Mackenzie Egbert

I work as a systems architect and data scientist in tech. I got into this field when I was in high school, developing and freelancing web design, building websites. My dad was in tech, a big old-school programmer software developer, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I begged him to teach me how to design websites, and he threw me into the right classes I needed in high school and told me which ones would be important. Even now, today, if I get really stuck, I kind of default to him and text him like 'hey dad, I can't figure it out.' I've been in my field for about 5 to 6 years now. I'm primarily in charge of our company's technology product stack and any R&D we do internally. I control software builds, any internal application builds, make sure we have good product suggestions in case we need a new tool, and build our systems infrastructure in terms of how data flows through the company and how we can leverage it internally. My biggest professional achievement to date is probably the funnest project I've done yet. Last year, I had the opportunity to lead and build an AI-powered chatbot application that runs off of our company's data, an internal proprietary AI chatbot. That was definitely one of the funnest projects and also one of the most difficult that I've got to do. What's saved me the most was actually independent learning. I've done a ton of certs on my own, and I feel like most people in the technology field do operate that way. It demands constant learning, so there has not been a single year that I've worked where I didn't do at least 3 new certificates throughout that year. It's a little brutal, but it's what keeps you sharp, and that's where all the real learning happens.