The goal of this interview series is to inspire and help people to transition their career into a new or next experimentation related role. In this edition Oriol Vila Masip shares his journey. Oriol is Experimentation Lead at Adevinta in Spain.

I would strongly recommend joining a company that has experience, resources and reputation regarding experimentation. It is crucial to be surrounded by talented people from whom you can learn.
Oriol Vila Masip
Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Hi, I am Oriol. I’ve found that experimentation offers the perfect mix between statistics and human relationship. Analyzing data can be just as important as understanding stakeholders and impacting the culture.
I began my career as a Data Analyst, where testing was just a small part of my work. Over time, I progressed to become an Experimentation Lead, dedicating my full-time job to enhancing experimentation to make better decisions. I believe it resembles some of my values closely. I like challenging assumptions and being fair with all the options. And experimentation is just about making fair comparisons!
What is your current experimentation role and what do you do?
I am currently working as Experimentation Lead at Adevinta, where I lead the testing needs of our Spanish online marketplaces and accelerate our global experimentation initiatives. The needs of the local marketplaces are varied since our teams are very different. There are teams with plenty of experience in A/B testing that come to me with very specific technical questions, while there are others with less experience that request end-to-end assistance. As part of our global initiatives, I work closely with a team of experimenters spread across countries to improve the experimentation culture as well as to ensure our testing stack is up to date.
How did you enter the experimentation space? What was your first experimentation related role? Share your origin story here.
After graduating with a degree in Economics, I knew I wanted to enter the tech industry and work with data. So I joined Edreams Odigeo, an online travel agency, where I had my first professional experience as a Data Analyst. My job consisted of understanding the flight market, designing pricing strategies and validating our prices through A/B testing. It was fascinating to see how minor changes in price could drastically impact our positioning and sales numbers. These initial experiences of interpreting results, sharing them with stakeholders and making decisions provided me with a wonderful start.
How did you start to learn experimentation?
As COVID-19 emerged and the travel sector was impacted, I decided it was the right time to pursue a master’s degree in Big Data and Business Analytics. I was particularly fascinated by a course on Analytics and Measurement.
Inspired by my studies, I joined the Tracking & Measurement team at Vista, a global e-commerce company. My career in the field took a big leap there. I had the honor to be part of the Experimentation Ambassador Program, an initiative created by the Centre of Excellence, aimed at training experts to serve as the first line of support in experimentation.
I had time to dedicate to reading articles and books, discussing with peers about their experiments in varied features and learning best practices. I also worked on projects about automating pipelines to read A/B test results, extending analysis and trying new approaches such as time-split testing. All in all, my time at Vista was a game changer and lots of people played such an important role in my development.
How do you apply experimentation in your personal life? (what are you tinkering with or always optimizing?)
There are many ways to apply experimentation in your personal life! For example, I have been applying it in my workouts since I started going to the gym a year ago. Each month, I set a clear goal at the beginning and track my progress at the end. I usually experiment with various variables that influence my performance, such as the intensity of the training, types and amount of nutrients and hours of sleep.
What are you currently doing to keep up with the ever-changing industry?
One of the easiest ways is by following the Experimental Mind Newsletter! It is the perfect way to stay up to date. If you want to get more involved in the field, I recommend connecting with the authors of the posts on LinkedIn and keep doing that with all articles that will start appearing in your feed. You will soon be part of a network that is constantly sharing the latest trends and is welcoming!
Moreover, I would also recommend joining Communities or events, either in person or online. In Barcelona, we recently started the Experimentation Meetup group and it has been rewarding to connect with so many experimenters.
What recommendations would you give to someone who is looking to join the experimentation industry and get their first full-time position?
It is an exciting field with plenty of opportunities. There is room for everyone. You can come with no experience or a career as Data Analyst, Data Scientist, Developer, Data Engineer, PM, Consultant, … First, I would recommend knowing yourself and determining which role would best suit your personality and experience. Second, I would strongly recommend joining a company that has experience, resources and reputation regarding experimentation. It is crucial to be surrounded by talented people from whom you can learn. Similarly, working for a company that values testing and makes data-based decisions is important. To validate this hypothesis, you can check whether the company shares content about experimentation online.
What if you are not sure whether you will like the role? Just try it! Sometimes we just have to test it in production to validate it.
Which developments in experimentation excite you? How do you see the field changing in the next 5 to 10 years?
AI is inevitably on top of our minds. I genuinely think that the state of AI is difficult to predict in 10 years. I still remember I was completely shocked the first time I attached a screenshot of an A/B test result and ChatGPT-4 did a perfect analysis.
My guess is that the field will have two main improvements: development of ML metrics to predict long-term performance in short-term experiments and new tools that test everything that goes to production and make the decisions autonomously. It is true that both things already exist, but I believe they will popularize and become easier to implement in the future.
Is there anything people reading this can help you with? Or any parting words?
As parting words, I would like to recognize all the work that some people are doing to boost the experimentation community. They bring immense value by sharing articles, newsletters, projects, communities and events. I feel proud of the warm community that we have and I would encourage everyone to connect with people and not be afraid to start a conversation!
Which other experimenters would you love to read an interview by?
I recently met Javier Lipuzcoa and I think he has a lot of stories to share. Additionally, I would also like to read about experimenters outside product development. For instance, I am curious to know about clinical experiments in the pharma industry. I wonder how they run their tests and which challenges they face.
Thank you Oriol for sharing your journey and insights with the community.