Your task on LinkedIn is to be fresh, likable and to avoid “turn-offs”

Vivy is a digital health companion with big growth ambitions — Mohamed builds the Android app

Hi Mohamed, nice to meet you. Who are you?

• I’m Mohamed, I am 28 years old. I grew up in Mansour before my parents moved to Saudi

• I have a Bachelor in Computer Science from Zagazig University (2007–2011)

• I started out in UX research and interaction design at Perfect Presentation in Cairo before I moved into mobile app development at Wasalny

What do you do now?

• I build Vivy’s Android app as part of our mobile development team

• I love my work because it impacts lots of people’s life via what’s most precious to all of us: our health

Tell us a fun fact about yourself

• If there’s one word to describe me, it’s curiosity. I love to dive into new topics and really understand how things work

• I was actually not a great student! Instead of obsessing over exams and grades, I focused on learning the newest technologies at the time— most of which were not taught at school. This has helped me a lot in later life.

Why did you move to Germany?

• Before coming to Germany, I was working in Saudi Arabia. Though the pay was great, I felt that I wasn’t learning enough technology-wise. As a result, I considered going back to Egypt or going to the US or UK.

What advice do you have for our Imagine Fellows?

• Improve your LinkedIn: Many people, including me, got their last job because they were discovered by recruiters on LinkedIn. Your task on LinkedIn is to be interesting, likable (test your photo), and to avoid any “turn-offs”. Some “turn-offs” I often see that you should avoid: Inconsistency (e.g. claiming to be a CTO in your first job) and over-selling (e.g. writing “I am a world-class programmer and excellent honest person”). In addition, be interesting: Join relevant groups on LinkedIn, follow the discussion, and then start replying, and contributing thoughtfully.

• Invest in yourself: If you are serious about personal growth, you need to invest time or money to speed things up. For example, I used Caster.io to get access to quality videos of world-class developers. Back then it was 10 USD/month (it’s now more expensive). In terms of time, I spend a lot of time on side projects, and I also spent a lot of time improving my CV and my LinkedIn.

• Get to the tech frontier: Today it’s easier than ever to learn from the best in the world. I listen to an Android developer podcast called “Fragmented”. I love it. It has helped me become a better engineer — all while commuting! Podcasts like these help you see how other developers think and how they approach problems. Here’s a fantastic list of other web developer podcasts. Here is another one.

Want to learn more about Mohamed? Check out his Linkedin profile. Also take a look at Mohamed’s CV, or our full suite of winning CVs.

That’s it. We hope you enjoyed the read. Now it’s time for action. As always, we are rooting for you. Keep us posted.

— Your friends at Imagine

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