Designing with words

This story is part of an occasional series, Why Liberal Arts, that explores how a liberal arts education helps people grow as thinkers and leaders and opens doors to meaningful careers.

Clay Delk '02, M.A. '05 has built a career spanning major roles in content design with experience at Shopify, Meta, and Cash App.

Now serving on the Department of English’s Distinguished Alumni Board, this Hokie remains deeply connected to the university and to the department that helped shape his path.

Delk discussed how his foundation in English drives the strategic thinking behind his work in technology, design, and communication.

How did your English degree from Virginia Tech shape the way you think about language, design, and communication in your work today?

Obviously having a degree in English means I already loved language and understood the power it has. But I definitely think the years of studying different types of writers and writing, and then a few years of teaching writing here, really helped me clarify my respect for the power of word choice, perspective, and structure. People don’t really understand how different your perception of something can change if you choose a different word or different framing for something, especially for abstract concepts for things in tech. But I actually came to VT as a communication major, focused on film and photography. And I think that combination of visual, audio, animation, and writing really set me up for a natural fit in interactive design and writing.

Were there any professors, classes, or experiences at Virginia Tech that especially influenced the direction of your career?

I had so many great classes and professors here, but to answer specifically to ones that influenced the direction of my career, I’d have to say the mix of creative writing and contemporary theory classes. I didn’t have a focused specialization here, so I took a bit of everything. But I took creative writing classes with Lucinda Roy and a creative non-fiction class with Paul Heilker that helped refine the writing side. And then a lot of post-modern/post-colonial theory classes with Bob Siegle that broke my brain a bit. I think that kind of reading helped prepare me for all the crazy changes in the world of tech that have happened since I got out of school.

I also owe a huge debt to Lucinda Roy for creating the [English] Distinguished Alumni Board, which led to me meeting my first employer while I was in grad school, and then led to me coming back here to support students today.

What skills from studying English have been most valuable in the tech and product design world?

Being a strong writer and a fast one has been really helpful for a career in content design. That is being able to think quickly and generate strong writing, and also being able to slow down and think deeply about something. That’s the part that I’ve come to realize is even more important. I find that the ability to do real, critical thinking on a topic or idea tends to be an even more important skill than the writing. Obviously, I need to be able to write well, but the things that make a big impact are when I can sit in a planning session or read through a project document and think really critically about what we’re planning and what the implications might be. When I first start working with a project manager or area leader, they inevitably ask me to review a strategic document or proposal of some type. And I make a point of not copyediting or trying to make it sound better — I ask hard, critical questions or make strategic suggestions that they’re not expecting. Those skills all started here in the English department.

How did you make the leap from being an English major to working in content design and technology?

I was actually working in marketing and advertising at a small digital agency in Austin, Texas, which was co-founded by one of the first alumni board members, Will Furrer. We did a lot of email marketing and websites, but I started working more on interactive applications and interfaces. I eventually moved over to a company that was one of the first e-commerce platforms (pre-Shopify) to work on their website and marketing. One day, the product manager came over and said they had a few user experience designers that were redesigning the application interface and asked if I’d like to look at the words in the product. I went over and sat down with them and never left.

Why is it important to you to stay involved with Virginia Tech?

It’s been great to come back and see the professors and instructors, and students over the years. After people leave college, their only connection tends to be through sports, but that’s such a small part of what makes Virginia Tech so special. Coming back, I get to understand where education is headed, where new generations of students are coming from, and how they see the world. I had no idea that this career path even existed when I was in school (to be fair, this job didn’t actually exist), and I didn’t understand what opportunities were really out here for someone with our skills. It’s great to come back and share that perspective to see where you all take it next.

What advice would you give to English or liberal arts students at Virginia Tech who want to blend creativity with technology in their future careers?

I feel like it’s required to talk about artificial intelligence here, but I’m going to do it in a slightly different way. I’d encourage anyone who’s interested in tech right now to embrace AI, just not in the way most of you are probably thinking about it. Everyone is using it to write or create art or entertain people, which is fine. But the real power for you is to help create and develop the AI itself. There are so many opportunities for strong writers and critical thinkers to work on the AI tools, train the models, and refine the underlying prompts that these tools run on. The unfortunate reality is that AI is very likely eating up a lot of junior job opportunities in this market right now. But it’s also creating a lot of job opportunities for people who understand how AI works and how to make it better. This may be a fad that passes in a few years, but that’s looking less and less likely every day. My advice is, don’t let AI think and write for you. Keep that skill because it’s going to become even more specialized as everyone else offloads those things. Learn to build the AI and make it better.

By Kaylie McCorkle, a double major in English literature and professional and technical writing