Keeping Up with the Kineticans: Irina Farooq

Welcome to “Keeping up with the Kineticans”, a casual interview series where we talk with some of our awesome teammates about life at Kinetica, their careers, and more. In this interview, I talked with Irina Farooq, our chief product officer. You can follow her on Twitter @IrinaFarooq. Irina’s interview is one of three special interviews for International Women’s Day. Check out Dipti and Solongo’s interviews too!

How did your career path lead you to Kinetica?

I’ve always focused on product management for enterprise software companies. I came to Kinetica because of how transformative this technology is and the opportunity to help establish Kinetica as a household software brand.

What is it that you enjoy most about working at Kinetica?

What I enjoy most about working at Kinetica is our incredibly talented, collaborative team and the unmatched level of innovation.

What is something you recently accomplished in your position you’re proud of?

Building and designing a brand new product from scratch with a team of just a couple of engineers in a very short time.  The project of this magnitude would take years and multiple teams to build at other places.

What advice would you give to a woman considering the tech industry? What do you wish you had known?

Tech industry is not uniform.  There are some phenomenal places to work and others that are not so great.  My advice is to be clear on your goals and your principles and to find your co-travelers – people and organizations who will respect you and be invested in your success.  Don’t settle for anything less.

Kimberly is on the People team at Kinetica.