Yasmine Bencheqroun

About Me

Software Engineer 2 for Microsoft Azure Government,

University of Maryland, College Park

B.S. in Computer Science

Minor in Technology Entrepreneurship

Masters in Business Administration: University of Maryland Global Campus

Email: yasbencheq@gmail.com

"As a Computer Scientist and aspiring leading woman in technology, my ambitions lie in software development, technical entrepreneurship , and technical program management. I intend to combine my devotion to social impact and my passion for technology to empower communities in need."

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Adventures/Projects

Microsoft Education

~ After developing web applications in the Azure Government sector at Microsoft for two years, I discovered a phenomenal opportunity to pursue the educational sector. Microsoft Teams offers an array of educational tools for students and teachers to strengthen student reading skills in several languages, including Reading Progress, Reading Coach, and Immersive Reader. I'm so excited to be developing features for this impactful and meaningful initiative!

Aloha Hawaii!

~ My first trip while working as a full time employee at Microsoft was this Summer 2021 in Hawaii, where I visited the islands of Oahu and Kauai. There were so many activities to safely do, including cliff jumping, ATV driving, and hiking. The most meaningful opportunities were chances to safely engage with many locals, to better understand their living situations and support their small businesses throughout Hawaii. Mahalo, Hawaii.

Online MBA at UMGC!

~ As my experiences at Microsoft teach me new perspectives about my field, I decided that I'd like to learn more about business administration, finance, economics, and marketing by enrolling in the University of Maryland Global Campus' Online MBA program! This will hopefully complement my technical skills for future endeavors, including starting a business or a non-profit.

From a PM to a Software Engineer!

~ During the COVID-19 outbreak, I had been exploring opportunities throughout the company and had realized that I wasn't giving myself the opportunity to explore my technical skills (programming) as much as I'd like. After spending the past year as a Program Manager on the Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) team, I transfered over to the Azure Government team in Reston, VA. Microsoft gave me the opportunity to still pursue the career path that I had been aiming for while also working closer to my family and friends. Though I will always cherish the unforgettable memories on the WVD team which enabled me to grow, I am excited to learn more about the world of Azure and it's multitude of services.

Citrix Summit 2020!

~ I was invited to the Citrix Summit in Orlando, Florida to highlight the value in integrating Citrix technologies with Windows Virtual Desktop! You can find my video illustrating my experience on my YouTube very soon. It was my first work-related trip and it ended up being a great learning experience for me. I was able to experience practicing my understanding of the product I work on by sharpening my delivery of my messages. On top of that, I was fortunate enough to explore the Universal Studios park and visit the wizarding world of Harry Potter. :)

Microsoft Aspire!

~ Microsoft's new program called Aspire, is a two-year program designed for university hires to engage in keynote events, networking activities, and immersive reflective exercises. There is already such a steep learning curve of working at such a broadly impactful company. However, this first three-day experience with the Aspire program changed my perspective and provided countless opportunities to make many friends, reshape my perception on the best version of myself, and ultimately feel revitalized. We were lucky enough to engage in keynote speakers including Chris Capossela, Padma Warrior, Vinh Giang, and Dawwna St. Louis. Interestingly enough, it reminded me that in order to improve the world, we must always improve ourselves. Thank you Microsoft!

Global Technology Access Nonprofit - Uganda !

~ A video for this non-profit can be found here! My biggest ongoing journey is to find ways to bridge my passion for tech to my devotion to humanitarian relief, regardless of the cause. I was fortunate enough to come across the Global Technology Access foundation which is a non-profit organization started by Microsoft employees. It aims to provide areas lacking access to technology with the ability to enable students with technical outlets (computer labs that run Microsoft's Multipoint Server and other software tools) for educational purposes. Though I just began contributing to this organization, any donations would go directly to the students in various schools around Uganda. We hope to further expand our impact in the near future.

Officially a Microsoftie!

~ You can check out my trip to Seattle here! After traveling throughout the summer, I officially moved into my apartment in Seattle, Washington on August 2nd, 2019. I officially started as a Full Time Program Manager (PM) at Microsoft soon after, on the rapidly successful Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) team! It's been an enriching and challenging experience so far to be adjusting to the transition that a move entails, the role of a PM, and a new environment, but I'm sure it will all come together soon. I'm surely motivated to take ownership of some features soon enough, so let's see where that'll take me. #MicrosoftLife !

