How an auditor from Bishkek became an engineer in Silicon Valley: the story of Sultan Omurzakov

Omurzakov Sultan, City — Palo Alto, Senior Security Software Engineer at Zoox, LinkedIn

About Me

I have a business education; I graduated from the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek with a degree in Accounting, and later earned an MBA from Duke University in 2017. However, even in my second year, I took many quantitative courses on investment portfolio construction and data science because I wanted to study big data analysis. So, having an engineering degree is not necessary to work in the engineering field.

About My First IT Job

After my MBA, I started working in North Carolina at the bank Truist in the cybersecurity department as a data analytics consultant. Many graduates from American universities immediately strive to get into Google or Facebook, where competition is high and getting selected is not easy. Therefore, I would recommend that people with non-related education or little experience consider not only large IT companies but also apply to less well-known organizations: mid-sized and large enterprises such as banks, insurance companies, factories, and plants, where hardworking employees are also needed, and such companies are willing to hire you and teach you a lot.

Working at the bank was quite easy—I was involved in data engineering, responsible for processing large volumes of data. Sometimes I got bored at work, so I took on interesting and complex projects on my own. That’s how I learned machine learning and managed to build several projects that used ML algorithms.

After three years of working at the bank, I had substantial experience in data analysis, machine learning, and cybersecurity, and I moved to Silicon Valley—to the largest cybersecurity company, Palo Alto Networks. After that, I worked at the gaming company Roblox, and currently, I work at Zoox, a company that develops autonomous vehicles.

With each new company, my responsibilities and work became more and more complex. I started with standard bank transactions, and now I work on securing the robotic taxi system, but I always enjoy working on innovative products.

The interview process in all technical companies is roughly the same and includes several stages: resume screening, technical interview, and behavioral interview.

Resume screening takes about 30 seconds, and it determines whether you will be invited for an interview or if your resume will be ignored. Therefore, it is critically important that your resume meets the requirements.

During the technical interview, you are usually asked to solve one or two programming tasks within an hour, similar to those given in international school programming olympiads. However, candidates are expected not only to write the correct solution but also to fully explain why they chose that solution and to weigh all pros and cons out loud before selecting a specific algorithm or data structure. A candidate’s maturity is assessed precisely by how easily they can write the solution, consider multiple solution options, weigh the alternatives, and provide arguments for choosing that particular solution.

If you solve the task like an immature candidate who recently graduated from university, you will receive a salary like that of an intern or junior. But if you solve the task like an experienced architect, your salary level will be significantly higher; the difference can be hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

The behavioral interview is a continuation of evaluating your candidacy for experience and maturity level. This is where all red flags are revealed, so it is important to prepare well and have structured answers to questions that demonstrate your maturity and experience in the industry.

It is quite difficult for immigrants on student visas to get selected, as only large companies can afford to hire foreigners and sponsor work visas. Consequently, competition among international students is high for a fixed number of large companies.

The most important thing is not to lose heart, not to give up, and to draw conclusions from every failure. Every time a company does not respond to your resume, it is an opportunity to reflect and improve your resume for the next company. Every time you do not pass an interview, it is a reason to prepare even harder and learn from your mistakes. After each interview, a candidate develops an intuition about where they performed well and where they failed, so it is important to constantly reflect and learn from your mistakes.

Challenges

The main challenge for beginners and recent university graduates is to find their first good job. IT is a broad field with a huge number of directions and specializations, and it is extremely difficult at the beginning to know which specialization you will like in the future. Therefore, it is important to gain experience, either during your studies by doing internships and learning as much as possible about the wide range of specializations within IT.

Also, different specializations require different skills. For example, information security requires broad knowledge in IT and security, and if you lack this, it will be difficult to break through. Machine learning specializations require strong knowledge and abilities in mathematics, statistics, and linear algebra.

3 Tips to Help You Find a Job in IT

I would recommend gaining experience as early as possible, even while still a student, through internships, volunteering at various conferences and hackathons, and working with startups. This way, you will be among IT professionals, and it will be easier for you to find job opportunities.
As you gain experience, I recommend finding a mentor among experienced professionals who will help you with your career. With a mentor, you can avoid many mistakes and be several times more effective in your career.
And as a final piece of advice, I would recommend looking at things in the long term and continuing professional development, keeping up with new trends and trying to use them, such as artificial intelligence, coding agents, and so on.