her current job as a Senior User Experience Designer on the Magento UX team. She loves learning about products and making them easier for people to use. After work hours she teaches and performs Indian classical dance. Travel, reading and gardening are her favorite ways to unwind.

Sumithra Gomadam, System Design Architect
Before joining Magento, Sumithra was a software engineer at Bazaarvoice. She moved to Austin in 2013 from New York City where she obtained her Master’s degree in Computer Science at Columbia University and worked in Trading and Risk platforms for investment banks. She enjoys working in a tightly knit team of good engineers and building scalable software for solving business problems. Sumi coaches elementary kids at various school clubs including “Girls Who Code” to expose programming to young children at an early age. In her spare time, she enjoys listening to and learning Indian classical music.

Dej Mejia, Senior User Experience Designer
Dej Mejia has been working to improve user experiences in Austin since 2006. She decided to never code again after completing her master’s thesis in augmented reality at Purdue University. Currently a Senior UX Designer at Adobe Magento, Dej has worked at IBM, Bazaarvoice, and Experian. When not saving her toddler from herself, Dej reads up on new technologies, seeks out volunteer and mentoring opportunities, and enjoys latin ballroom dancing.

Ronald Oribio, DevOps Engineer
At Magento, Ronald Oribio builds microservice-oriented platforms for the Cloud with a focus on infrastructure-as-code and automation. Before coming to Austin in 2016, Ronald worked in over a half-dozen countries, across two continents, where he learned to adapt to different work cultures and environments while staying true to his Venezuelan roots. Ronald enjoys singing to his family and changing the lyrics of the songs to make them more honest. Ask him about his Rubber Duck Theory.

Food
Drinks/Snacks sponsored by Magento.

Parking
Any garage in the Domain or park in open lot in front of Magento building.

Location
11501 Domain Drive, Suite 150
Austin, TX 78758
Text Mansi at[masked] if you have any issues finding the entrance.

Contact
Mansi Puri[masked]

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