A Journey to Success
Yassi Shayesteh's story is one of transformation, both cultural and professional—from a dependent and idealistic young immigrant to an independent and successful professional woman in technology. At age 19, fresh out of high school in Morocco and full of dreams for a new life, she moved to the United States to pursue higher education and a career in computer science. Far from everything and everyone familiar, those early days as an international student were riddled with challenges—emotional, cultural, and linguistic. As a computer science student and later as an IT professional, she had to learn to how to not only survive, but thrive in a male-dominated, highly competitive industry.
In more recent years, transitioning from an individual contributor to leading people presented new and sometimes unanticipated obstacles to overcome. In this session, Yassi will share some key experiences that shaped her personal and professional self, including struggles, accomplishments, and self-actualization. Through her stories, you will hear how she aligned with people who fostered her confidence and provided insights that rounded her out professionally. She will share examples of how embracing her culture, background, experiences, and interests cultivated her personal brand. You will leave with a real-life example of how to stay true to your aspirations while managing workplace demands and garnering respect in a man’s workplace.
As Director of QE at Cvent, Yassi Shayesteh leads the company’s global quality engineering team. With more than ten years of IT experience focused on QA & Testing, Yassi has grown her team to 80 QE professionals, positioned on a few continents. Yassi joined Cvent as one of the earlier employees back when the company was a privately held start-up. Now on the NYSE and with 1,700+ employees, and recently acquired by Vista Equity Partners, one of the world’s largest technology investors. Over the years, Yassi has worn many hats and managed a variety of responsibilities including writing requirements and design documents, application support and testing front-end and back-end. She is also involved in initiatives including; mentoring, transitioning from Waterfall to Agile methodology, creating automation processes and advising on automation framework and tools. Recently, she has been involved in defining branching and deployment strategies; working across functional areas with DBAs, Application Support, DevOps, and Project Managers. Yassi has a B.S. in Computer Science from James Madison University and an M.S. in Computer Engineering from George Washington University and holds a PMP certification.