allWomen Interviews: Paz Perez — Senior UX Designer at Autodesk

Paz was a content creator for the allWomen UX course and one of the first resident instructors to inspire our students.

She shared with the allWomen community how she chose a new career in tech from her background in architecture.

Paz is a successful Senior UX Designer at AutoDesk and is living in San Francisco.

Since becoming a UX Designer, Paz has always covered a senior position and has lived in four cities working for four companies.

But her professional journey started somewhere far from the tech industry.

Paz shared with AllWomen the struggles, the opportunities, and the inspirational attitude to make the big step and start a new career.

Paz is an Architecture graduate and, apart from a brief but meaningful experience developing an e-commerce startup, Paz career follows her architecture path and ultimately lands a job coherent with her academic studies at an important firm in New York.

With a good salary and a respectable position in one of the most dynamic cities in the world, it is difficult to imagine a need for change.

What Paz points out is an important lesson: decisions made as a teenager don’t have to define our life. Sometimes they do, but it is ok to discover later in life when you want to redirect your career choices.

“Changing paths is painful”

First thing is to recognize that we are human, and we are not the only person going through a difficult time, it is normal to feel lost and vulnerable.

Changing is not going to be easy and it needs hard work.

As a generation going through continuous change, we already learned how important it is to be flexible. Being flexible reflects in an attitude to be resilient, in constant learning, investing in ourselves, and, most importantly, not being afraid of change.

Paz explains how she experienced all these feelings while at her turning point, and the attitude that brought her to start studying again and finding a new niche for herself.

She put the hard work in.

“Finding the first job”

One of the hardest moments in switching careers is finding the first job.

There is no secret formula and it requires preparation, patience, and, again, hard work.

We have different tools to achieve this.

Networking is important, attending events, creating conversations, volunteering for small projects.

The portfolio is our presentation, showing our works, real-life projects, and passion projects, showcasing skills, processes, and — it doesn’t hurt — appealing graphic choices.

As Paz highlights, it is important to “stay focused and have a 5 years plan”.

“Understand the market”

The tech world is like any other market with a great variety of roles that intertwine in different stages to build a product.

Understanding where our skills fit best and make use of our different backgrounds, looking for the similarities and the added value that our precious experience can bring forward.

As per Paz, she found how architecture had a common language with UX and had the possibility to apply it to her developing career.

There are positions more requested than others and countries where the demand and the innovation are at different stages. Moreover, the world in this historic moment is more connected than ever and a good amount of remote positions are available.

“Keep learning”

Paz is not afraid to stress out an important lesson: “Keep learning.”

The industry is changing alongside the world. The path is not clear, nor fixed. Interests and passion can vary for each person, it is a personal thing.

And each individual has the potential to move forward and contribute.

Technology changes how we think and behave, it is a tool that we shaped and that is shaping us. We all have to take part in this and therefore we need more women and more minorities to shape our future.

“Be resilient, keep learning, and work hard. I will always be employed if I keep doing that. And I am going to be happy.”

Find out more about Paz and her work through her talk on AllWomen’s Youtube Channel.

If you are a woman in tech or a supporter of women in tech and would like to be interviewed by AllWomen, contact us at ines@allwomen.tech