Industry Expert Interview – Exploring Career Paths and Industry Trends

I interviewed Alex Thornton, Chief Software Architect at Thornton Tech Advisory. I chose Alex because he has been in the software industry for twenty five years and he still keeps up-to-date with the latest trends including AI. 

Alex had a lot of niche experience but I gathered some key takeaways that I hope to implement during my CSUMB program. The first of which is how important flexibility is. As a web developer I  have been pigeonholed into javascript land for half a decade. Alex has experience with a wide array of languages and he isn’t shy to try something new. He is always much more concerned with the “why” behind a decision rather than just picking something he is comfortable with. Ex; “why use react”, “why are we building this service”, “why should we use microservices”, “why should we use AWS”, etc. 

Over the course of his career he has experienced many gigantic shifts in the software engineering space, especially web development. He is still in the “wait and see” position with AI but, he imagines it will be a slow gradual shift like how the industry shifted to using cloud hosting providers like AWS rather than owning their own dedicated servers. 

Alex also made it clear that technical knowledge is only one piece of the puzzle. Problem solving and communication are arguably even more important. 

Reflecting on our conversation it became apparent that Alex’s success was not derived from particular programming skills but his ability to think critically and communicate effectively. I have no doubt that he is a skilled programmer but, I don’t imagine he is particularly concerned with syntax so long as he achieves his deliverables. Sometimes I am focused on just doing something rather than understanding why something needs to be done. 

Test driven development is a great example where I just write tests and try to hit 100% code coverage. However, now I understand that tests are important for reliability and are generally inline with my goals. 

I am also even more aware of why companies are so invested in AI. Companies are not inherently evil but, given any chance to increase productivity they will take it. AI represents the possibility of a significant increase in productivity. I will need to keep a close eye on the capabilities of AI that can generate code and make sure that my skills exceed that of AI.

One thing I will try to work on is my Tunnel Vision. I tend to get focused on a specific task and ignore things that are going on around me. This can impact my ability to communicate effectively and my ability to spend the time to think of optimal solutions. The problem I have is that I love focusing like that. I love building the things I imagine in my mind. But, most of the time those things don’t make any money so I need to reassess their importance.

I intend to apply this knowledge by taking a step back from these assignments and try to understand the why behind them. This assignment, for example, I blew off as being just another excuse to write 500 words. But, from a broader perspective I see that this experience gave me practice interacting with an industry professional and expanded my network in one simple exercise. I also intend to apply this knowledge at work. It’s important to understand the why behind certain tasks so I can focus on the ones that are more important.