Meet Alex
Alex grew up in from Maryland and has remained in the area throughout his career. He received a B.S. in Computer Science from UMBC and a M.S. in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins. He is now a Pega CLSA at srcLogic.
Alex Vargo
Director, Technical Consulting
USA
USA
Alma Mater
UMBC
Favorite Movie
Gladiator
Dream Vacation Destination
Maui
Favorite Sports Team
Baltimore Orioles
What motivated you to learn how to use Pega?
srcLogic started off as Business Process Management (BPM) experts across a variety of workflow platforms. We were preparing a bid to work on a Pega project so I obtained my CSA to strengthen our proposal. We ended up winning the contract and one year later we went live to production with one of the first Pega applications inside the Intelligence Community. This was one of the factors that led to us partnering with Pega as part of their Pega Service Ventures initiative.
"Pega opened my eyes to the benefits of a low-code platform, especially with regards to development speed. Customers are able to see progress quickly and that generally leads to more participation and enthusiasm."
How has Pega shaped or impacted your career?
All my professional experience prior to working with Pega had been custom implementations. Pega opened my eyes to the benefits of a low-code platform, especially with regards to development speed. Customers are able to see progress quickly and that generally leads to more participation and enthusiasm.
What message or advice would you give to anyone who is considering a career as a Pega Developer?
Take advantage of Pega Academy and stay up-to-date on your trainings. Encourage the projects you work on to upgrade to the latest version of Pega as soon as a new release becomes available. Stand up a sandbox environment to experiment with the different components of Pega.
WINNING CATEGORY
Runner Up
PROJECT
Pyra
Pyra uses a modern React UI integrated with Pega’s DX API to give employees a way to get their ideas in front of the right people to effect change in their organization, even while working from home.
ORGANIZATION
srcLogic
TEAM
Alex Vargo, Anna Whittaker, Amanda Shekarch, Daniel Engel, bparlett, Allyson Meltzer, Joe Offutt
"We wanted to get some hands-on experience working with some of the more advanced features of Pega that aren't common on most Pega implementations."
How did you find out about the Pega Community Hackathon and why did you want to participate?
We first discovered the hackathon when browsing Pega's community site. Our team works on a project built on top of Pega's DX API. A different team is responsible for building the custom UI that sits on top of it.
Our team at srcLogic had been discussing standing up our own DX framework on our own time to learn how to interface with the API from the front-end side of the house. We learned about the hackathon shortly after these talks began. It was a great opportunity to build our skills and to work towards a common goal.
Tell us about the Hackathon project that you worked on - How did you or your team come up with the idea? How did you or your team go about the process of building this Hackathon submission?
We knew right away that our project would be centered around Pega's DX API. We also wanted to build something that would be useful and that we could continue to expand upon even after the Hackathon.
One of the things that sets our company apart from others we've worked for in the past is the srcLogic culture. We are a tight knit group that prides itself on the participation and innovation of our employees. As soon as COVID hit, almost all of our projects transitioned to working from home 100% of the time. We brainstormed ideas on how to keep employees engaged and came up with the idea to create a collaboration hub for our employees to post, collaborate on, and escalate their ideas to the highest levels of our organization.
We started by downloading the React Starter Pack from Pega Marketplace. This gave us a great starting point for our application. We customized the look and feel of the OOTB components then added support for the additional controls, styling, and layouts necessary to bring our vision together.
Are there any particular elements of this Hackathon submission that you are most proud of?
The main goal for us was to increase our knowledge by pushing the limits of Pega. We wanted to get some hands-on experience working with some of the more advanced features of Pega that aren't common on most Pega implementations. The thing I'm most proud of is rendering a custom UI via the Digital Experience API. The DX API will be a big part of future Pega implementations. Getting hands-on experience and proving it can be done in a short timeframe was a big accomplishment.
"Working on Pega technology has created opportunities for me to deliver real-world results quickly resulting in internal exposure and experience."