Alvaro Navas Peire was born in Barcelona, grew up between there and Andorra, and studied informatics engineering, a mix of computer science and engineering, back in Barcelona. After graduating, he joined a small company selling Chinese-designed Android smartphones under its own brand, where he tested phone models and guided them through the homologation processes required by cell phone carriers. When the company changed investors and shifted focus to Latin America, he moved to Mexico in 2016 to continue working with them under their new brand.

Eventually tiring of the cell phone industry, Alvaro quit, returned to Barcelona, and retrained in machine learning and data science. During a period between jobs he completed a postgraduate course and several informal programs, including DataTalks.Club’s Machine Learning Zoomcamp and Data Engineering Zoomcamp, building the practical, project-based skills that helped him land a role at a consultancy company.

Today, Alvaro manages an internal project that uses NLP models to classify user posts on social networks. Having made the transition into ML and data engineering himself, he is a frequent speaker on career changes, hands-on projects, cloud skills, and interview preparation.