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Joe Vidal: My Story

When I joined Aspiritech in 2018, I was a QA Analyst assigned to the Bose team, where I am now a QA Lead and manage a team of five QA Analysts.
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Honestly, it was an awakening. It was not something I could even have anticipated. In the past 4 years I have worked at Aspritech I have witnessed our neurodivergent staff create endless opportunities, even when the world said we couldn’t. We are capable of so much more than people think.

We test audio for video (a4V), headphones, speakers and sound bars for home theater. We also test the software that connects the devices to other devices like varios phones, computers, televisions, smart homes and networks. We also test for responsiveness to various voice commands through Siri, Alexa, and Google home. We are always adapting to changes, adjustments in processes, technologies and different ideas and approaches. As a QA Lead I work to create and manage a team and their work environment. We have all had different paths. We have different strengths and weaknesses. And we learn to adjust.

Growing up as a neurodiverse child without a diagnosis, I learned to adapt to a world built for neurotypicals. People described me as a tinkerer, with an incredible ability to focus and no appetite for social encounters. As you could have guessed, this made me a successful student. With attention to detail, a sensitive side, and need for expression I was primed and ready for a career in the film industry. That was after I tried my hand at engineering. Needless to say, my childhood identity of “tinkerer” has taken me a long way. After years of shooting films in LA, working on indie projects, graphic designing, composing for an ad media, building websites on wordpress, working as a projectionist for multiple theaters and everything in between, I found my spot at Aspiritech.

Honestly, it was an awakening. It was not something I could even have anticipated. In the past 4 years I have worked at Aspritech I have witnessed our neurodivergent staff create endless opportunities, even when the world said we couldn’t. We are capable of so much more than people think.

As the QA Lead for my team of QA Analysts, I meet with each person one on one each week. It is a multigenerational team. Younger people are more often diagnosed with autism as a child, and they have experienced less pressure to conform and adapt to a neurotypical world. I make sure each person is in a good spot with workflow, life balance, projects, schedules, etc. All of this is under my umbrella of Learning Management. I have myself learned to interact with my co-workers, give constructive criticism, and to take criticism myself. This is how we successfully create our own opportunities. We build them together.

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