Two Weeks in Europe!

~ Check out the video here! To explore unknown areas and expose myself to a range of cultures, I headed off to Europe for two weeks. The countries I visited included England, Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal. In England, I spent most of my time in Canterbury, Kent where I explored the Dover area, visited the White Cliffs, and indulged in the rich history and medieval climate of Canterbury. I later flew to Switzerland in Geneva (Note: my wallet did not enjoy this part of the trip). I was able to visit Mont Salève on the border of France and Switzerland and I also experienced a thrilling roadtrip to Brienz. I can't count the number of times I pulled over during the roaptrip to appreciate the breathtaking views that the Swiss country side has to offer. The valleys, mountains, and plateaus went on for what felt infinite. Despite the partly cloudy atmosphere, the stellar blueness of the lakes remained untainted by the lack of direct sunlight. It was also fascinating to experience the transition from French speaking areas to German-populated regions. I then flew over to Barcelona where I immersed myself in Gaudi's mesmerizing artistic representation of the Catholic religion, wandered the endless streets of the Gothic Quarter and Las Ramblas, and kicked back at the Barceloneta. I just had to take advantage of the most fresh and mouth-watering seafood, tapas, and deserts! Finally, I flew into Lisboa, Portugal where I immediately hopped on a train to Lagos. Although not technically on the Mediteranean sea, the Algarve coast contains some of the most captivating rock formations and endlessly blue water known to man on each beach hop. Each rock came with it's own individualized legend that keeps a visitor simply imagining. The blue and green water glistened against the sunlight but beware -- the water is FRIGID! After touring the tiny streets of the beach city of Lagos, I took a train back up to Lisbon where I visited the main city center, ate at local cafes, enjoyed the fresh gelato, and spoiled myself with the beautiful city views around the sunset hours. Last but not least, I took a train over to the castle-filled city of Sintra where I explored the secret passages throughout the Quinta da Regaleira and connected with the bountiful history of the Moors at the Castle of the Moors.

Graduation!

~ After four years at the University of Maryland, College Park, I graduated with my Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and a minor in Technology Entrepreneurship. Without a stellar support system and the everlasting motivation that I had to cultivate, I would not have made it this far. Microsoft, I'm ready for you. #GoTerps!

End of Fannie Mae!

~ Throughout my internship period at Fannie Mae in Reston, VA, I was given the stellar opportunity to work directly in the field of Data Science! Using AWS technologies (S3, EMR, Spark), and Java, I was able to contribute to the Enterprise Data Infrastructure's project, the Enterprise Data Lake (EDL). I tested/debugged software, created onboarding documentation using Confluence, created/monitored stories using JIRA, attended daily standups, and also participated in workshops throughout the company. I was able to truly experience a large portion of the project life cycle and Agile Development as a whole. It was definitely a vital experience for me to improve my Software Engineering skills as a future PM, and may open up some doors for future employment opportunities. Unfortunately, I am not able to post any of my source code or documentation on my github due to Fannie Mae's privacy policies. Nonetheless, thank you so much Fannie Mae!

Bitcamp 2018!

~ Since I had never been to a hackathon before, I decided to participate in UMD's Bitcamp! I formed a group of 4 and tried to mess around with Unity to make a skiing game. Although I didn't entirely finish, it was a lot of fun and a great experience. I also got an opportunity to speak to multiple companies, including Microsoft and Fannie Mae.

Microsoft Azure Developer Tour!

~ I received an email invitation from Microsoft to attend their Azure Developer Tour in Washington, DC, which was to be held on April 6th as an all day workshop. I, being a little Microsoft fanatic, decided to ask a couple friends who may have been interested, and go learn about their cloud computing platform. We were fortunate enough to experience various keynote speeches that were heavily informative. They walked us through a lot of the introductory concepts of how to use Visual Studio, Microsoft Azure (through portal and git), AI/ML tips and tricks, and much more! Time was limited but it was definitely a fun experience and only boosted my passion to learn more and more about the company's consistently developing technologies.

Landing a Software Engineering Internship with Fannie Mae!

