Career at GSG
March 2023
by GSG

Mayssa Ezzine and Sara Sadeghian, two very different engineers talk about their experiences in IT and their common goal of solving challenges.

Meet Mayssa Ezzine, Full stack developer and someone who loves to be involved in everything.

Meet Sara Sadeghian, Senior Frontend developer and someone who loves to go deep then bring these details back into the bigger picture. 

1. First what drove both your passions to go into the technology and engineering field?

“The first thing that actually got me interested in the general field of IT and technology was my older sister who is an engineer and was always talking about different things in IT. I was wowed by the technological world she told me about. It made me think how all of us are using so many devices everyday, and all of them are built out of IT. This made me want to build my thing, I wanted to build something that people would want to use, I wanted to be useful in people’s lives.” Mayssa Ezzine 
“From my side, it started really early at school, I was always into maths and physics, my dad was a maths teacher. This meant that I really loved challenges and solving problems. However what got me into software engineering is a long story because my first interest and direction was to become an electronics engineer. At high school I actually created a lie-detector, which some of my more brave friends were open to test. Anyway some time later I ended up in software engineering and as soon as I did I knew it was the right choice because it brought me right back to my love for challenges and solving problems.” Sara Sadeghian

2. Mayssa, what made you choose GSG? 

“I joined GSG as soon as I finished my internship about four years ago. The main reason I chose GSG is because I felt that this is a place where I can learn and grow. I’m really eager to learn new technologies, concepts, architectures and it presented me with this opportunity. Another major factor was how international GSG is, everybody comes from somewhere different, like myself and it made me feel like this is where I belong.” Mayssa Ezzine 

3. What are both your working days like?

“I always try to spend about 4 hours in deep thought, that’s uninterrupted thinking time with my earphones on where I can concentrate on the challenge at hand. But what’s amazing about this time is that it just goes so fast, it still seems that one second its morning the next its afternoon.

Then there’s one to two hours of meetings where we all connect our thoughts because after all we are building things together. And with what’s left, I try to spend on coaching people like new joiners, younger members in the team. After all people have spent a lot of time teaching me things through the years and I want to make sure that I’m also sharing this knowledge with others too.” Mayssa Ezzine

“For me it depends, I’ve worked in teams where there has been the need for lots of alignment and meeting and this could even take up to four hours of my time, however I agree that it’s really important to have you own time to work on your tasks and like Mayssa said when you start working on your tasks you really need to be focused. I usually have a pen and paper when I want to solve a problem, and when figured out how to solve it and scribbled it down, I then start writing code, and then I really don’t like to be disturbed. After all it takes a long time to get back to where you were. So on days when I have a lot of coding, I tend to work from home in my own secluded area. Don’t get me wrong, It’s great to meet in the office. Exchanging ideas, aligning on things and charging your motivation and energy, but its also great to be at home and just escape into your own world of thinking.” Sara Sadeghian

4. Where do you both find the extra inspiration you need outside of GSG.

“Google and Youtube are my best friends, especially Google which is there for me on a daily basis, answering extra questions as they pop up. On top of this is my friends network, my boyfriend works in IT, our friends work in IT, so although we all don’t consider ourselves geeks,  technology and engineering are discussed, especially on an inspiration level. We all work for different companies and without giving away any secrets we all learn from each other, having external sources of knowledge is really important in staying fresh.” Mayssa Ezzine 

“I couldn’t agree more on Google and youtube, but for me Linkedin is also a superb source, my favorite topic in university was AI (still is) and I follow people working in that industry and see inspiring videos there. Beyond that I get a lot of inspiration from documentaries and books themed around human interest, like how robotics can be of huge empowerer of humankind like in the case of the development of the artificial hand.” Sara Sadeghian

5. Sara, what’s been one of the most challenging then rewarding things you have done at GSG?

“It’s quite unusual when you are new to a company that you have the opportunity to work on a project from beginning to end. So one of the most challenging and rewarding things I’ve done when I first worked at GSG was working on a project from scratch. We started rewriting the legacy project and I was involved in the whole process, the decisions made, how we built things, how we changed things, the mistakes we made, the improvements we made. At the same time I was working as a bridge to the design team giving the tech perspective, and hearing the design perspective. Working in a very agile way providing fast prototypes of things that could answer the challenges we faced. It was a real learning experience.” Sara Sadeghian

6. What would you both advice to anyone interested in becoming an engineer or entering the tech industry as a whole?

“I would give this advice. First be very patient with yourself, as a developer patience is very important. Next, ask for as much help as you can, and ask many, many questions along the way. Listen to different peoples opinions, implement things and don’t worry too much about making mistakes, because you will have a chance to correct them but even more importantly you will learn from them. Finally don’t be afraid to take on challenging tasks, they will be hard but they that will bring you to the next level.” Sara Sadeghian
“I totally love what Sara just said, one thing I would add is never give up too easily in IT, because fixing bugs, understanding what’s happening and why things are failing are part of our everyday struggle. If you give up, or compromise too easily then you will never have the solution and never feel the pride of rising up to the challenge.” Mayssa Ezzine 

7. Finally on a lighter note, for all the new joiners at our Munich office what’s your favourite lunchtime option.

“The grilled chicken stall.” Mayssa Ezzine 

“The greek restaurant, Taverne Armonia on the Aberlestraße 1.” Sara Sadeghian

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