This week, I published Lior Bar Yosef's #DevJourney story on my eponym Podcast: Software developer's Journey. Among many other things, here are my main personal takeaways:

• In Israel, students already chose a major in high-school. Lior chose computer-science after hearing a fascinating lecture from the head professor of the school she attended. She was both attracted by the tech itself and role modeling to attract more girls in our industry. In high-school, Lior already learned Assembly Language, games, C#, Java, history of languages.
• Lior was always a curious person. That's how she learned. And that is what attracted her to becoming a network analyst and working for the army in the intelligence force.
• At that time, the military service for women in Israel lasted for two years. Lior ended up extending her service for 2 more years. Due to her high-school computer science background, she was able to apply for different units of the intelligence force. She took many tests and ultimately chose the cyber analysts force. She had not learned how networks really function and was eager to learn this piece of the puzzle. As a Network Analyst, Lior focused on configuring network devices, building secure and protected networks, cybersecurity, etc.
• After a while, Lior enrolled in teaching the course she herself took. There, she discovered how much she loved teaching. But also how much she missed the "world of puzzles" of her day-job as an analyst. She refused the commander position she was offered and went back to a project as a lead analyst. As she puts it: "this was the best time that shaped me, shaped my tech knowledge, who I am and sharpened my skills; I was completely happy with my choice there, of continuing to be a network analyst." Retrospectively, Lior thinks that teaching really pushed her to verbalize what her definition of a stellar analyst was and what was needed for the job. That, coupled with her leadership role's added responsibility, made this time of her life so full of learning and growing.
• When I asked her what she took out of her time in the military, Lior said "the responsibility of knowing how much you can impact a process/project inspired me to continue having this impact in the industry." When she stepped out of the military, Lior wanted to have an impact. She was searching for a subject that would make her "want to read about it in her free time as well." And after many interviews, she found the company she currently works for, CyberMDX, which helps protect health institutions against cyber-threats. Please have a look at this white paper she wrote to better understand what she does.
• I asked Lior about the way she likes to learn. She said: "in our career; we face many unknowns and problems we don't know how to solve in the beginning. We have to work on our self-learning and solving skills." And then described how she likes to map out the scope of a question, the desired result upfront, and the consecutive questions leading to the goal.
• To assess the security posture of a hospital, Lior has to look both at a very high level and machine level. This combination sounds so interesting yet completely overwhelming to me.

Advice:

• "Talk to as many people as you can around you, and learn from others what they do to understand what interests you the most"

Quotes:

• "Find what sparks your interest and makes you want to read about it in your free time"
• "In our career, we are faced with a lot of unknowns and problems we don't know how to solve in the beginning. We have to work on our self-learning and solving skills"

Thanks, Lior, for sharing your story with us!

You can find the full episode and the show notes on devjourney.info or directly here on DEV

Did you listen to her story?

• What did you learn?
• What are your personal takeaways?
• What did you find particularly interesting?