~ After not getting into Microsoft's PM Internship Program with CSE, I decided I needed to brush it off, spruce up my resume, and get more experience. After all, I was not just going to give up. So I applied to numerous companies and went through interviews, some with Facebook, and Buzzfeed. However, no luck. After tirelessly searching, I stopped by the Fannie Mae booth in UMD's CSIC lobby and learned about their desire to hire CS students who were passionate about being a part of the project life cycle as a whole. So, I decided to apply. After being called in for first round reviews, I was made an offer for the Summer of 2018! I'll be working alongside a team in Enterprise Data Infrastructure (EDI) where I'll be exposed to AWS technologies, and other platforms such as Informatica and Spark. I will post up my progress as allowed by the company, on my github!

My first official PM Intern experience at IBBR!

~ Since I really want to get acquainted with the Project Management atmosphere, I decided to take on a part time position with IBBR during the Spring 2018 semester and help my supervisor plan a future project. This web project involves rebuilding the entire IBBR site from depending on the Drupal PHP framework to the Laravel PHP framework. In addition to completing some web development tasks, I've been spending the semester organizing components of the website already in place and planning out how the website will be structured on Laravel. This involves heavy consideration of resource allocation, including assigning tasks/subtasks to developers working on the project, and also formatting the flow of the intended flow of the project. Technologies used include basic Microsoft office programs (for creating flow charts and noted documents) and also Microsoft Project (2016) to create a Gantt chart! This can all be found soon on my github!

First Unity Car Scene!

~ After messing around with Unity, I was able to complete some C# scripts and create a functional car that moves with a joystick on a terrain with a lot of realistic features! I built it to an iOS device and will hopefully update it so that it moves with an accelerometer. Some of my project can be found on my github!

UMPD Project with Data Science!

~ I successfully completed a course at UMD called, CMSC320 or Data Science, where we primarily studied the Data Life Cycle. At the end of the semester, we were assigned a final tutorial project where we'd work in groups to decide on a dataset to analyze. The best part of it was that we were to apply the concepts we learned from the life cycle, including data tidying/wrangling techniques, data visualizations and even Machine Learning concepts (i.e linear/logistic/polynomial regression models) to our analysis. We decided to observe and analyze University of Maryland's Police Department's Crime Data from 2013 to 2017 because we believed it could act as an informative analysis that could potentially better improve UMD's public safety. We will probably expand upon it even more later. You can find our analysis on my github or directly at ybencheq.github.io!

Independent Study - VR and Google Cardboard!

~ For the Spring of 2018 semester, I met with Human and Computer Interaction expert, Professor Vibha Sazawal, and we discussed our plan to experiment with Virtual Reality in mobile games and its effects on asthenopia, which is visual fatigue/eye strain. This requires two parts: being a developer and VR gaming enthusiast, while also being a scientist conducting an experiment on participants. We are hoping to conduct extensive research on previous experiments revolving around the concept of intermittent stereoscopy (changing depth on 3D images) and how it could potentially alleviate eye-strain symptoms. We will create some small games for an experiment we are hoping to conduct by the end of the semester using Google Cardboard, Unity, C#, and Android smartphones. I've already started experimenting with VR and C# scripting. Check it out on my github!

Microsoft Final Round Interviews!

~ I decided to visit UMD's career fair one more time and happily spoke to a PM from Microsoft who invited me out to coffee! Afterwards, I was invited to first and second/final round interviews. I flew out to Seattle in the middle of November and had the experience of my life. I was fortunate to meet new people and expose myself to an entirely different world: the real world. Although, I didn't get the internship, I experienced the best opportunity to learn and grow as an innovator and aspiring PM. From here on out, I definitely realized how much of an honor it would be to work for them. Thank you so much Microsoft!

Drupal -> Laravel Project!

~ As a returning student intern at the IBBR for the Summer of 2017, I was granted the opportunity to discover my passion for technology in ways beyond standard software development. This time, I took on the role of an IT Desk Technician and a Web Developer. I was able to assist many throughout the institute with their technical struggles as well as engage myself in a large and extensive project involving the transformation of the entire website from the Drupal Framework to the Laravel Framework. I worked with Laravel's Vagrant Virtual Machine and Homestead to experiment with how we would establish the permissions/roles structure of the Institute's employees if we transitioned to the Laravel framework. Some of this can be found on my github. Not to mention, I also was able to reunite with those who always have and continue to make my experiences in this field worthwhile. :)

Microsoft Tuition Scholarship!

~ In the middle of my Spring 2017 semester, I received an email from the Microsoft Corporation claiming that they were intrigued by my compelling story as a female CS student and that they were pleased to announce that I was a scholarship recipient for the 2017-2018 school year! It makes me really consider all the potential opportunities for employment and all the neat possibilities out there. Thank you Microsoft!

