Narrator  0:01  
Welcome to engineering fields of dreams podcast. We're here to share stories and professional experiences of engineers across disciplines and let you explore the amazing world of engineering. Each episode, you'll hear inspiring stories and advice from engineers, allowing you to learn from their successes and experiences. Whether you're an engineering student, a veteran engineer, or just curious about engineering, we invite you to join us and explore the amazing and ever changing world of engineering.

Host  0:37  
Welcome to this episode, unexpected journeys with our guests, Kyle. Thank you, Kyle, for being here today. Would you please introduce yourself to our audience?

Kyle Calaguas  0:47  
I am Kyle Calaguas. And I graduated from University of Arizona in 2021, with the major of civil engineering. So that's kind of who I was. And now I am currently based in Austin, Texas, two years deep into the career, man, it's been, it's been absolutely wonderful.

Host  1:11  
What led you into engineering and to Austin.

Kyle Calaguas  1:15  
So I originally dove into the engineering path, because my father was an engineer. And I always enjoyed getting my, my hands dirty, using the brain a little bit, but always kind of being able to think outside the box in certain situations. And that's kind of like what intrigued I went into school not knowing what type of engineering I was going to pursue, I had some great professors and push comes to shove and ended up going the civil engineering route, I was always intrigued how there's just so many different opportunities and ability to kind of build something just by using math in your mind's eye. And so that's kind of what intrigued me to go the civil engineering route. But I will say, funnily enough, I didn't end up going that way once I graduated. So that's kind of what moved me to Austin, I had internships of civil engineering, and they all went well, then I went into more of a mechanical engineering type of role as one of my later internships. And he actually then introduced me into what's known as sales engineering. And so sales engineering was very cool. It was for an H back firm in Tucson. And that kind of got me exposed per se, into sales, and more the sales side of technology. And so, come few months before graduation, as every senior does as they start applying for real, real life jobs. And I was fortunate enough, I originally started out as more of a solution engineer at a company called VMware. What I then kind of pivoted to is more of the sales side. And it's, it's very different than what I was doing before because I am now focused on software. So something that to me, I mean, I never really had to deal with much, because I was always physical entities, physical actual buildings. Now, it's very conceptual. And so that's kind of what brought me to Austin. I came during the pandemic, of course, so it was remote for the longest time. But I said, Why not like the headquarters are not the headquarters. But one of the main offices is here in Austin, I wanted to be around a lot of the people who are hired during my time as well. And that kind of at least led me to then the path more of what's known as it's very similar to consulting and the ability to kind of translate this extremely technical knowledge around software and how they build software and build applications, but in a simplistic fashion to customer so I'm very customer facing and I have the ability to to now kind of travel around, talk to different organizations all the way from conversations I'm having now with Nike and Apple all the way down to very smaller organizations that may or may not be right in your backyard and Tucson. So it's been a very neat road that I've been able to take.

Host  4:08  
Yeah, that sounds very interesting. And I think it's a good point that after you graduate, you might take your career in a different direction. And that's a very good story to hear as a recent graduate, what is one thing that you wish you knew before graduation that know now.

Kyle Calaguas  4:24  
let's say one thing that I wish I knew is GPA isn't necessarily everything, mainly because I spent countless hours now it is important because it helps me get a job but I spent countless on countless hours just worrying and stressing about that A minus versus the B plus etc. When now that I'm in the real workforce. I have the people I talk to barely even know what GPA stands for. So it's it's kind of an interesting perspective, because I spent a lot of time and brain cells worrying about something that right at After I graduated, and right after I got the job, I really did not become as important as I, as I made it at the time. So that's definitely I would say, one thing that I would wish I knew when I was spending. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it. I loved the time in the library just kind of sitting down and just grinding. I mean, that was my mentality, I locked in for four years. And it was great. And it got me to where I am now. But maybe there are a few times in there where I would have told myself, hey, it's, it's not the end all be all if this is the case. So yeah, that would be kind of my main sense to my past self a few years ago.

Host  5:42  
So you, you haven't been out of the workforce for all too long. But have you already encountered a professional situation that was kind of challenging? And if so, what did you learn from it?

