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Hasham Ali

Success Stories

I am an alumnus of Computer Science department; I graduated in 2022 with a gold medal for best CGPA score in my batch. I currently work as a Backend Specialist for WeatherWalay. I contribute to the company’s cause by creating and maintaining digital services.

I started working as a freelance developer while I was still in my 3rd semester. By that time, we had covered most of the basic programming courses. They helped me improve my profile, and so I managed to land a few gigs. In October 2020, I got my first remote job at a startup based in UK. This was my first official contractual job, and so I consider this job as my first step into the industry. This was also my first time working with a team of developers, and so it helped me understand all the moving pieces of a project and how a developer’s work fit into the greater product.

In September 2021, I joined an Islamabad based software house as an intern. This company dealt in CRM software customization and work was quite one-dimensional. However, I took a lot from working there, learned how software are made keeping in mind the scale of operation and user experience. I rejoined the same company after graduating in July, 2022. I would continue working there for almost a year.

In March 2022, during my last semester, I worked another remote contract job for a company based in UK. This time my role involved creating a WordPress website. I learned much about hosting websites, improving user experience and novel techniques of building websites. In May 2023, I joined my current company, where I contribute in creating and maintaining weather related digital services. This job has been unlike any other as I have worked on a stack that I did not work on prior to this job. Also, for me, this job is as much about teaching and helping as it is about learning.

HITEC University, my teachers and the friends I made there are a very important contributing factor to what I have been able to achieve. One skill that I learnt during my bachelor’s degree other than programming, which I totally attribute to the university, is the skill of communicating with an audience. Apart from the regulation presentations, I was given the opportunity to talk about and “sell” my project ideas in Open House and project Expos. I would like to mention Dr. M. Nouman Noor especially for this. He was also my Final Year’s Project supervisor, which was an industry-oriented project that was ranked top 3 in Computer Science department. The experience I took from working on that project would later on help me a lot in professional life.

Currently, I serve as a member of Industrial Advisory Board at HITEC University and hope to contribute to the best of my potential. I made great connections at HITEC University. The friends that I made in my first semester are one of my closest friends to this day. I would like to advice all the readers:

  • Anyone can build anything with code, what makes great programmers stand out from good programmers is how strong their basics are.
  • Learn and master Object-Oriented Programming and databases before anything else.
  • Do not worry that you will “forget” the previous concept/language when you start learning a new concept or language. Computer Science concepts are universal and they build upon each other.
  • Sometimes if you cannot understand something and it feels like everyone else seem to understand, it is entirely possible that you are just having a bad day. Do not get frustrated with yourself or think about abandoning the field and try something else. However, make sure you revisit the concept later.
  • More than half of learning how to code is about learning how to think; think out loud, and draw out your solution on a paper.
  • Practice by working on hobby projects; my favorite hobby project was a cricket chatbot application that worked on Twitter and Facebook.
  • The more you help others, the better your own understanding of a topic will get. If you can effortlessly and easily explain a concept to a fellow, you know you understand it.

Remember that you are studying to become a Computer Scientist. Becoming a good Computer Scientist gives you a huge advantage professionally; you can become anything from a teacher, a consultant to an entrepreneur. It’s a cheat code to life currently.

Warm regards.


WeatherWalay
IT
Backend Specialist

Hasham Ali
18-CS-074
BS Computer Science
Department of Computer Science