Work sabbatical allows time for professional re-positioning

It’s something many of us think about doing, but Kyle Faloon actually took a leave of absence from his role at a large industrial automation company to re-assess his professional goals and career path.

He became laser-focused and resolute in his desire to move in the direction of becoming a Product Manager. Up until that point, he’d been working at several industrial facilities on instrumentation and control systems, plus additionally doing “light” software development. 

Today, he’s a Product Manager at Blue Marvel AI in Calgary, a company applying Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to de-risk and improve industrial processes. As Kyle says, these are “fundamentally hard problems with a multitude of solutions” and he enjoys trying to figure them out. In his new role, he is responsible for the success of the company’s products, from simple web apps to AI/ML models, and taking them from initial conception through to development launch and ongoing refinement. 

But this didn’t happen by chance. Kyle was strategic with his career pivot and the work paid off.

Some might think of a sabbatical as a time to relax or as an extended vacation. For Kyle, it was quite the opposite. He did self-reflection, market research, focused networking and enrolled at InceptionU for very targeted skill development. 

In fact, he was the very first student to enroll in the Design Program. 

It was a valuable process, according to Kyle, because it showed him that his Degree in Industrial Design (working with physical products), would be transferrable to the digital world and working with software.

“The course re-ignited my passion for design and clarified that I had a skill set that would be beneficial. It validated and gave me the confidence to move forward, knowing I was on the right path, that I was good at design, development and problem solving,” says Kyle. 

Finding the right position, though, proved to be a challenge.

He resigned from his original employer and moved on to several different positions, accepting roles that weren't exactly what he wanted, but knowing that it would get him closer to his goal.

He took a Facility Support Specialist position at Attabotics where he controlled and repaired the robots that operate the company’s automated inventory management system.

He already had a professional connection at Blue Marvel from a previous job, so he reached out and expressed interest. He was hired for a Technical Business Development role but was very clear with his new employer that he wanted to move into a Product Manager position. 

When the previous Product Manager left, Kyle was seen as the logical replacement, already having technical knowledge of the product which he gained through his sales role.

It was not an easy road to get here. He had to make some tough decisions and be willing to say no to some roles and accept others, while still advocating for himself professionally. He used his strategic networking and relationship-building skills to approach contacts in his network who he knew were hiring.

Kyle is a shining example of someone who is now leading his career, rather than a career happening to him.

He enjoys his new role and thrives in problem-solving and designing the roadmap for all of Blue Marvel’s products in their suite of applications.

“It’s been quite a journey to get here, but I’m finally at the stage where I can do design work and potentially effect change, and I’m really excited about that. The problems that we’re trying to solve are very complex and will require me to leverage all my previous experiences to really understand the problem and how best to try and tackle it.”

He loves analyzing risk on large-scale industrial processes and seeing how modern-day software can improve these commercial operations in a wide variety of different industries. 

To learn more about Blue Marvel, visit their website.