Speaker: Mars Berta, Senior Product Designer
Mars Berta: Hi, I'm Mars from Fairfax City Virginia, right outside DC. And I'm a Senior Product Designer. I have been doing this for over 10 years, end-to-end application design from concept to polished final product. And I really love solving complex problems and that's why I chose this field.
Why do you love freelancing?
Mars Berta: So, I love being a freelancer because it gives me the ability to work on different projects in completely different sectors and industries, and to sort of reveal how there's a lot of similar nuances and patterns in different industries. It's just, you're trying to solve a specific use case and a business use case for a particular product or service. And you know, you're just trying to hone in on that. And so I really love that challenge. And freelancing allows me to explore that as much as possible. Again, from different industries, different clients, different projects. Also working on different projects doesn't keep you siloed. It keeps you I think it keeps the mind functioning optimally. You're always looking to connect different pieces together and different ideas together. My mind is curious naturally that way, and it likes to solve problems in that fashion. Freelancing is that outlet for me to be able to you know, seek out interesting and new projects.
What is it about Braintrust that excites you?
Mars Berta: As an owner of the Braintrust Network, what excites me about that is this Web 3.0 move into 4.0 where we the content creators have ownership over content, and we get to maximize the income that we make on that. And you know, Braintrust is really sort of cutting out the middleman and a lot of industries are doing that as well like crypto and there is even a crypto for Braintrust as well. You know, applications, dApps operating on the blockchain is the future. And it's here. And I love that Braintrust is utilizing that technology. They see the future, they see where things are going, especially from freelancing perspective. And you know, also really great clients on the Braintrust platform. So that that is definitely a plus of why I think the platform is wildly successful. Because if you have a good clients and you have good projects you know, it's going to attract some top level talent. That's why I really enjoy being part owner of Braintrust.
Can you tell us about a time when you felt like you really owned it?
Mars Berta: Recently on the Braintrust platform, I came across a project for Five9. It is a customer service call center in the cloud application. Sort of in the iPaaS space and really just sort of from the get go, meeting the team and interacting with the managers, I felt really comfortable and I felt that it was really environment where designers would thrive. And so going into that project, you know, typically when you walk into a project you're excited about it. You're eager to start, but you also want to make sure you take a pause and you absorb really what's going on in the project. You have a firm understanding. You ask a lot of questions, even if it may seem early to ask such in depth questions, it just shows that you're curious and you're interested in really not overlooking details. You want to make sure you capture the project in its essence as a whole. You know, and then you can start drilling down and divvying up and you know, sort of parsing the project of how you're going to break it down and execute on deliverables But you know, that project really allowed me just jump right in and work alongside another designer who was transitioning out. So it was really, the onus was on me to really pick up the pieces and even pick the designers brain because ultimately that project would be solely in my hands. And I've been in that place before. This was just the most recent version of that.
Mars Berta: It's also making decisions where I felt like I really owned the project. I was making full decisions end-to-end. Obviously I run things by teammates, I run things by product owners, I ask people for their advice and things of that nature. But ultimately, I have a clear vision and focus of where the product needs to go. And so really it's just running the gamut of those processes that need to take place and who the people are that need to answer certain questions so that roadblocks and things like that and hurdles can be overcome. And then the design process can continue anticipating things. These are key things that a lot of designers, we're always working on things, you know, no one's mastered design, we're all working and growing in the field. But it's really what separates, you know, a senior level designer from a junior designer or something in that sense. And so as a senior product designer, I love coming in and really just owning the project end-to-end and Five9 was a great example of that.
