Employee Spotlight: Mohammed Laachir’s Story

This content originally appeared on Freedom Scientific Blog and was authored by Shelly Klure

Our monthly Employee Spotlight series is all about bringing you closer to the people behind the products at Vispero. This month, we’re staying in The Netherlands as we shine the spotlight on Mohammed Laachir, Product Owner at Vispero.

Mohammed began his journey with JAWS seven years ago as a screen reader user and for the past five years he has had a direct impact on features such as FSCompanion and Picture Smart AI.

We chatted with Mohammed to learn how he got started at Vispero, what accomplishment he is most proud of, and what unique talent is a party favorite.

Q&A with Mohammed

How long have you been with Vispero?

ML: I’ve been with Vispero for five years. I started out in the US Office, and I work from The Netherlands now.

What was your title/role when you started and what is it now?

ML: I started as a Software Engineer, working on JAWS. Now I’m what they call a Product Owner. A Product Owner sets the priority for the issues the team needs to work on. Essentially, I decide when what gets worked on in conjunction with the Product Manager. I do this for three of our teams.

What initially drew you to your field, and how has that passion evolved over time?

ML: What drew me to my field were practical considerations. I was low vision, and I could make the content on the computer screen as big as I wanted. That made working with computers very easy, and I thought that, if I was going to work with computers, I might as well learn everything about them. Additionally, if my vision ever got worse, I could customize the computer further with things like speech.

Looking back at your career so far, what accomplishment are you most proud of?

ML: Picking myself up so quickly after losing my vision is my biggest professional triumph. In addition, I get to define and work on a lot of the AI features in our products. That is very satisfying, the amount of progress we’ve been able to make is absolutely astounding.

What recent accomplishment at work has you feeling most energized?

ML: Getting features like FSCompanion and Picture Smart AI out the door. The positive feedback reminds me of why I’m doing this job. It shows the real impact we have on people’s lives.

Have you ever had to learn a new skill quickly to meet project demands? How did you manage?

ML: I’m going back here again to the time I went blind, as that is the time I needed to adjust most quickly. I was a visually oriented person before losing my vision, even though I didn’t have much vision at all. I basically didn’t use speech outside of my iPhone. Needing to learn to use a screen reader efficiently in a short time was challenging but also exhilarating. It gave me the confidence to move forward with other adjustments I needed to make. The project demands hadn’t changed, but the way I needed to meet those demands certainly had.

What’s your strategy for staying motivated during challenging times?

ML: I thrive on challenging times. Having to stretch yourself to get things done leads to growth. I remind myself of that fact every day those challenging times last.

What are you most passionate about outside of work?

ML: Reading, definitely reading. I don’t do nearly enough of it, but I cherish the times I can sit down with a good book.

Do you have any hidden talents or unique hobbies? Share them with us!

ML: I don’t know how hidden this is, I think anyone who knows me personally knows this, but I can imitate accents very well, especially if I’ve had some time to practice.  I can also imitate people. Always a hit in large gatherings.

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

ML: I love travel, especially to historical sights, though I enjoy lazy beach holidays as well. There are so many places to go to still. Greece, places in Italy, Spain, the Arabian Peninsula. I’ve been to parts of those, but definitely not everywhere, and not at all yet in Greece. If I had to pick, though, it would probably be a place that’s very hard and dangerous to visit – though I have to be careful, you didn’t promise I’d return alive – probably places the Levant and Iran to see old Roman and old Persian ruins, as well as things like the medieval assassin’s fortress. I wouldn’t undertake a trip like that for now due to obvious reasons, but if I could pick without consequences that would be it.

What’s your favorite aspect of our company culture?

ML: Our customer focus. It’s clear to me that every single person in our company loves building solutions for people with visual impairments.

What advice would you give to someone new starting at our company?

ML: Be curious. We serve a lot of people with varying degrees of vision. Everyone needs and is best served with a different solution. Try to come up and craft a solution that is flexible enough to help the biggest set of our customers.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

ML: Growing up with a vision impairment, you spend a lot of time trying to get out from under the tyranny of low expectations. One of the lessons I learned growing up was that, if you don’t point out your accomplishments, your low vision will always be the first thing people latch on to. The advice was to think a bit more intentionally about my presentation. Sometimes tooting your own horn is the right thing to do. Sometimes though, quiet competence is the right way to impress.

What historical event or invention fascinates you the most?

ML: O, how many pages can I use? If I had to pick one event, it would be the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Here was an institution that stood for thousands of years, gone all of a sudden. How did the people feel about this? I suspect not much changed in their daily lives, but how aware were people of what was going on?

You have a time machine! Would you travel to the past or the future, and why?

ML: If I had to pick, it’d be the future. I can read about the past, but the future is all speculation. We’re living in very interesting times, and I’d love to see how things turn out. Besides, at least there’s no chance of me inadvertently causing my parents to never meet.

Mohammed shares this story in-depth on LinkedIn in the article When the Lights go out: An account of Vision Loss.

This content originally appeared on Freedom Scientific Blog and was authored by Shelly Klure