I served as Otto's project manager for his work on a flagship Spanish Core literacy product at Curriculum Associates. Otto is an affable, efficient, and communicative creative who always knows the right questions to ask, where to ask those questions, and the levers to pull to help get them resolved. His collaboration with cross-functional team members and stakeholders to resolve file and schedule issues has proven invaluable from a project management perspective. In many instances, the team would not have been able to address schedule challenges effectively without his support and flexibility. Otto frequently took on extra Design review passes to help out his colleagues, and this was key to keeping our schedule critical path. I'm grateful for having worked with a designer who has one of the sharpest eyes in the business AND is a great human being. Otto should be a top consideration for your next hire from a people management and operational perspective. He can deal with subtlety and complexity, two barometers of success that take serious skill to navigate.

Otto Carbajal consistently demonstrates outstanding time management skills, reliably completing assignments well ahead of schedule. His proactive approach not only ensures that deadlines are met, but also allows him to seek out opportunities for progress on other projects. Otto’s commitment to excellence is matched by his integrity—he takes ownership of his work and sets a positive example for the entire team. His dedication and efficiency have made a significant impact, and I truly appreciate his contributions.

I really enjoyed working with Otto on several projects at Curriculum Associates, particularly our work on front matter for our Teacher's Guides. Throughout our work together, Otto was receptive to feedback, attentive to details, and committed to making sure each asset supported our team’s goals. I especially valued his collaborative approach, responsiveness, and ability to thoughtfully bring our ideas to life. Otto would be a wonderful addition to any team, and I’m happy to recommend him.

I have had the pleasure of working closely with Otto for several years at Atomic Software. Otto is a consummate professional who exemplifies the qualities of kindness and humility in everything he does. One of the standout projects we collaborated on involved creating a streamlined process for ingesting data into an application in a user-friendly manner. As a Content Engineer, he played a pivotal role in implementing this process using Oxygen XML. His attention to detail, desire to understand the technical aspects of the process, and ability to communicate effectively in technical and non-technical ways were instrumental in its success. Otto's dedication and expertise were evident in his contributions to adding and organizing content in Directus CMS. His approach ensured that the process was efficient and thoroughly documented for our client, resulting in the delivery of a high-quality solution.Most recently, Otto played an integral role in our efforts to enhance accessibility expertise within the team. He provided invaluable support by conducting thorough research and collaborating closely with the team to develop comprehensive internal documentation, empowering the Atomic team to become accessibility experts.

Meredyth Houpos Software Developer, Atomic Software

Having witnessed Otto's expertise with XPath for Ready for Reading, I can confidently say that he is a master in navigating the intricate paths of XML documents. His adeptness in crafting precise XPath queries has not only streamlined our data extraction processes but also saved our team countless hours of manual effort. With his proficiency in XPath, our projects have gained a newfound efficiency and accuracy. I wholeheartedly endorse Otto's XPath skills and consider him an indispensable asset to any team.

Tony Chang Contract Developer for Ready for Reading, Atomic Software

I had the pleasure of working with Otto on a collection of web-based educational games. He worked closely with the developers on the project to structure and organize content of various formats, stewarding the process of bringing content into Directus CMS for the games to consume. He also managed data ingestion and organization as the content base changed and expanded over the course of the project. Otto worked to facilitate clear, transparent, and accessible cross-team communication. He was easy to collaborate with and his commitment to ensuring high quality will surely be valuable to any team fortunate enough to have him.

Adjoa Darien Software Engineer | Quality Advocate, Atomic Software

Otto is both incredibly fun to be around and highly efficient with his work. His content engineering knowledge was pivotal in helping us get a CMS up and running for one of our most demanding client projects, and he led the effort in getting the client’s inhouse team familiar with a technology that they had never used before, which smoothed the transition process when it was time to hand the project over.

Keith Menye Technical Project Lead for AERDEF Reading Reimagined, Atomic Software

Otto was the production lead on a digital software project I managed. This content-heavy project had an extremely aggressive schedule involving both print and digital components. Otto excelled at not only managing the process, but also hit all deadlines for the production work he was responsible for including XML tagging and content layout. Because Otto is such a pleasure to work with, he was able to motivate the team to stay on track allowing us to meet our deadline. He would be a great asset to any team.

Not only did Otto do superior design and composition work for us, he also managed the project, created the schedule and moved the entire process forward. Otto is a skillful designer, amazingly conscientious, and is a pleasure to work with.

Otto is a rare combination of designer that brings both talent and skill without an attitude. He is creative and thoughtful and extremely on top of his to-do list. Any project would be lucky to have him and his work involved.

I have had the pleasure of working closely with Otto during a project he worked on for Scholastic, where they made invaluable contributions to the development and implementation of the Ready for Reading phonics system. He is an exceptional professional with a profound understanding of content engineering and a true passion for enhancing content pipelines. Otto consistently demonstrated a high level of dedication with this project. They exhibited a keen eye for detail and a strong sense of accountability, ensuring in the end that the Ready for Reading program met the highest standards of quality and efficacy. Otto was lead on documenting best practices for our compositions team, as well as assisted our transformation process that could be used for any program component. His assistance on the project is helping us have a positive impact on children's literacy development.

I had the pleasure of working with Otto in our Content/Publication Operations with the College Board. Otto's exceptional attention to detail was instrumental in our teams success. I highly recommend Otto for his dedication, commitment to excellence, professionalism, and ability to just simply deliver. He is the ultimate team player that brings it every day. Amazing talent!

Otto is truly an exceptional person and designer. I worked closely with Otto on publishing hundreds of titles throughout the year and he consistently delivered incredible results. I would often refer to his work as an example to be followed. Otto proposed creative ways for displaying complex processes in our print and online content. I'm grateful for his collaboration and for the care that he gives in all aspects of his work.

Otto and I collaborated for 3 years at College Board on publications that supported the PSAT-related assessments. He was one of the most thoughtful designers I’ve worked with as a content strategist. Despite tight deadlines, Otto worked ahead of schedule, with an eye to detail, and with a creative design sensibility. He was always easygoing and respectful of others’ ideas. I’d welcome the chance to work with him again.

I have had the pleasure of working with Otto for several years at Triumph Learning. Otto helped me in many capacities including: creation and placement of tech art including Graphic Organizers, Math, and ELA art in the CMS; reviewing CSS and HTML source code; design of digital questions in the CMS. Otto also was always able to answer my InDesign, Illustrator or Photoshop questions.

Otto worked at Amplify for about three months as a Print Production Designer under the supervision of a Production Manager and Art Director. Otto has expert skills in InDesign and successfully created print-ready page layouts based on existing templates and style guides. He demonstrated excellent attention to detail, a positive attitude and a strong commitment to the project. He was also able to work quickly an efficiently under extremely tight deadlines. I would definitely recommend Otto, as he has proven to be a reliable and hard-working design professional.

Otto is an extremely talented Designer, who is a pleasure to work with. He was able to effectively deliver our leveled readers under tight deadlines. Otto is proficient in Adobe CS, has an outstanding work ethic, constantly strives to improve his skills, and always surprises with his adaptability and creativity. I would wholly recommend Otto as an exceptional Design professional.