The job hunt began 

With each of the opportunities I was given, I had to learn how to pivot between following my interests and the task ahead of me. Before ComputerTalk, I may have argued that one cannot reconcile the difference between the two. It was either working on initiatives driven by passion or working towards ‘professional development.’ 

Since then, perhaps fate took the wheel, and dropped me at the doorstep of ComputerTalk. On day one, I met Kyle Birker, the Head of Sales Operations at ComputerTalk, for an interview. At this point, you could say I was well-seasoned with interviews having gone through many of them over the years. They all focused on the experiences I had gathered at companies with large names that overshadowed the unknowns.  

But my interview with Kyle placed a great emphasis on experiences that were passion-led. Questioning their value to me and what I took away from them. In a moment, this interview stood out. Its people stood out...and from my perspective, they did so because of their understanding that passion should always lead the way.  

Embarking on my journey at ComputerTalk 

So, from that day on, my time at ComputerTalk could be summarized as one passion project after another. At the beginning, as I familiarized myself with the ongoings of my business unit, individuals such as Darren Lobo-Pires, Mackenzie Ellis, and Mike Kraybill, three senior account owners at the company, took me under their wing. They offered me a platform that had a bird’s eye view of what it takes to build trust between organizations and the individuals within. Perhaps unknowingly, the three of them greatly humanized the workplace for me. Teaching me that at the end of the day, it’s people that we service. This melted away the very mechanic perspective one develops at larger organizations and made room for a passion that invested in relationships.  

One particular relationship enabled me to find a new passion that bridged my interest in language with technology. This individual removed barriers and motivated me to investigate a hot new topic - Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI (GAI). This person helped me grow my interest first and then created opportunities by connecting me to exceptional resources that allowed me to think creatively about pain points felt by many contact center customers. This individual was none other than our CEO, Mandle Cheung. A passion-driven individual himself, he encouraged me to funnel my curiosities into initiatives that drove towards improved business outcomes with a flavor of fun.  

This kicked off a series of projects, some led by me, and others guided by a larger group, towards applications that leveraged enterprise-class large language models (LLM’s) to augment processes cross- functionally. As a result, I have had the privilege to work alongside some brilliant minds, such as Chris Bardon, our Chief Solution Architect, on developing precise retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) based systems pointed towards bridging knowledge silos within organizations.  

Looking forward to my future at ComputerTalk 

My tenure at ComputerTalk so far, albeit only a little over a year, has had many twists and turns. With every change, I felt like I was leapfrogging. Each opportunity provided by the company and its people has grown my knowledge and interest in a variety of different directions. Today, as I look back at my time here, I am amazed by the patience and support I have received thus far in channeling my passions and aptitude. I hope my future here maintains the rapid pace of growth and depth of relationships, for these two factors have allowed me to bridge my profession and passion.