Alumni Spotlight: Asfandyar Khan

Asfandyar Khan was a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government Innovation Fellow during the Fellowship’s second cycle in 2015 and worked with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Technology Board to develop a file automation system, which helped to improve the efficiency of the department by minimizing time and effort involved. He recently moved to Germany after accepting an offer to work at 1&1 Ionos, Europe’s largest web hosting company. Here, he talks to us about his journey since graduating from the Fellowship program and the invaluable tools and skills he learned during his time as a Fellow.

Asfand has a Bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering from the Institute of Business and Management Sciences in Peshawar. During his fourth semester, he completed an internship with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Technology Board (KPITB). When he applied for the six-month Fellowship program, while still in the seventh semester of his undergraduate degree, his past experience with the KPITB, as well as the program’s affiliation with Code for America, the Code for All network and the World Bank, were a big draw for him.

After joining the Fellowship program, Asfand says he realized that, according to the international market, he was working with outdated technologies like PHP and JQuery. Here he was introduced to emerging trends, tools and technologies like Angular, React and Node. “I would not be where I am today if I had not been part of the Fellowship Program, and learnt new tech stacks. Currently, I am working in React and Node, tools I learned during the Fellowship,” he said.

Moreover, in addition to sharpening his coding skills, he also credits his post-Fellowship professional success to the methodologies and practices he learned regarding project and product management, communication skills, how to work with government, design thinking, Agile software development, Scrum, the use of collaboration tools like Slack and Google Docs, and technical skills such as analytics, crashlytics, using real-time databases, UI/UX, and much more.

After graduating from the Fellowship Program, Asfand was hired by the BroadPeak Technologies in Islamabad, where he worked on Edible Arrangements (ediblearrangements.com) and was instrumental in a revamp of their website. He then moved on to working for various US companies as a remote contractor, and his work for Truebase, which was using 1&1 IONOS services, led him to eventually securing a job with 1&1 IONOS. They sponsored his visa to come to Germany, and he is now excited to be a part of a diverse team, learning about best coding practices and also different people and cultures.

Since graduating from the Fellowship program, he has been paying it forward and returned to mentor a new cycle of Fellows in October 2018. His advice for current Fellows, and to other students and young professionals, is to contribute actively to open-source platforms to hone and improve their coding skills. “Build your own projects, engage with other users, respond to their queries, build your profile and keep working on your own projects on platforms like GitHub and Stack Overflow,” he said.

However, having said that, to excel in any field, he says, it is just as important, if not more, for them to learn and develop a diverse skill set outside of their direct field of study/work. “Coding is one part of the job. Other skills like project and product management, methodologies like Agile and scrum, and good communication skills are what helps you advance in your career.”

We are thrilled that Code for Pakistan had a part to play in Asfandyar’s journey and can’t wait to see what he achieves and accomplishes next.