Women in Technology: Elva Sandoval

Liquid Web’s Web Operations & Marketing Manager on the challenges and joys of working in tech, how her kids keep her motivated, and her highschool friend’s hand in getting her began in the sphere.

Elva Sandoval was born and raised in Southern California, in North Hollywood. “My parents migrated to the US from Mexico after they were young, and so I used to be brought up in a Hispanic & bilingual household,” she says.

Sandoval learned early on the importance of collaboration and exertions. A cheerleader in her freshman 12 months, she quickly transitioned to playing basketball due to her height. (Sandoval is 5’9″.) “Basketball helped shape me into who I’m today,” she says. “I learned the right way to be a ‘team’ player and work hard to attain results. My teammates and I poured our blood, sweat, and tears into every season, and it helped construct the endurance we’d need for real-life scenarios..”

While she was still a highschool student (and playing Varsity basketball), Sandoval landed her first job, working for an e-commerce company called WickedCoolStuff.com. She moved her way up from the warehouse to customer support and eventually into their marketing and inventive department, where she helped photograph the merchandise for the web site and designed email campaigns and graphics. “At the identical time, I used to be learning html/css, because of MySpace,” she says. “I discovered myself designing Div Overlays for local bands in order that their myspace profiles would seem like an original website that was themed with their branding.”

As she got older, Sandoval stepped away from Web Design because she didn’t think she could do it full-time as a paid profession. “I wasn’t very confident in myself or my skill set. So I ended up at a retail sales job working for T-Mobile,” she says. After working retail for six years, Sandoval returned to school to pursue a Web Design and Interactive Media profession. “After 4 years at The Art Institute of Hollywood, I graduated in 2015 with a Bachelor’s Degree in just that—Web Design & Interactive Media. It was perfect timing, too, since it was at a time limit when the world wide web began to boom. I’ve been professionally working in tech for nearly eight years,” she says.

Sandoval says her highschool friend, Fernando, was probably the most impactful amongst the numerous individuals who have influenced her profession journey. “He gave me my first bootleg copy of Photoshop—sorry! And he showed me the ropes when it got here to designing div overlays. It may need been a special story for me and my future profession if it hadn’t been for him showing me what he was doing together with his designs.” What Fernando taught her immediately caught her interest, and since of her experiences with Fernando, she felt comfortable going back to high school years later to pursue website design professionally.

Now, Sandoval is a Web Operations & Marketing Manager at Liquid Web. “I’m specifically liable for the web site,” she says. “I work each day on improving the user experience and design of Liquidweb.com and its performance. I manage a team of designers and front-end developers that help me try this.”

Sandoval loves the challenges that include working in tech. “It’s so fast-paced and at all times changing and evolving that it does keep you in your toes. You learn something latest every single day, and there isn’t any ‘right’ or ‘incorrect’ on the subject of the online. There are various different approaches to optimizing, designing, and constructing a web site.” Ultimately, Sandoval loves collaborating and bouncing ideas off of others. “I never attempt to design the ‘perfect’ design the primary time. Probably the most successful and impactful projects have at all times been those where I iterate on not less than two or three different designs,” she says.

She learned determination and the importance of exertions from an early age. “My parents did an awesome job of modeling an excellent work ethic. I desired to make them proud.” Her two children are also big motivators for Sandoval. “I repeatedly work hard to be an excellent example to them,” she says.

A single mother, she recently became a house owner on the age of 35. “Working in tech and with the ability to work remotely has given me the work-life balance I had at all times dreamed of. I’m capable of are likely to my two kiddos while also with the ability to provide for them and be there for them every time they need me. Simply amazing!”

Sandoval says that the sphere was still male-dominated when she first began in tech. “Now, it’s truthfully a excellent mix, which is so amazing to witness. The more women there are in tech, the higher probability of getting a more diverse product offering. Men in tech typically design for men, and now we’ll begin to see loads more being designed for ladies. It’s a refreshing thing,” she says.”

If she could give one piece of recommendation to women just starting in tech, Sandoval would encourage them to explore. “Be very open and willing to start out from scratch, and be open to learning and exploring all the various roles available in tech. There are so many alternative paths you possibly can take. Nothing is linear.”