Christopher Benner
Meet Jorge Garcia, Community Manager for Fusion 360 Electronics and EAGLE. Jorge has been very helpful on our customer forums and has been participating, along with his co-worker Richard Hammerl, in our Community Conversations program. Jorge recently agreed to answer some questions and tell us a little about himself so that we could all know him a little better.
I’m a Community Manager for Fusion 360 Electronics/EAGLE. I earned my Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from Florida International University in 2008. I love electronics and building projects focusing on power and control applications. I have a special spot in my heart for embedded systems and programming and I enjoy honing my skills in both. One of my greatest joys is spending time with my wife, Orlinda.
How long have you worked for Autodesk?
I’ve been working for Autodesk since 2016 when Cadsoft was acquired from Premier Farnell. Prior to that, I had already been working with Cadsoft since 2010. So in total I’ve been working to advance EAGLE and now Fusion Electronics for the last 12 years or so.
How would you describe your role at Autodesk? What does a typical workday look like?
That’s a good question, my title is technically Community Manager but that doesn’t say much. I would describe my role as a subject matter expert for Electronics. I consider myself first and foremost an Electronics engineer and as such my role is to help customers both inside and outside of Autodesk understand how to work with Electronics and why it’s important for the future of Autodesk. There’s no such thing as a typical day but usually I’m discussing user suggestions and ideas with XD teams, Developers and others within the organization. I’m also making tutorials or other content depending on what need comes up. I work with the documentation team to make sure information is technically accurate, report issues and suggestions from users on the forum, test new features, design datasets, etc. If it’s related to Electronics I’m here to help and it’s my pleasure to do so.
What do you find interesting about your role? What are the challenges? What do you find satisfying about your work?
The most interesting part of my role to me is sharing with others. Every day is different but I really enjoy being able to provide feedback and having some influence on the direction of Fusion 360 electronics so that it can be compelling and something that makes our users’ lives easier. It’s always fascinating to see what users are doing with our tools and helping them be successful makes me happy.
I guess the biggest challenge is not being able to get change executed as fast as users would like. I really feel for our users when they struggle with a pain point or something they don’t understand so I do my best to help and to bring attention to the issues they are facing, as usual though it can’t come fast enough.
To me working with electronics, designing circuits and seeing them come to life is really satisfying and inspiring. The fact that I get to share that joy with others and get them excited about it too is the best part of my role. I have the freedom to help various teams and get them excited about electronics and that’s the best feeling.
What drives you to be involved with the Community as much as you are?
I recognize that the forums and community are sometimes undervalued resources at Autodesk. Think about it, our customers are coming of their own volition to give us feedback to tell us exactly what they need, what works, what doesn’t. Why wouldn’t we participate as much as possible? That’s why I try to report weekly what the key issues on the forum are as well as any positive feedback that users share. With that information we can prioritize where we put our efforts to get them what they need as soon as possible.
Our customers allow us to have work, they pay our salaries so in my mind, I have a responsibility to make sure they are heard and that’s why I participate as much as I do.