About Me

Intro

Hi! My name is Pooya Saeedi. I’m an engineer, engineering leader, tech enthusiast, and life-long learner. I’ve been in the tech industry since 2003 and have worked in different industries, companies, and tech stacks while holding roles such as Software Engineer, Engineering Manager, and VP of Engineering.

In college, as engineers, we learn to work with machines that work as we expect (tell) them to. If the behavior is not as expected, we can debug, change lines of code and correct it. Unfortunately, that is not the case when working with humans.

Since early in my career, I’ve been fascinated by psychology and human nature. I learned early (and in a hard way) that working with humans requires a different approach. The more I advanced in my career, the more I spent time learning about people, influencing, and leadership.

My Journey

2020
2020

Sr. Engineering Manager @Coursera (Current)

I joined Coursera and built the first Canadian Infrastructure team. I helped Engineering with sustainable scaling while maintaining high platform availability (>99.95%). Currently, I’m leading teams who own critical components of developers’ productivity and data-driven product development infrastructure.
2018
2018

Engineering Manager @Ritual

I chose to pursue my leadership passion and joined Ritual as a hands-on manager for the partner platform team. Due to the team’s success in rolling out the partner portal, I got the chance to lead two more teams in B2B and B2C segments.

2017
2017

Sr. Software Engineer @Bibliocommons

I have always had a passion for platform/infrastructure work. Joining Biblio allowed me to work on key business components and act as a value multiplier. I worked on many projects such as digital asset integration, moving from data-center to cloud, and migrating from Ruby on Rails to Java/Spring Boot.

2016
2016

Sr. Software Engineer @Yuja

I could secure my first Canadian position shortly after my immigration. Yuja is multimedia capturing and processing company. I worked on different stacks, such as backend servers, desktop apps on Windows and macOS, and mobile apps on Android and iOS.

2016

Moving to Canada

As much as I loved the organization I spent 12 years building almost from scratch, I decided to move to a different country and open myself to new experiences and challenges.

2013
2013

VP of Engineering @TPC

After successfully transitioning TPC offerings to a complete SaaS model, I became the leader of the whole Engineering organization.

2010
2010

MBA

Joined the MBA program to learn more about the business side of operations. The program helped me to understand different aspects of the company, such as finance, HR, planning, etc.

2008
2008

Engineering Manager @TPC

I had a lot of interest in management, and I got the opportunity to start my career as an Engineering Manager with one team. Over time my team grew, and I ended up in my Engineering Manager role with four teams.

2008

MSc. Computer Architecture

Got my last piece of formal education in Computer Engineering with a thesis on improving Neural Networks processing improvements

2005
2005

Software Engineer @TPC

After getting my BSc., I got my first full-time job as Software Engineer working on embedded software development. Later, I started some projects that helped the company move more into the SaaS model.

2005

BSc. Computer Engineering

Got my BSc with a thesis on improving Genetic Algorithms processing to solve hard problems more efficiently

2003
2003

Software Engineer Intern @TPC

Started my internship and a later part-time job as Software Engineer in TPC. Mostly focused on embedded Java development.

2000
2000

Started College

Started my journey in Tech by going to college and study Computer Engineering