Employee Highlight

Meet Hayfa: Breakout Social Impact Chair, Solutions Engineer

To honor Black History Month, we’re celebrating Black excellence and accomplishments in tech — starting with our teammates here at Tray.io. Learn more about solutions engineer Hayfa Awshan, her unplanned pivot from medicine to tech, the importance of intersecting identities, and her goals for Breakout, Tray’s Resource Group for Black employees.

Hayfa: Hello, my name is Hayfa. I am a Solutions Engineer at Tray, which essentially means that I help build connectors, which are the integral part of Tray. And I’ve been here for about just over a year — a year and a few months, but who’s counting?

Greer: Thanks for the intro, Hayfa! So, what’s your role as a member of the Breakout TRG (Tray Resource Group)?

H: I am the social impact chair, so my focus is on connecting our individual communities with Tray and the members of Breakout. Whether that be through events, or mentorship, or even connecting people within our own communities that might benefit from talking to someone from Breakout.

At the end of the day, our goal is to help get more people from diverse and Black backgrounds into tech.

So that’s what my focus is, which is nice because community based organizations are integral to my own journey into tech. And so I see it as doing my due diligence to give back to the same community that helped me.

G: That’s a perfect segue. Can you speak more to your journey to tech? I know you’ve written about it a bit already, but I’d love to hear more about those communities and any mentors that helped you get here.

H: So I studied biomedical science at University. I wanted to become a doctor and go through the medicine pathway. And then, I didn’t get in, so I had to do a bit of a pivot.

“Tech” is a buzzword, so I thought, “Okay, let me see what the hype is all about.”

I guess coming from a state school in inner-city London, tech was never really accessible or necessarily offered to me as a possibility. And so as a graduate, seeing this thing all around, this buzzword called “tech,” I didn’t really understand what it was all about.

So I thought I would just do some research, found out about coding, started learning how to code, and realised that this is really fun and really interesting.

So, essentially, I taught myself how to code, and I landed my first job at Tray. That’s the short version, but of course, I spent many months learning how to code.

G: I love your story. It’s awesome to hear stories where things didn’t work out the way that you thought that they would, but they end up maybe even better.

H: Yeah, 100%. I definitely do not regret my decision to come to tech. And if anything, my favourite thing about tech is the fact that you can combine any passions that you have.

I know I love people, and I know I love building things, and that could look different or apply to loads of different industries, but it can certainly apply to tech.

I guess I just realised that there is always more than one opportunity available for you.

G: Well, I’m very happy that you’re here, and I know other people are very happy that you’re here too.

So it’s Black History Month in the U.S., and I know it’s different in the U.K., but wanted to ask you: What does Black History Month mean to you?

H: I actually never really acknowledged or knew that there were two different Black History Months.

Obviously, I’m in my British bubble, so I wasn’t really aware of it. But the really cool thing about Tray having people both in the US and the UK is actually having members of Breakout across the globe and hearing stories about peoples’ different backgrounds within the Breakout group. I think that’s been my favourite thing about the month so far — just learning about different people’s cultures and histories.

People always talk about celebration of cultures in Black history, but I think the most important thing is education. Everyone can be educated in one way or the other because you will never know everything unless you’ve lived a million different lives.

G: You mentioned different backgrounds, so if you don’t mind sharing, what’s yours?

H: I am East African. I’m Somali. Both my parents are Somali immigrants who came and immigrated to the UK in the early nineties. I also grew up in inner city London, which I think is super diverse and really just a hot pot of cultures. So there were plenty of opportunities at school and in life, in general, growing up to be integrated with other people’s cultures and learn about them. It became quite normal.

Then again, being a Black woman, and also a Black Muslim woman, I had to understand the intersectionality of those identities. Obviously, everyone’s experiences are different, and for me it was important to just recognize that my experiences are different from others because of that intersection.

G: Have you found mentors or groups of people who have similar identities to you that you have found especially helpful?

H: Yeah, there are several communities that helped me as I was coming into tech. One of them being Coding Black Females, an incredible organisation that runs both in the US, and in the UK, and also internationally. They have events and courses, and a community where you can ask for help from people from all over tech. That group was integral to my entry into tech.

There is also Somalis in Tech who I’ve done hack-a-thons with. So there are organisations that I can relate to, which is always important to have when you’re navigating a new industry.

G: Awesome. Let’s talk a bit more about Breakout.

You started talking about making an impact outside of Tray, and I’d love for you to elaborate more on what your goals are for Breakout.

H: Internally I think everyone in the Breakout group would probably agree that our aim is to increase the amount of Black talent at Tray, because it is out there.

And also, for those that join, they know that they have a community within the larger Tray community, which is incredibly important when someone like me, for example, has a new job in a new industry and immediately has a sense of community. It doesn’t matter what level of seniority you are either, new hires are all embraced.

When I talk about mentoring and events, there is a ton of experience and knowledge that we can learn from each other, both within Breakout and the wider Tray organisation.

There are a lot of resources out there, but I know how valuable it is to have support from someone that looks like you, or can understand, or relate.

So, my number one objective would be strengthening ties: both within Breakout and also with external communities supporting Black people in tech.