Ruba Doleh is an Infrastructure Software Engineer who works remotely for RelationalAI. Her story is an interesting one, as she never imagined that she would end up working in software. While studying at Birzeit University in Ramallah, Palestine, Ruba had always intended to work in the hardware field. However, an internship with Exalt Technologies, a local company that Nokia used as a contractor, changed everything.
During her internship, Ruba was asked to work on Shell Scripting, a field that no one else wanted to work in. This turned out to be a turning point in her career as she found that she enjoyed working on the software side of things. After her internship, Ruba was offered a part-time job, which eventually turned into a full-time job. She was unofficially on the Nokia team, helping out in any way she could.
Ruba’s career has been a series of large steps, with nothing coming in small doses. She was offered a full-time position just before starting the second semester of her final year at university. Because of all the great work she had done, she was officially placed on the Nokia team, working with amazing people. After graduating with distinction from Birzeit University, Ruba applied to the Manara program.
The Manara program was daunting for Ruba, who up to that point in her career had seen herself as a lucky woman. She had gone from an internship to a part-time job to a full-time job, all in the span of a year, with no interviews and no fuss. The Manara program was going to take her to uncharted waters. On the day Ruba started the Manara program, she was promoted as Scrum Master with the Nokia team. She was the only woman on the team and the youngest person, with the next youngest person being a man who was 10 years older than her. It was a challenge to fit Manara into her list of priorities, but Ruba was insistent. She needed that challenge in her life, and Manara certainly offered her that challenge.
The Manara community was a great help to Ruba during the program. Everyone was there for her, anytime and anywhere. Any doubt about her skills and abilities disappeared during the program. Ruba’s soft skills TA Michael Wagner, her mentors Laamia Islam and Hailey Yoon, and Mai Temraz, the Program Manager, and Lisa Virtue, the Talent Placement Manager were all responsible for that. The sessions with Michael were her favorite because he always encouraged her to talk, talk, talk, which boosted her confidence.
After completing the Manara program, Ruba received an email from RelationalAI, asking her to interview for a remote position there. This was a truly happy moment for her, and she took a screenshot of that email and sent it out to her friends. Despite never having had interview experience before, Ruba passed all the interviews with flying colors.
When Ruba received the offer from RelationalAI, it was a bittersweet moment for her. She had built herself a solid ground to stand on with Nokia that it was difficult to say goodbye. But it was something her manager told her that made her move forward confidently. He said, “Ruba, you are a very talented woman. Always take big strides in your career.”
Ruba doesn’t know what her future holds, but she knows one thing: she’s going to take it one step at a time, one big step at a time.
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