> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://me.miltonials.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# About & Goals

> Who I am, how I work, and what I'm looking for next — a software developer from Costa Rica moving toward data science.

<img
  src="https://mintcdn.com/milton-53ea743f/217HosllDox9HOcY/images/milton.jpg?fit=max&auto=format&n=217HosllDox9HOcY&q=85&s=1d91f33d00343ed70c061909f1fce274"
  alt="Milton Barrera"
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  width="400"
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  data-path="images/milton.jpg"
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I'm **Milton Josué Barrera Zepeda**, a **Data Scientist** from **Costa Rica** and a **Computer Engineering graduate of the Tecnológico de Costa Rica (TEC)**. The short version of me: I really like learning about different topics and finding great communities to build and grow with. That curiosity is the through-line behind everything on this site — it's what took me from teaching university programming courses to earning Harvard's CS50 AI certificate to building RAG-based AI systems at [TekDatum](/experience) today.

## How I got here

I didn't set out to contribute to the Linux kernel or to open-source mapping tools — I got there by following problems I actually had. My mouse didn't work on Linux, so I read enough of the HID subsystem to fix it and sent the patch upstream. I wanted to buy a used car, so I turned the search into a dataset. I wanted to understand genetic algorithms, so I built one that escapes a room on its own.

That pattern — *find a real question, build my way to the answer, share the result* — is how I've taught myself most of what I know.

## What I'm like to work with

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Curious and self-directed" icon="compass">
    I pick things up quickly and don't need hand-holding to get productive.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Comfortable across the stack" icon="layer-group">
    From C at the driver level to web apps and data pipelines — I go where the problem is.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Community-minded" icon="users">
    I do a lot of my work in the open and enjoy collaborating with people who care about the craft.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Pragmatic" icon="hammer">
    I care about shipping things that work and are actually useful, not just clever.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Where I'm headed

Data science is where my engineering instincts and my curiosity meet. Day to day I work on **AI systems — Retrieval-Augmented Generation in particular** — where the challenge is getting large, messy knowledge bases to actually inform what a model says. Before that I spent years close to data: ETL pipelines, business intelligence, visualization in R and Tableau. I want to keep going deeper on **applied AI and data science**, building systems that turn real-world data into decisions, on top of the software-engineering foundation I already have.

## What I'm looking for

I'm **open to data science, applied-AI, and software engineering roles** — remote, or based in Costa Rica. I'm especially drawn to work involving **AI and RAG systems, data engineering, and open source**, on a team that values learning and building in the open.

<Note>
  If you think there's a fit, I'd love to hear from you: [contact@miltonials.com](mailto:contact@miltonials.com).
</Note>