Learning new Languages!

~ I have now encountered a new and more fast-paced course throughout my 4th semester here at UMD: CMSC330. Unlike other courses, this class requires a constant progression and focused mindset when doing exactly what it entails: exploring the 'organization of Programming Languages'. We are set to learn three main languages, a Functional Programming language Ocaml, An OOP language Ruby, and a Logic based language, Prolog. So far we've learned Ruby (my favorite) and Ocaml. Onto the last one we go!

Declaring a Minor!

~ As the past couple years of school continued, I realized I wanted to do a lot more than just develop software. After consistent reflection, I started to analyze upon my passions and began forming a vision of what my purpose should be. I struggled a lot to complete my third semester at UMD so I began searching for my true motivation. I came across a course called ENES140 (aka the 'easy breezy' course that every student enrolls in for an easily suitable 3 credit course). Don't get me wrong, that was the most appealing part to me at first, too. Yet as soon as online lectures began, there were special "guest speakers" on broadcasts such as Ted Talk, that really displayed how technology is touching the real world. I was instantly captivated by how technology and the business sector combined and it finally occurred to me that it was due to one simple thing: innovation. That's when I realized that I wanted to innovate, to develop and create but for a purpose. As time continued, I felt a vision form. I wanted and currently want to help people. From every experience I encounter, I know that no matter what happens, I want to do exactly what it is that people may not really expect which is to use my funding, software, and organizations to help. Then I officially declared my Minor in Technology Entrepreneurship with MTech/UMD.

Completing my third semester at UMD!

~ Finally, after a long and extremely tedious semester, I successfully completed my third and one of my hardest semesters at UMD so far as a Computer Science major. It definitely was not easy; I struggled to the point where I second guessed my passion and even doubted myself. This was the first semester I had to tackle two Computer classes at the same time which was definitely a challenge. But it was for sure worth every drop of sweat. The two classes I completed were "Introduction to Computer Systems" and "Discrete Mathematics". Off to 2017 and hopefully whatever good luck it has to bring me!

Inventory Scanning Project!

~ After approximately one month of tedious brainstorming, programming, and management, I successfully completed a project that was assigned to me as my first official development task. This project's objective was to design a program that would allow facilities personnel across the institute to scan hundreds of items and keep track of their information in a large database in the system. This project required the usage of the Drupal Interface, Linux command line, the creation of two PHP custom modules for the back-end, and the usage of JavaScript/HTML/CSS for the front-end. This experience was vital for me as a programmer and an aspiring Program Manager because this is exactly when I realized that technical PM was my passion. I came across many technological problems that can be seen in the project documentation. You can also view my instructional guide on how to utilize the actual module/barcode scanner. Source code should be posted on my github!

Being offered my first internship!

~ Following my first official tech interview, I successfully earned an internship opportunity with the Institute of Biosciences and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) with the Universities at Shady Grove for the Summer of 2016! I am so excited to have the opportunity to have exposure so many new topics such as the PHP and Drupal technology, while also solidifying my knowledge of Java and JavaScript.solidifying

They... want to talk to me?

~ After being so busy all Spring 2016 semester, I was finally able to allow myself to experience my first Tech talks and speak with actual representatives from Google, Geico, Facebook, Booz Allen Hamilton and much more! The University of Maryland's Computer Science department generously provides students with opportunities to really get involved and learn more about the tech industry as a whole! New and exciting...

New people, here I come!

~ I was fortunate enough to get to know my Academic Advisor and CMSC100 teacher, Amy Vaillancourt. She has and continues to be a vital mentor in my development as a Computer Scientist.

Winter job!

~ I was hired by the Macy's department store which was definitely a great way to spend my winter break by making some money on the side and gaining a retail/sales experience.

Admin of class Facebook group!

~ September 20th, 2015; I spoke to lectures about the Association for Women in Computing to promote a sense of community within students and inform them of the Facebook group. If you're logged into Facebook, you can access the link here or just search for "AWC CMSC132 Spring2016".

First CS Internship Fair!

~ September 17th, 2015; It was such a nerve racking yet fulfilling experience since others around me were so experienced and ready to enter the work force. But the information I received from my exposure to small and large companies was so valuable and definitely worth my time.

From My Eyes to Yours...

Contact

Feel free to send me a message!