Meet Hani, who didn't own a computer until she was almost twenty years old. After attending the Technion, she joined Facebook as a software engineer and has since become an engineering manager at our Israel site.

I didn't choose engineering per se, I didn't even own a computer until I was twenty years old. I have a religious background and I don't even have high school education. My dream was to become a math teacher. To overcome my lack of education (I don't have “Bagrut” or “PET”) I started taking mathematics courses at The Open University and took a computer science course because it was recommended to me. I fell in love with programming! So I decided to switch to computer science, moved to the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) and with that, my life changed.

I am a software engineer at Facebook. I am part of the internet.org team and our aim is to overcome issues of accessibility, affordability and awareness in the hope that one day, everyone will be connected to the internet. I work on two projects: Free Basics to give free internet usage to people who don't have the means to pay for the internet and Express Wi-Fi to provide internet hot spots around the globe.

I really believe in the benefits of giving people access to the internet. It changed my life, and it can change other people's lives, for the better. Recently, I was in the field in India testing some code changes that I was responsible for. A young boy came in to the shop where I was standing and bought an internet data pack right in front of me. I had the opportunity to talk to him about Express Wi-Fi and ask him how he was using it (it turns out he is using the service to download songs). This opportunity to meet people using the service and see it in action was incredible.

The actual implementation of our products is often very different from how what we expect when building them. We might make assumptions about what will work best in certain circumstances, but data from the field can sometimes show us that those assumptions are wrong. It was challenging for me to start focusing on impact, on what is working for the people that use our products and services, instead of what I think would be cool to do, etc. This is very different from my previous experience.

The ability to choose what I work on and have input from end to end. We (engineers) choose our tasks and are responsible for every part of it, from product decisions, through design, experimentation and conclusions. The engineer is responsible for the feature - for the whole lifecycle - with the support of our amazing product managers, designers and other cross functional partners. Having such responsibility and making impact, as opposed to being 'a small part of a big company', is so motivating to me.

Managing and supporting a team. I find myself to be much more impactful when I can help other engineers with their work. Instead of being responsible for one person's work, I am helping many.

We are looking for engineers to join us in our Israel engineering hub. Click here to view Engineering opportunities and apply today.