CAFU Celebrates- International Techies Day

International Techies Day is celebrated on October 3rd to encourage students to consider a career in technology. We caught up with Helal Ismail- Head of Technology at CAFU to understand what inspired him to pursue a career in technology and what advice would he give to those looking to establish a career in engineering.

What attracted you to join CAFU? 

I always had a dream to build a world leading tech company that can be an inspiring story for entrepreneurs and contributes to the tech industry through building technology that engineers can use, learn from and leverage. 

I joined CAFU at a very early stage when the company was only 6 month old. I preferred staying in the region rather than going back to The US, because I saw the opportunity at CAFU to pursue the dream I always had. Now, when I look back at the time I spent here, it has been a very rewarding journey so far and we are all still very hungry for much more success. 

 What do you look for when hiring Engineers? 

I look for passionate individuals with critical thinking skills who would love to contribute to something that has an impact on people’s life. 

I believe in the relationship between Engineering & Art, I look for the engineers who have a good sense of creativity and imagination.  

Besides, I love to see engineers who have a sidetrack, a home lab, some side business or a hobby to develop. 

 What exciting projects are you & your team currently working on?

On demand logistics is one of the most interesting engineering challenges in the world today. This a multi-dimensional challenge where we have some of the smartest brains in the region working on it. We have plans to platformize some of the solutions we are building in this domain and open source many others. 

Additionally, we have been building our own development framework for GO programming language, one of the most widely adopted programming languages at CAFU. We have plans to open source our framework which would make us the first tech company in the region to publish a software development framework to the public community of engineers to use, maintain and develop. 

 Who inspired you to pursue the career you have today? 

My father is a civil engineer and probably the most influential person in my career. However, the turning point in my life was when I walked into Verizon Wireless HQ at the age of 11 and there was a small museum about Alexander Graham Bell, the man who invited the telephone, his story implanted the idea in my head of how one person can change the world through technology. 

At what age did you realized you were interested in technology? 

I’ve always been very obsessed with Mathematics, Physics & Quantum Physics since school age, and this passion slowly developed into obsession with multidisciplinary engineering. 

What’s the best advice that you would give someone looking to establish a career in engineering? 

Your career experience starts when you decide to do so, not when you graduate. Every day passes in your life and without doing something different, it decreases your opportunity of standing out from the crowd. 

Having a small lab at home, taking a side job, freelancing or building a small business with your friends is a great way of learning, it might give you some scars, but it will make you stand out. 

What motivates you to work hard? 

Passion, passion, passion. Loving what you do and realizing that success is the reward. 

What is your favorite thing about your career? 

I had a very rewarding career journey, especially at CAFU. As someone who leads an engineering team our challenges are not limited to application development. We also have mechanical, electronics, communication engineering, fluids & thermodynamics, projection and geospatial engineering challenges.

What is your proudest accomplishment? 

My proudest accomplishment to date is my team at CAFU. 

I only had 4 - 5 engineers on my first day, today we have tens of engineers in different domains. We have a domain driven structure for our squads but with cross-functional responsibilities, flattening the hierarchy and softening boundaries between different teams allowing Engineering Managers & Lead Engineers to get involved in the business context and Junior Engineer to get exposure and be more empowered to take decisions.

I have built many businesses and gone through acquisitions at different levels but the vision we have for CAFU is way bigger than any personal accomplishment I would mention. 

I am dreaming of day when we will see technology and open source software coming out from this region and being used globally. 

How would you describe your job to a bunch of five-year olds ? 

I have a five-year-old, so that’s an easy one ??  

I am building a mobile app that makes sure cars always have a full tank of petrol, so we don't have to go to the gas station and wait in a boring long queue. 

What does your daughter want to be when she grows up? 

She likes astronomy very much. 

I am also teaching her a few things about programming but in a game like environment, there are some very interesting interactive educational content for children where they can design a game or a storyboard using funny characters and some coding concepts like loops, conditions, .. etc so they get to know an idea about those things, then at the right age when they would understand something more advanced, those fundamental concepts should be very easy for them to digest. 

Want to explore a career in the CAFU Engineering team? Please check out our latest roles on LinkedIn- https://www.dhirubhai.net/jobs/search/?f_C=13892019&geoId=92000000