Hi Mark! Great to get to talk with you a bit today. Tell us a bit about yourself?

I’m Mark Mwangi, I was born in Nairobi, Kenya but I moved to Arizona in 2007. I graduated from ASU in December 2021 with a Bachelor’s degree in Informatics and now I’m a Full-Stack Engineer with Sibi.

Outside of work, I really love hiking (and anything outdoors), weight lifting, and I recently started practicing Jiu Jitsu — it’s a lot of fun just getting to throw people around on the mat.

I like to travel as well, just a few weeks ago I took a trip up to Sedona just to get away for the weekend and get outside in the beauty of Arizona nature.

Growing up, did you always want to be a Software Engineer or what were your other career interests?

Yeah, so growing up, Engineering was always something that interested me, however, it wasn’t until later that I started to hone into a specific discipline. In my Junior year of high school, I was able to shadow an intern at a Software company in town and I really loved the culture and the environment there. Everyone was super collaborative, friendly, and most importantly, no one seemed stressed-out. It was a fun working environment where people were relaxed but still worked hard — that kind of cemented wanting to become a Software Engineer.

Originally, when I started college, I was more interested in learning about Game Development and I kind of assumed that Web Development was boring and wasn’t as interesting as some of the other Software Development disciplines. It wasn’t until my Sophomore year that I started dabbling in Web Development in my free time and realized it was a lot of fun and have been working in this world ever since.

And now you’re here at Sibi! What’s the story on how you get here?

I was actually at a birthday party where I was introduced to Tony (Sibi’s Head of Product) and Tony told me about his time at Sibi and what they were working on building. It sounded pretty interesting and Tony mentioned they were hiring for Full-Stack Engineering interns and I decided to apply and got the position. And yeah, as it happens, that was 3 years ago this coming Saturday.

As an intern I got to work on a little bit of everything — built some dashboards, learned a ton from the other engineers, and even spent time soldering boards with the IoT team. 2020 was really the year that I felt myself grow substantially as an engineer and looking back, everything was moving so fast and even though I was still an intern, I was able to accomplish a ton just because I had so much support around me. It’s nice to be able to look back at something we built from an idea a few years ago and now, it’s a crucial part of the day to day business.

What makes Sibi a good place to work? What are some of the the things about our culture that you value?

The fact that regardless of anyone’s position here, everyone is approachable. There isn’t anything I feel like I can’t say to someone and if I disagree with something, I can disagree without any fear. I feel it’s always been “Us vs the Problem” rather than “Us vs Us.”

I also enjoy the amount of freedom I’m given at Sibi. We definitely have goals that we’re working towards but for the most part I have a lot of freedom in choosing what I want to work on and I have people to talk to about things that are outside of daily work — like where I want to take my career in the future. I feel like there’s a focus on growth and an emphasis on helping me stay on the trajectory that I need to be on in order to hit the goals I want to hit.

Okay and now something fun — What’s one food that you just can’t resist?

Believe it or not, I’m a fiend for donuts, it’s honestly getting to be pretty bad. My favorite donut has to be a PB&J flavor from Hurts Donut in Tempe, AZ but really I’m a fan of any kind.

P.S. We are currently hiring for a number of roles. You should apply!