By Al Dickenson
Maxim Medvedev comes to his love of technology naturally. Being born into a family of Ukrainian/Russian immigrants, his father works as a software architect and taught Maxim the basics of computer construction early on. Ever since, Maxim has appreciated getting his hands dirty in his preferred “trial by fire” method of learning.
That desire to continue learning has led him to entertain various professional roles, all within the technology industry. However, it was a part-time role at a family member’s start-up business that engaged Maxim’s twin interests in tech and business. Spurred on by J. Dietenberger, teaching faculty in the School of Information Studies and innovation fellow teaching faculty in the Lubar Entrepreneurship Center, Maxim has been excelling in his role as a Technology Specialist at EUA, a Milwaukee-based architectural firm. As a 2024 graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Information Science & Technology (BSIST), Maxim works full-time while obtaining his dual Master of Business Administration and Master of Science in Information Technology Management.
Even with such a packed schedule, Maxim agreed to be interviewed and share his story.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What is a broad overview of what a Technology Specialist at your employer does?
As a specialist, I serve our internal clients by focusing on client service excellence, solving client issues, being proactive to reduce future issues, and research to support the enhancement of our infrastructure. My department head and EUA recognize my professional and academic ambition, and I believe do their best to keep things interesting by providing me challenges.
As an intern I was our help desk lead which involved lots of ticket work but as I went full-time, I was exposed to additional projects. Project scale grew over time from being able to work with Cloud Engineering and device provisioning in Azure to being part of the AI R&D group and focusing on research, security governance, and training internal clients within the firm on how to utilize AI.
A Technology Specialist works to serve those in the firm and is a position that can also complement our other technological teams within the firm. It is a dynamic position that certainly is not the same every day.
What does your day-to-day look like?
As a Technology professional with a keen interest in AI, I need to have a constant pulse on the industry and understand any news that is being released. It is difficult to describe my day to day in depth because my day is simply never really the same. I am thankful to be on multiple projects and be able to bounce around. Common tasks I do find myself doing are maintenance on certain equipment and AV technology, hardware onboarding, and working on tickets when assigned to me.
Tell us a little more about how artificial intelligence (AI) is developing and how you must adjust to it or adjust it to your needs.
AI is chaotic and I love it. At EUA, we started off with AI slowly, but understand it is the future, so we are preparing for it appropriately. We have an acceptable use policy on AI that is quite thorough and have approved and unapproved AI apps. We currently utilize Microsoft Copilot due to its data governance. We want to be careful of our use with AI, we don’t want to feed it sensitive information that will train the model. We also utilize Midjourney for photo generation.
I have hosted a couple of AI training episodes to inform others on the use of Copilot and how it can better their professional and personal processes and continue to do so. AI needs to be correctly and safely implemented as it is a bit of a wild west. We want to respect our information, but we want to recognize there are tools that are available now that are safe to use. Something I have spent a lot of time on is researching tools that can help benefit the firm while consistently sharing my results and experiences with my director. Copilot is essential for enterprise security and integration with M365, but better tools exist that are available for free or paid use depending on what the use case is.
What do you do with AI on a daily basis? In what way(s) does it impact your career?
I research and solve various issues with AI daily, and I also help various individuals and project teams bring their ideas to life with AI or simplify their process. Some things to name have been photo and video generation to intense data analysis and data scrubbing. I try to help anyone I can with AI to show them what it can do but as well as encourage others to use AI.
While working on issues and doing research, I experiment with multiple LLMs—large language models—to understand and see how each one operates. I use free models and pay for models to see how they function all in respect with our acceptable use policy. If I believe I am working with sensitive information in any sense, I utilize Microsoft Copilot. I have played around with Agent Automation and utilizing Copilot and Microsoft’s Power Platform. My other research is done at UWM or outside of work.
Do you feel as though your UWM education prepared you for your career?
My UWM undergrad education has taught me theories and principles. It has introduced structure in my professional life and helped me refine my soft skills and research ability along with decision making. In terms of day-to-day process, no college or university can truly prepare you for the real professional world. Working experience will take you farther than education, but education helps create a solid foundation to continue building upon, both go hand in hand, but I don’t think one is better than the other. There needs to be synergy to maximize both educational and professional experience.
My master’s degree, a year into the program, has taught me so much. I am going for an MBA and MS-Information Technology Management and my first year was grueling, being a student and employee, but it was valuable and taught me things that could have taken me a lot longer to learn on the job.
Also, I must give a shoutout to my former professor Dijo Alexander. Professor Alexander teaches AI for Business in grad school and helped me get on track with AI and helped me understand the foundations of this technology. He was a huge help and met with me to talk about my professional path.
What are some ways the school could potentially improve its offerings that would have helped you in your career?
Introduce more cloud-oriented courses, offer more technical lab time in classrooms, and with the introduction with AI, more AI and machine learning classes. From what it seems like, UWM is focusing on Cybersecurity but includes a good amount of information in other areas. As I mentioned, learning Cloud, Active Directory, more Engineering/Analysis focused skills would be very helpful as it is all important in IT.
Technology changes, but the art of communication doesn’t.
Could you provide an example of how an IST course or experience directly translated to professional preparedness?
The capstone absolutely translates to skills in my career. Funnily enough, it wasn’t the technical aspects of the capstone that helped me, but it was all the soft skills we ended up learning and refining. We learned business, entrepreneurship, communication skills, and so much more. Learning how to communicate between technical and non-technical parties is huge. We learned how to pitch ideas and focused on public speaking. Being able to sell yourself in an interview or sell an idea in a meeting is critical. Many people have great ideas but can’t get them out in a concise way. I would argue that the soft skills we are taught in school go further than any primary technical experience we learn. Technology changes, but the art of communication doesn’t.
What have been some educational or career highlights thus far?
On-going career highlight is surviving a double master’s degree with full-time work. I was planning on going for one degree, but J. Dietenberger convinced me to go for two. I think I’m surviving simply out of spite.
Throughout my college career I have been the captain of UWM Panther Rugby. I have been highlighted in UWM’s Graduation video of Spring 2024 and talked a bit about my story and advancement in my career.
I have successfully completed FUSE’s AI boot camp hosted by the Milwaukee Tech Hub Coalition. My group and I worked on an AI solution to help fight Avian Flu. We won the biggest impact award, and I won an award for my leadership.
What do you do outside of work?
Outside of work, I suffer at the hands of my own curiosity. Work does not often satisfy my hunger for learning more things, so I typically spend my days doing tasks, random projects, and falling into a deep hole of random research of something that caught my eye. Bless my amazing girlfriend for dealing with my spontaneity. These other interests include cooking, investing, working out, and fixing up a 1983 Honda CB550 Nighthawk. In the time I owned it, I believe I have frustratingly become a better mechanic than motorcyclist.