Architecture

My early work included studying and interning, a parking structure modelled in Revit, and learning from the documents and tenders for the new Central Bank of Iraq headquarters. At Al-Riyad Group, I worked on a modular showroom system that was used across nine showrooms.

At Mutaa Al-Hashimi, I managed and delivered more than 65 projects and led three architects through more than twenty projects. Later, at UNOPS, I led four architects and six engineers on the Anbar reconstruction program. Alongside the drawings and models, I was working with contractors, budgets and delivery schedules. Those responsibilities taught me to keep the plan clear and deal with problems before they held up the people doing the work.

The repetitive parts of architecture were what first pulled me towards coding. At Mutaa, scripts for schedules and legends saved a working day on each project. I also wrote a script that opened files and sent them to print, with a Telegram notification if the printer failed. I also taught three colleagues to write their own scripts, so automation became something the team could use rather than something only I could do.

For my master's thesis, I worked on bringing Revit building models to the web. That became HAWSR, where architecture and programming came together.

When I joined UNOPS, I kept practising architecture. I still saw myself as an architect while learning to code at nights and weekends. I also built automations for repetitive work there. They continued the pattern I had started at Mutaa, but the work was more involved and required more coding.

That overlap made my move into software gradual. After my UNOPS contract ended, I joined a startup in an engineering role. Software had become the work I wanted to keep doing.

Architecture gave me practical ways to organise work that I still use when building software. A brief and a sketch help me understand the problem before I start. Coordination means agreeing how the different parts fit together, then checking that everyone is building towards the same thing.

1. 01

   Keep decisions with the work

   At UNOPS, I moved site engineers from phone calls to BIM 360. It cut calls by about 75% and gave everyone a shared place to track issues and decisions. That experience showed me how written, shared channels can keep a team aligned without another meeting.

2. 02

   Review before it becomes expensive

   I once found a problem 24 hours before a project started and reworked it in time. The potential cost was around $80,000. That experience is a good reason to make time for review, whether I'm looking at a building model or a software change.