Welcome to Invest Ottawa’s Taking Root segment.
Each month, this reoccurring article will highlight a driven tech or business professional who took advantage of Invest Ottawa’s talent program and successfully landed a role at a star technology company in Canada’s capital city! Through Taking Root, you’ll learn the ins and outs of their new position and hear firsthand what it’s like to relocate to Ottawa.
4 mins | 610 words
By: Brooke Harrison
Kazi Ahmed is highly educated in electrical engineering, with two degrees and a teaching background, he landed an R&D role in this field post-graduation. But he always had a passion for software development…
For many individuals, the pandemic put a pause on attending networking events and seeking opportunities to make industry connections, but Kazi was not one of those people. A fated LinkedIn message from an Invest Ottawa talent sourcer led Kazi to attend Ottawa’s virtual Global 5G & ICT Career Fair this past June. The result? A few months later Kazi received two job offers from Ericsson, one of the leading providers of Information and Communication Technology to service providers around the globe.
Read on to learn how Kazi made the career transition to developer, landed a role at Ericsson and is now relocating from Calgary to Ottawa.
What has been your career path so far?
I started my work in tech by first getting my bachelor’s degree at the Islamic University of Technology where I studied Electrical Engineering, researching wireless communication and physical layers. Once completing my degree, I decided to make the move to Canada to start my master’s in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Manitoba. Here, I continued my research on wireless communication. After graduating I started a role at OrbSurgical as an electrical engineer. However, I was still passionate about finding a position in wireless communications and telecommunications.
How did you end up landing your current role at Ericsson?
It was synchronistic, a talent sourcer from Invest Ottawa reached out to me on Linkedin inviting me to a virtual career fair Invest Ottawa was hosting. When looking into it I found Ericsson was attending along with a few other impressive tech companies. Since I was looking to make the transition to a role in wireless communication, I sent off my resume to the companies attending the fair. This was my first virtual job fair, so I didn’t know what to expect!
Following sending off my resume I received an email requesting me to book a meeting with an Ericsson talent sourcer during the career fair. The conversation went great, and I was happy to learn more about the company and the amazing work they are doing. During the conversation, they gave me tips on how to apply for positions with the company such as resume style, cover letter content and flagged a few positions they thought I should apply for.
After applying I ended up connecting with two managers from various departments. Upon completing a few rounds of interviews with each manager I was offered two positions! It was a dream come true, I was able to pick between the two based on my interest and am happy to say I am now a software developer!
After that job fair, I told all my friends – “sign up for any job fair you see you never know what can come out of it!”
Are you excited about making the move to Ottawa?
Making the move from Calgary to Ottawa is extremely exciting! I’m most looking forward to getting to know the city and experiencing all the amazing things it has to offer. I’ve heard that Ottawa is an up-and-coming tech hub so I believe this move will benefit my career in the long run. I see myself staying in Ottawa for the long term. It looks like a great place to build my career and my life!
What is your vision for your career moving forward?
I’m very new in software development, so I plan on building my career for the next few years. I see myself working at Ericsson for the long term. I want to take advantage of my new position; I know this is an amazing opportunity and I want to grab hold of any experiences I can.
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