Harjas Dogra

About me

I was born/grew up in: Born in New Delhi, India. Grew up in Mississauga, Ontario

I now live in: Mississauga, Ontario

I completed my training/education at: BComm. In Business Technology Management, Ryerson University

What I do at work

I customize software for clients. Each company has their own process and I work with them to make the software match their needs or create a better process. My work requires a lot of software designing, team building and guiding the team to deliver the result. To make decisions, I need to think through each piece of the puzzle. I try to come up with something that will not break existing software, and will provide the client what they are looking for.

My STEM background helps in my role as it has given me the base for understanding what people are asking for. It also helps me when I need to explain complex issues in simple terms. My team is fully remote (i.e., work from home). We connect using Skype or Microsoft Teams (web-conferencing). The team communicates in English.

My career path is

This is not what I expected I would be doing. I actually ended up in this field by accident. I had a friend I really wanted to work with, and he referred me to his company. I was always interested in technology. I wanted to create things that would help people, and will make our environment better. I was very involved in high school and university, always with people and trying to make the environment better. I also ran a business for a few years, which taught me that failure is a positive thing to build on.

I am motivated by

I enjoy solving complex problems, and making it easy to use by the end user. I am extremely keen to understand what the client does, and how we can improve it, to allow higher adoption, and get better data for decision-making. Overall, this helps create a positive culture in the client's environment.

This job is personally rewarding because I am helping massive corporations make the good decisions, with data at their fingertips. I love building programs and getting people involved. This role allows me to connect with people in the C suite, to understand and guide their process.

How I affect peoples’ lives

Building processes into the Environmental Health and Safety software allows me to understand how large organizations (20,000+) are working to prevent or reduce their negative impact on the world we live in. When people get hurt while working in a factory, they report that data to the platform that I work on. This helps organizations reduce the number of people injured.

Outside of work I

I play tennis. I enjoy working out and cooking new, fresh foods. I have the opportunity to travel (with work and personal), which has added lots to who I am as a person. I am a big fan of new experiences and cultures.

My advice to others

Take any opportunity that allows you to learn something new. Learn to learn quickly and help as many people as you can.