UNOPS, Anbar

The work was part of a reconstruction program for families displaced by the conflict.

From August 2022 to August 2023, I worked as a BIM consultant on the UNOPS housing reconstruction program in Anbar, Iraq. The program covered around 1,500 homes. My responsibilities connected the drawings and models to the contractors, budget and delivery schedule, under the conditions we found on site.

A model was only useful if it matched the work on site.

I led four architects and six engineers, alongside the contractors, suppliers and others involved in the program. Each group needed a different kind of support. With the architects, I reviewed drawings and kept a consistent standard. With the engineers, I used a shared model, schedule and list of open issues to coordinate the work.

Keeping the budget and schedule visible helped the team understand what we were working toward. Defining what finished meant for each trade before work started was just as important. I learned to listen to the people doing the building, because they could see problems in a plan that were easy to miss on a screen. Leading the work meant making things clear and following through.

I kept writing code at night and on weekends throughout the contract, and joined my first software engineering role at a startup before it ended. I was moving into a different field, but I brought the experience of working with a team, coordinating a plan and taking responsibility for the result. That experience still shapes how I work with engineers today.