Kyle Calaguas 5:53  
Yeah, that's a great question. And I would say, Absolutely, my job is all about finding challenges, right? Because challenges always come up. It's a matter of how you figure out how do you go around it, you go over it, you go underneath it, there's always avenues to do it. And so I would say my biggest challenge coming out was the whole fact that I got into a role, which is what's known as application modernization. And that's an area that I had zero knowledge of whatsoever coming out, maybe they saw the title, engineering, and we're like, yeah, this kid's gonna be perfect. But I was a civil engineer, I knew nothing about modern applications, anything about the software development lifecycle, the CI/CD pipelines, anything from just Kubernetes, and containerization. I mean, all these buzzwords that I hear now, two years ago, I had no idea what it was. And so that was like, a major challenge for me is how do I kind of change my thought process of, I spent four years studying this, this and this. And now my career is the entire 180, kind of what I was studying before. So that was I mean, a huge challenge for myself, because it was, it was a it was a lot of learning. And I still am learning. I mean, I'm two years deep into my, into my role I was recently promoted. About four months ago, which is nice as well. So that's even more learning that goes on top of that. And so it's been finding a lot of mentors within my organization, outside of our organization. And especially, I mean, a lot of reading, I was I've always reading, I've always wanted to read, but it's always hard finding the time. Well, now, part of my job is reading up on the new technology and understanding what it is how it works, and how can I have a simple conversation with people who may not understand what said, technology is, technology is always evolving. So there's always challenges that come up with that, when customers always asking me, from an objection standpoint, that's their job, they have to know everything from one end all the way to the other. So definitely kind of giving the, the the idea that to bring it full circle, I guess, in a sense is the challenge was, they don't know, I didn't know. But I was now able to, in a sense, dive a little deeper, do my own due diligence and, and read upon what needs to get done in order to figure it out. So that was definitely my biggest challenge. And it still is a challenge. But I continue to try to learn and and it's it's definitely been one of the best moves that I've been able to do hands down. 

Host  8:47  
So I would assume that the same problem solving skills from civil engineering and engineering program in general, help you every day in these challenges and problems a different context of software in apps.

Kyle Calaguas  9:00  
Absolutely. I would say that's that's one huge thing. And I know that my managers and people who even work for me, I mean, they probably appreciate the fact is, yeah, I had the engineering ability, right? In the past, they they don't necessarily care, I think about what engineering I studied, but more of the fact that like you said, all engineers have these challenges that they have to, in a sense find a solution for so whether it's finding the beam deflections per se and civil engineering or whether it's talking to a customer and figuring out a way around said conversation around the technology. So absolutely. I mean, being able to problem solve is is number one in my role now as as it was back in college.

Host  9:55  
So you do a lot of communication with customers. So translating that technical knowledge Which to a public audience. Presentations is a key part of your role?

Kyle Calaguas 10:05  
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I talk to customers on a daily, that's kind of what they pay me for now. Funny enough. So, I mean, I give presentations just about every day to all different stakeholders, all different personas. And that piece is kind of very interesting because it depends who you talk to. It changes the way that you kind of deliver the message, because obviously, everybody that you talk to has different interests has different roles. And so that all kind of reflects upon, how can I present it to them, so that it makes sense to that person? It makes sense to that person? It makes sense that person, but it's all in general, the same message and same outcomes. So yeah, absolutely. That's definitely one of the benefits, and I love doing it. I didn't want to take your class, I enjoyed the public speaking. I enjoyed giving presentations, I enjoyed more of the customer facing side of things, as did I the technical side, but I guess I chose to go one path over the other.

Host  11:10  
Well, I think you did very well in the class. And it demonstrated how you're succeeding in this role, also, giving those presentations and working with customers. So you're really bringing together the technical and soft skills communication in your role. So what advice would you impart to someone starting their career to wrap this up?

Kyle Calaguas  11:33  
Yeah, I guess my main piece of advice is, it doesn't necessarily wait. It doesn't necessarily matter what your first job is right out of school, because my first job was very different than when I graduated. After my promotion, my job now is different than what I started with. So there's always going to be opportunities and different places to turn, there's never one way to get to a destination, I've come to realize everybody that I talked to, they all got to the job a different way. So as long as you kind of have an idea, maybe an idea, a goal, hey, I enjoy talking to customers I want to be customer facing or whether you like to be more behind the desk and, and coding or maybe not engineering at all, there's definitely opportunities out there right to present themselves. So I that would be definitely my, my one thing that I would impart on somebody graduating is that first job you have is not going to be your last job. It's it's a stepping stone that I've come to find out. So definitely appreciate the stepping stone and make the most out of it. Because I've also I've also seen people who were in similar role who who did not, and maybe they're not necessarily where they want to be in the timespan that they're hoping so I would definitely say it's important to put your best foot forward. When when you do finally get that first job as first impressions are are huge.

Host  13:05  
I wholeheartedly agree. And thank you very much for your time and joining us on the podcast.

Kyle Calaguas 13:16  
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Narrator  13:22  
We'd like to thank today's guests for sharing their professional experience and career advice. We appreciate their insight and taking the time to share them with our audience. To you the listener, thank you for joining us on this journey and exploring the ever evolving world of engineering. We hope we've inspired you to pursue your dreams and ambitions. Let us know if there are topics or fields you'd like to hear more about. Until next time, we wish you the best of luck on your engineering journey.