digitalCreations

I started my career as a software engineer in Venezuela, building the first job site in the country from scratch using Java, C++, XML, and Oracle. That hands-on engineering foundation — writing real code, shipping real products — is something I've never left behind.

 

Over the next 15 years, I moved through engineering management, product management, and program management roles across three continents. My most formative years were at Yahoo!, where I spent 7 years leading search and mail products across 40 global markets. I trained machine learning classifiers to improve search relevancy, improved ad targeting by 25% through search data analysis, and led A/B experimentation programs that reached hundreds of millions of users. I hold a USPTO patent in search relevancy systems — filed in 2009, when most PMs didn't know what a ranking algorithm was.

 

In 2015, I made an intentional decision to step back from full-time corporate work to focus on my family. I kept my skills sharp through consulting, nonprofit advisory work, and Agile certifications — and I watched AI quietly transform everything I had spent my career building.

 

Now I'm fully re-engaged. I'm completing a structured AI certification roadmap — Google AI Essentials, Azure AI-900, Duke AI PM Specialization, and AWS Cloud Practitioner — and I'm actively exploring senior AI product leadership roles where my technical foundation, global PM experience, and bilingual fluency in English and Spanish create real leverage.

 

I'm based in Lafayette, California, with my family. I earned my MBA from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Barcelona.

 

If you're building something interesting in search, NLP, or AI-enabled products, I'd love to talk.

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MJ Rodriguez

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