How McKinstry’s Diego Bedoya Turned His Passion for Technology into a Meaningful Career 

Many students are pressured to pursue a college degree after high school. But for students with financial difficulties, focused on survival and making ends meet, higher education may not be a viable option.

Growing up in a single-parent household and the youngest of three siblings, Building Performance Data Analyst Diego Bedoya’s family struggled financially. At 16, he got his first job at a local grocery store chain, but he quickly realized he needed a second job to support his family and had to drop out of high school.

“It was an unfortunate situation at the time, but I’m very grateful looking back because it taught me a lot and allowed me to gain work experience at a young age,” Diego said.

Diego never stopped learning, always aspiring for something more. He went back and got his GED a few years later, not wanting to leave his education unfinished. Guided by his curiosity and hunger for knowledge, he worked hard to teach himself the skills needed to pursue opportunities beyond retail and hospitality, following a nontraditional path that turned his passion for technology into a full-time career.

“Find what tugs at your heart,” Diego said. “When you find work you enjoy and feel passionate about, it’ll make such a positive impact on the rest of your life.”

A self-taught data analyst

Born in the United States and raised in Lima, Peru, Diego grew up in a multi-generational household with his grandparents, mother, and siblings. At seven years old, his family returned to the United States, settling down in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

“In Peru, I attended an American school because my grandparents wanted me to learn English,” Diego explained. “We celebrated American traditions and holidays, spoke English, and followed the American education system, which made the transition to living in the United States a lot easier.”

College was a brief consideration for Diego, but in addition to his financial difficulties, he didn’t thrive in the traditional education system. Instead, he turned to self-education, accessing technology and free resources to expand his skills.

“We live in a time where we can learn anything we want with the resources we have,” Diego said. “There’s so much information at our fingertips. We just need the drive and motivation to seek it out.”

When he entered the restaurant industry, Diego needed a tool to organize his finances and keep track of his tips. With the help of YouTube tutorials and lots of Googling, he developed his first Excel spreadsheet, starting with basics before advancing to financial projections and charts and graphs.

“Over time, I really fell in love with numbers,” Diego said. “It’s funny because going through school, math wasn’t my favorite subject because of how it was taught. Crunching numbers in a spreadsheet and experiencing that real-world application put things into perspective and clicked. It was my first exposure to coding, and I enjoyed using my creativity to come up with ways to code formulas and make the work easier.”

Eventually, Diego started to apply these skills at work, building spreadsheets and systems to help his teammates work more effectively. As he went on to work in the retail and hospitality industries, Diego continued to hone his skills in his free time, knowing that one day, somebody would see the value he could bring to their team.

It all paid off when he landed his first experience in sales, where he built sales trackers and tools. That job landed him another role leading sales operations, where technology and data analytics turned a side hobby into a full-time career.

The pros and cons of a nontraditional path

Diego has built a successful career in the technology and data analytics space, but it hasn’t come without its challenges.

“On paper, I don’t always look like a qualified candidate because I don’t have a college degree,” Diego said. “Just getting my foot in the door can be challenging. But once I’m able to land an interview, my confidence, speaking skills, and ability to sell myself has helped me land valuable opportunities.”

One of the perks of his nontraditional path is that Diego has a strong understanding of multiple industries.

“My experience in hospitality and retail helped lay the groundwork for my time in sales, where I learned about building relationships with clients and the importance of understanding their needs and presenting solutions,” Diego explained. “That experience also helped me learn how to sell my skills and strengths in interviews. And in my current role, every time I come up with a solution for a problem, I have to sell that idea to my clients and stakeholders and convince them that transitioning to a new tool or process will be better in the long term.”

Diego joined McKinstry in August 2024 as a data analyst, designing Power BI dashboards for a K-12 school district client to tell data-driven stories to stakeholders. These dashboards display critical building management information, from tracking service requests and work orders to telling stories about active energy management, energy savings and utility rate usage.

“When I joined McKinstry, I was coming out of the startup world,” Diego explained. “Here, I was encouraged to take the time to learn about the company, our culture, our clients, and how we work, spending my first three months soaking it all in and learning. That encouragement was so refreshing and made me feel so much more inspired to work here.”

One of the most rewarding parts of Diego’s role is the opportunity to make other people’s jobs easier, turning technology into a teammate instead of a frustration. He’s always searching for new solutions or ways his team can evolve their processes to work more efficiently, such as making dashboards scalable and replicable across client projects.

“Our Be Constantly Curious value is something I’m always leaning on,” Diego said. “It’s how I got to where I am today. New, innovative solutions not only make us more efficient as a team but also more profitable as a company, and my goal is to continue to innovate and channel that curiosity to make our processes better as we grow across the nation.”

Celebrating Hispanic culture year-round

Over five million Floridians identify as Hispanic or Latino, many of them from Cuban, Puerto Rican descent.

“Living in Florida, it feels like I’m celebrating Hispanic Heritage year-round because I’m surrounded by so much Hispanic and Latin American culture,” Diego said. “For me, this month is a purposeful time to celebrate my heritage and feel grateful and proud to be Hispanic. So many of us had to fight to get to where we are today and overcome the hardships that come with immigration.”

For Diego and his fiancé Coralys, who is Puerto Rican, food and sports are key to staying connected with their cultures.

“Every time I step into a Peruvian restaurant, I know I’ll always find other Peruvians enjoying our favorite foods, like ceviche and lomo saltado, and we have something to connect over,” Diego said. “Soccer is big in Hispanic and Latin American culture and was a big part of my childhood, so watching games and rooting for my team is big. Whenever there’s an event like the World Cup, that’s a huge time of celebration for our community.”

Diego encourages allies to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by immersing themselves in Hispanic and Latin American culture. He believes travel is great way to do this, either by visiting a Hispanic and Latin American country or exploring their neighborhoods and supporting small businesses and events.

What is Hispanic Heritage Month?
Over 60 million people in the U.S. identify as Hispanic or Latino. Hispanic Heritage Month, celebrated every year from September 15 to October 15, honors the contributions and cultures of Americans with Hispanic or Latin American heritage. The holiday originated in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week and transitioned to a month-long celebration in 1988, split across two months to align with several Hispanic and Latino independence days and celebrations.

Explore Other Insights

Share: