Meet Abdul, a Software Engineer in our Engineering – Business Guidance team! Abdul is celebrating his 3rd Yelp birthday and today he shares what inspired him to work in tech, what a typical day looks like as a Software Engineer, the project he’s most proud of, and more.
What inspired you to pursue a career in engineering?
Ever since I was a kid, when computers were the size of ovens and shipped with retro trackball mice and dial-up modems, I always wondered, “How does a computer actually work? How could it know what time it was? How could it get through to me? see a webcam? How could it know which direction I was moving the mouse?” Since then, the curiosity in me to understand the complexity of a computer has never died, and I don’t think it ever will. Pursuing a career in engineering has been a way for me to satisfy my curiosity by learning and knowing more.
What does a typical day look like in your position?
I start my day catching up on emails and messages. Then I review all requests I’ve received since I last unsubscribed. This routine is followed by preparing for meetings and doing non-coding tasks before my lunch break. Lunch is followed by focusing, coding and working on my projects.
What advice would you give to someone looking to start a career in engineering?
There is no shortage of the kind of work a person can do in technology these days. I would like to ask everyone to be introspective and question their own beliefs and values. Try to understand why and what you think is morally correct and strive to start your career accordingly. Our world can benefit from people working on something they believe to be the truth.
Tell us about a project you’ve been proud to work on
Yelp offers a variety of free and paid products that help local businesses connect with consumers. To set up these products on their Yelp page, business owners previously had to navigate through multiple tabs, which negatively impacted product setup rates (about 55%) and decreased overall user engagement.
To make it easier for business owners to set up their business pages and run their ad campaigns on Yelp, my team built a new unified setup flow to guide them through the setup process.
The setup flow has increased product setup percentages by an average of 8% across all steps, with some products seeing a significant boost. For example, our Yelp Connect product saw a 35% increase in install rate!
What do you like best about working from home?
Working from home gives me more time during the day to organize my work and private life because I save time without having to commute. In addition, working in an environment where I feel good helps me concentrate better. Sometimes I am even more productive than I would have been if I had gone to the office.
Yelp Muslims is a workforce group for employees who identify as Muslims, and everyone is welcome to join. We hang out once a month and I have found the community to be helpful, loving and caring.
Do you want to work with Abdul?
Get started on your own five-star career by exploring a new career path at Yelp! Check out some of our vacancies to find a vacancy that interests you.