Building a Bias to Act
Carlos Armada (EDI ‘17) returned to his alma mater to prompt the next generation of product leaders to use AI as a tool for more efficient innovation.
Carlos Armada (EDI ‘17) gave a clear message to incoming students in Northwestern’s Master of Science in Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program during the two-week Camp EDI in September:
It’s never been easier to act.
Armada is director of product at name.com, a domain registrar focused on being the first AI-native domain provider. He returned to Northwestern to impart lessons he learned from the EDI program and his subsequent career as a product leader.
“The number one thing, and it’s only gotten better with the rise of AI, is a bias to action,” said Armada,who has used that lesson to earn three promotions during his five years at name.com. “Having that bias to action makes you so invaluable. In EDI, it never feels like ‘Oh, you can’t do that.’ It’s always, ‘Go find a way to do it.’”
Camp EDI is a two-week intensive bootcamp that is designed to familiarize incoming students with the people, resources, and tools that will define their EDI experience.
Increasingly, one of those resources is AI.
“These tools are coming online and can be used to give us more time to focus on user needs, to be more laser focused on building value,” Armada said. “The paper-pushing side of creating products is going down tremendously, which opens up more and more time in your day and your week to be asking the hard-hitting questions.”
Those hard-hitting questions must be focused on discovering users’ true pain points, Armada said. The EDI program – and Armada’s Camp EDI lessons – emphasize human-centered design and the notion that developing the best products starts with the end users and designing for their needs.
In his current role, Armada’s goal is to lead a team that enables people to build an online presence. From small businesses to large domain resellers, Armada focuses on user experience, developer experience, and agent experience.
“We build the services and provide the features that enable our users to pursue their dreams,” he said. “That seems like a lofty goal, but all of our tools are in service of getting users to really chase something, whether it’s their portfolio site or their small business aspirations.”
That mentality of allowing entrepreneurs to focus on their business acumen flows from Armada’s time in the EDI program. He chose EDI after realizing he wanted to leave the oil and gas industry to pursue a career direction more aligned with his goals and values.
EDI stood out because of its emphasis on building meaningful things for the future, he said.
Camp EDI provided Armada an opportunity to give back to the next generation of product leaders. His talk focused on how to use AI’s vibe coding tools for human-centered design prototyping – and how those tools make it easier than ever to make a difference.
“If you’re not well-versed in how to get the most out of AI, it’s garbage in, garbage out,” he said. “I hope the students walked away with the confidence to say that when they see a challenge, this tool can help, and that they feel comfortable opening up a browser – not asking for permission or waiting – and just diving in and starting to work.”
