- [Carlos] I am the second oldest of six.

So just keeping my family proud has always been a big motivator for me to succeed.

- Hi, I'm Rylee and I'm on a mission to talk to as many engineers as I can about their lives designing the world around us.

Today, I'm talking to an engineer who writes applications for a major supermarket.

I wanna find out what his job is like and how he engineered his future.

Ready?

Let's go.

Hey, Carlos.

- Hey, Rylee.

- So Carlos, tell me who you work for and what you do.

- Yeah, so I work at 8451, which is a data science company, and I am a software engineer for them.

We're owned by Kroger, so all the applications that we work on and all the technology that we write is used by them.

So you'll find me working on applications that help support some of our vendors.

- What's the most important app you've made for Kroger so far?

- One of the main applications that I work on is called OnDemand.

It allows somebody to see how much soda are we ordering to stores, and then how much soda is actually getting delivered to those stores.

So let's say Kroger ordered 5,000 boxes of soda to send to Cincinnati.

If the percentage is below 100%, then they need to figure out why all the product they ordered didn't reach Cincinnati, so that way they can get the right amount of product on the right amount of shelves within the stores.

- That is so cool and kind of complicated, but what's your favorite part of your job?

- Yeah, my favorite part of my job is definitely solving problems.

I think that's a core part of being a developer.

We also have a pool table and darts and like a little basketball hoops.

So playing some games of pool or shooting some basketball can always make work a little bit more enjoyable throughout the day.

- So when you're not working on the next big app, what's your favorite thing to do in your free time?

- Something I like to do a lot is watch sports.

I'm very into soccer.

I'm also a super big Bengals fan, "Who Dey."

I've been enjoying watching them these past couple years.

Spending time with family watching games, or going downtown Cincinnati and going to tailgates is always a good time.

- So I know you're talking about your family, can you tell me a little bit more about them?

- So I have an older sister and four younger brothers.

All my siblings look up to me quite a bit, so I always find that I need to set a good example for them.

- You're so lucky you have a full house.

I only have one sibling, and it kind of gets boring from time to time.

But besides that, did anyone in your family give you any motivation to be such a hard worker?

- Yes, definitely.

My dad, being from Mexico and moving over to the US.

He started his own construction company.

So seeing him work hard and building that up and keeping that running all these years has been a big motivation driver for me.

- So what was it like to immigrate from Mexico to the US?

- Yeah, that's a great question.

Moving from a different country, you're facing a completely different culture and a different lifestyle, so it's a lot to get used to.

I had to have extra help up until 5th grade because I didn't know English well enough to be able to do things on my own.

And in terms of homework, it was always hard trying to answer some questions, because my parents, they don't speak a lot of English, so it was hard to ask a parent for help on homework questions.

- So who helped you through the struggles in school?

- My older sister was able to show me a lot of the ropes and answer questions that I might have had.

I am very close to her, but I am also very close to my brothers since we like to play video games together.

- So I also hear that you like to play games like Minecraft.

Can you please explain to me how that game might help you become a better engineer?

- Yeah, so when I was 12, I was first introduced to Minecraft, and I really wanted to get a server up for me and my friends so that way we could all play together.

And trying to learn what that takes in terms of computer hardware and the software needed to get that running was a challenge.

Ever since then, I've just been more eager and more curious to learn more, and it's just gone from there.

- So do you have any pieces of advice for kids like me who haven't found their interests yet?

- I would just say try to experience as many different things as you can.

It's really hard to find one specific thing that you want to do, but trying a lot of different things will help you gauge what you might like and maybe what kind of path you might want to go down.

- Well, thank you so much Carlos for talking with me today.

- Yeah, no problem, Rylee, it was good talking to you.

- So before you go, can you please tell me how to say bye in Spanish?

- Oh yeah, no problem.

All you gotta do is say adios.

- Adios, Carlos.

- All right, adios.

(energetic music) - [Rylee] Mission accomplished.

(energetic music) - Too easy.

(energetic music)