Tara Wilkins is an IT Engineer for AI2.
What put you on the path to your current role?
Growing up in the Seattle area in the late 90’s/early 00’s, as a kid I watched as our tech industry grew from huge, to omnipresent as it took over the city and many of our lives. My dad was an engineer at Microsoft back in those days and was a huge inspiration, teaching me all about computer infrastructure, hardware, software, and how to disassemble (and sometimes reassemble) almost any electronic device!
Before I came to AI2, I started my IT career at a tiny private cloud hosting company where I quickly went from running the IT help desk to specializing in network security and accepting far more responsibility then I was prepared to handle, eventually somehow becoming their Director of Information Security. That role was an amazing learning experience for me and I’m proud to have pulled it off for as long as I did so early in my career, but it came with a lot of responsibility and was quite overwhelming for me. I eventually came across my role as an IT engineer here at AI2 after a long period of self-reflection and internal debate over whether I even wanted to stay in the IT industry at all.
After spending far too much time going through this career crisis, weighing my options, I ultimately decided to stick with what I knew, albeit looking for a position with much less professional responsibility at a company that I think has greater societal impact. I am very happy I decided to stick to it and wound up in a place like this where my skills are needed and I feel I am making a tangible difference supporting work in an emerging field of computer science.
What’s the most surprising or interesting thing that has happened with your work at AI2 recently?
As we upgrade our server hardware to keep up with the latest GPUs needed for training large ML models, we’ve recently managed to max out the power capacity available in our offices! After blowing a few circuits in the building, we are now looking into moving these high-power demand servers to a proper datacenter.
What is a story you have of something you’ve worked on that was super meaningful to you or memorable in some way?
Way back before I even started my career in technology while I was still in high school, I worked on a personal project where I used an Arduino Uno to recreate the musical floppy drives I had recently seen in a viral youtube video. (I think this is the video I saw back then. He has since gone on to create a far more impressive version.)
Mine had 8 floppy drives all working together in unison acting as the different instruments in a multi-track MIDI composition. As someone who is obsessed with music and technology, this project was the perfect mix of both to instantly inspire me to make my own. Once I got them all working together, I paraded my new retro-tech instrument around to all my friends, taking requests for songs to play. Eventually, I broke several of the floppy drives when I tried to make them play Slayer and never got around to fixing them again.
What is one piece of advice you’d give an aspiring IT engineer?
Based on my limited personal experience and what I have overheard from friends and others in the IT world, I think the best piece of advice I could give to someone looking to go further with a career in IT is to keep your options open, and your eyes on what’s available in the job market, no matter how comfortable you are where you’re at. There are a lot of different businesses out there with many different technological needs that shape the nature of what they ask of their IT department, the perfect position for you (or, at least, a better one) is out there!
What do you consider the most underrated activity or place in Seattle?
Ever since I was little, one of my favorite and most memorable places to visit in Seattle is/was the Pacific Science Center. Although they mostly have kid oriented activities, they have kept updating their exhibits with new and interesting displays and hands-on demonstrations throughout the years, but even when nothing had changed I was always excited to go back and do them all over again! The Science Center and the Seattle Aquarium both are places where I made many positive memories growing up and I love to revisit them every few years to see how things have changed.
What new hobbies or activities have you tried during the pandemic?
As someone who has always been musically inclined, during the start of COVID I decided that I would try to actually learn to play the MIDI keyboard I got for Christmas and stuffed in my closet years ago. It’s no piano, and I am no pianist, but I’ve been having fun with it! I still haven’t learned as much on it as I would have liked, so I think I’ll dive back into regular practice again once I’m done moving house in a month or so.
What do you like about working at AI2?
I think one of the best things about AI2 for me has been the sheer variety of problems I get to work on as I help support AI2’s unique operational needs. Everyday I learn more about IT, DevOps, and software development. It is always a refreshing challenge working with cutting edge AI researchers and machine learning software I barely understand!
On top of that, on a more personal level, as a member of the queer community I have been impressed with the efforts of the leadership and everyone at AI2 to foster an open and accepting workplace. I think this is important to emphasize given the, uh, unfortunate direction much of our country has taken regarding rights for trans people. I feel incredibly thankful and lucky that I get to work in a place where my identity is respected by everyone without question.
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