I am Mamoona Aslam and I am currently working as a Cloud Architect at ndaal GmbH. I started my journey in the field of electronics, in which I got my engineering degree and subsequently worked as a Design Engineer in a semiconductor company from California. It took me a couple of years before I decided to move to Germany and got a Master’s degree in Communication Systems & Networks. Here, I dwelled into the world of software with several projects during my studies, which built my foundation, and introduced me to the world of Linux and containers. Throughout my studies, I worked as a research intern in a Research Organization and an Automotive company, the latter where I also did my Master’s Thesis. When I joined ndaal Gmbh as a software engineer in 2021, I not only polished the skills I had already acquired, but also got introduced to several dimensions of the IT stack such as Databases, Orchestrators and CI/CD pipelines to name a few. At ndaal, I got the chance to spread my wings by working on a variety of projects. Soon, I made myself as the goto person for all Automation related queries as I added the Ansible and Pulumi/Terraform into my toolkit. Additionally, I spearheaded the topic of Secret Management, and soon I was able to obtain Associate HashiCorp certification in both Vault and Terraform. With time, I rose to the rank of Cloud Architect and have been working with various clients in migrating and providing solutions for AWS/Azure cloud. This hasn’t filled my hunger, and I am working to include ML/AI-Ops in my toolkit to better prepare for the future.
As those who rose from a non computer science background to the software industry, likeness/dislikes were decided for me long before I became aware of them. An engineering background prompted me to look at practicality of things rather than just theoretical ideas. I like to tinker with systems and how they work, and trying out different configurations and figuring out vulnerabilities. I like to automate various aspects of the workflow, even manual steps of configuration that needs to be done once, I would rather do them in a repeatable idempotent manner.
This now reflects what I dislike. Like all automation freaks, I try to avoid toil at all costs. If some task is worth repeating, it is worth automating, so any repetition (unless it’s really unavoidable) looks like a burden to me. Similarly, I despise Micromanagement. Leading a team and working under a leadership, both have taught me that trusting your colleagues with their ability to do the job is the cornerstone to have a working relationship.
To summarize, I am a problem solver and take on challenging tasks and figuring out uncharted solutions. I am also a big proponent of Open Source and often silently contributes through testing and feedback, even if I am not actively developing.
Outside work, I have several cats who, instead of keeping each other company, demand full affection from me separately. Not to mention having an orange one in the bunch, there is some level of uncertainty on how much havoc I find when I get off work. I also like traveling and enjoying an evening out in the city and exploring Museums, historical/cultural landmarks. I adore Music and can’t spend a day without listening to my favorite playlist. In essence, life outside my professional commitments is a delightful blend of feline companionship, exploration, and the soothing rhythms of music.
