MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: BEN SUTTON

Could you tell us who you are and what it is that you do?

I’m Ben Sutton, and I work for Texas Instruments (TI), a company widely recognized for its calculators (TI-83, the GOAT) but primarily operating in the semiconductor industry. Within TI’s quality organization, I focus on improving how we execute business processes — specifically by leveraging data, software, and increasingly, AI — to deliver better outcomes for both customers and shareholders. My role is primarily hands-on in implementation and software engineering, but as the senior member of the team, I also provide technical mentorship, explore new technologies, and contribute to our strategic direction.

What do you love about the work?

The work is intellectually engaging and constantly evolving. More importantly, I value the people I collaborate with. For context, our product defect rates are measured in parts per billion. Identifying opportunities for quality improvement often means sifting through vast datasets to find subtle patterns — a challenge that necessitates automated systems to augment human decision-making.

How did you arrive at this point in your career? What’s your backstory?

My career path has been nonlinear. I joined TI after graduating from the University of Michigan in 2011 with degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering, starting in physical design. In 2016, I transitioned to a customer-facing quality role, where I discovered strengths in negotiation and crisis management. Throughout these roles, I also developed a knack for writing software. In 2022, I was asked to build an analytics team from the ground up. After establishing that team, my wife, a physician, accepted an opportunity at UVA in 2024. To accommodate the move, I stepped back from leadership, promoted a team member, and transitioned to my current fully remote role.

Has there been a "light switch" moment, a turning point (or two), professionally and or personally along the way?

I touched on this earlier, but two moments stand out:

1. Recognizing the critical role of people for enjoying my work — a lesson that wasn’t obvious to me as a stereotypical engineer.

2. Deciding to relocate our family across the country in 2024, which reshaped both my personal and professional life.

Who or what has been your greatest influence?

My father, a retired engineer, had a significant impact. Growing up, he involved me in his projects around the house, from CAD designs to seeing those designs materialize in a machine shop. That hands-on experience likely steered me toward engineering.

What are you currently working on, excited about, or looking forward to?

Currently, I’m developing a solution that uses AI agents to perform asynchronous analysis, generate recommendations, and automate tasks within our failure analysis workflow. This workflow involves thousands of tasks per event, with tens of thousands of events occurring annually. The goal is to integrate traditional software infrastructure with AI-driven features — similar to interacting with ChatGPT, but where the system proactively completes work and presents decisions for review.

What are you reading, watching, or listening to these days?

Reading: Less than I’d like, but I’m typically an avid reader, favoring sci-fi and fantasy to keep my imagination active. The most recent was a re-read of Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy.

Watching: My wife, Diana, and I recently finished Severance and Silo — both excellent. We’ve just started Pluribus. Our pace is slow; even short series take us months to complete.

Listening: Lately, I’ve been drawn to acoustic guitar-heavy artists like Tash Sultana and Hermanos Gutierrez, but my tastes are eclectic, spanning indie pop, EDM, funk, downtempo, and trip-hop.