Coding for User Experience Design

By: Quinn Tenorio

Quinn Tenorio is a User Experience Designer who also has a background in Software Development. Quinn spoke with CodeHS about his career path, how he uses coding in his job, and his advice for students looking to pursue a career in Computer Science.

What do you do for work?

My current job title is UX Designer (User Experience Designer) however, I got my start as a Software Developer, moving to a senior role and eventually a Lead Software Developer role. Eventually I began working in design. The company I work for is Woodridge Software, but we recently were acquired by RCG Global Services. Both companies offer custom software solutions to enterprise and financial companies.

Tell us about your background.

I attended Wheat Ridge High School, having done well in math and science classes. I then decided to attend Colorado School of Mines in Golden, CO where I earned a Bachelors in Science in Computer Science and a minor in Applied Mathematics. While attending Mines during my Junior year, I was the Student Body President and helped kick off new initiatives on campus. Upon graduation I began working for Woodridge Software as a Software Developer before I transitioned into a UX Designer role about one and a half years ago.

“When companies are looking to improve their internal processes or public-facing services, they tend to look for custom software solutions. That’s where my company comes in!”

What is a general description of your job?

As a User Experience Designer, I work in software development consulting and more specifically, custom software development. We work with clients to help realize their web applications. Many companies have either internal facing processes that are inefficient, like managing data and reporting via hundreds of spreadsheets, or they have a public-facing product that a custom software implementation would simplify. When companies are looking to improve their internal processes or public-facing services, they tend to look for custom software solutions. That’s where my company comes in!

Most of the work we do is financial services related, like helping banks and credit unions to transition their technology into the 21st century rather than doing business with outdated technologies. However, we have other software projects that have nothing to do with financial services, including working with clients in industries like public utilities, healthcare, education, insurance, consumer goods, and non-profits.

When I worked as a Senior Software Developer, I worked with stakeholders to understand the problems at hand and implement custom solutions through features and bug-fixes via code. This required many skills: understanding the architecture of the software, implementing the solution without introducing bugs, and working closely with software tools to ensure the software was usable and functioning.

Can you tell us a bit about how you use coding in your career?

During my time as a developer, I worked exclusively on web applications. As a result, most of the code I wrote was implementing custom web solutions. This typically required me to code APIs on the back end and corresponding front end code that utilized the APIs. Additionally I wrote code to implement unit testing and interaction with a relational database. A large portion of code I’ve written has also been used to implement the user interface (UI) of a web application, using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

“One important thing for those getting into coding, software development, and related work is to learn how to problem solve.”

Do you have any advice for aspiring coders?

One important thing for those getting into coding, software development, and related work is to learn how to problem solve. Generally, coding is fairly easy once the basics are locked down (loops, variables, data structures, etc). In fact, once someone knows the basics in one language, another language can be picked up quickly, sans the slight differences in code syntax. Thus, coding isn’t the difficult or most important part; the ability to problem solve is much more important for developers. When someone can learn to solve problems, code becomes a tool to implement solutions to problems.