Business Landscape Interview

My journey with technology started at the age of five, even before I began elementary school, as I was fortunate to have access to a computer. My father, a mechanical engineer with programming experience, inspired my early interest. He worked with engineering programming to solve complex mathematical/computational problems and learned coding in an era when programs were written on cardboard punch cards.

The turning point for me was when I was eleven, and my father gave me a book to learn the Basic programming language. That experience sparked my passion for programming. By the time I was twelve, I was studying the first-year curriculum of the Computer Science Department at the University of Technology in Baghdad and learning the basics of web development on my own. After high school, I joined a small software development company before being offered a role at IQ Networks in Sulaymaniyah. At the time, IQ Networks was the largest ISP in Iraq.

I later worked in various industries, including Fintech (Zain Cash), software solutions, and telecom, all while pursuing my degree in Information Technology with a minor in Business Administration from the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS). While being a full-time student, I had to switch jobs often, which gave me valuable breadth of knowledge and esoteric insights into the job market, different industries, and various management styles. Looking back, this blend of work and study mimics the /Werkstudent/ ("working student") model in Germany, where students gain practical work experience alongside their education. It is a logical approach that equips individuals with both academic credentials and hands-on experience by the time they graduate.

During the first five years of my career, I worked as a freelancer, handling the technical side of different projects. The technology sector was still not mature in Iraq, and most projects were relatively primitive. I was drawn to the startup community for its low entry barrier and high-stakes, high-reward, and meritocratic nature. Startups often offer fast-tracked career development, and I took full advantage of that by devoting my early twenties to advancing my career. After several software engineering roles and senior-level positions, I transitioned into technical leadership and management. I transitioned to working in technical leadership and management, gaining experience holding multiple management positions, including serving as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Fedshi, a social commerce platform transforming the shopping experience in Iraq. Currently, I serve as the CTO of Digital Zone, the largest Iraqi e-commerce platform specializing in selling e-products. My journey has been shaped by intrinsic curiosity, ambition, and a desire to maximize impact by leveraging technology.

When evaluating the Iraqi workforce, the education system inevitably comes to mind. The educational system in Iraq is impractical and rigid and does not align with the demands of the modern job market. Many of the most successful people in the Iraqi tech field are self-taught, having developed their skills independently rather than through formal education.

Another major challenge we face is brain drain, which is the departure of educated or professional people from one country, economic sector, or field for another, usually for better pay or living conditions.” While brain drain is a global phenomenon, it is especially problematic in Iraq. This brain drain has occurred in several waves. The first wave was in 2010, when many tech professionals left Iraq for countries like the United States and Australia. Many of those individuals had worked in the telecommunication sector at companies like Iraqna Telecommunications and MTC Atheer.

The second wave took place in 2014 due to deteriorating security conditions and ISIS insurgency, and the most recent wave occurred in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. While many sectors struggled during the pandemic, the tech sector thrived, with rapid growth in areas like e-commerce, financial technology, educational technology, and delivery services. This global tech boom attracted international companies, which provided better opportunities and salaries, prompting many senior Iraqi tech professionals to leave the country. Therefore, the Iraqi job market is currently rich with junior programmers but runs dry when it comes to senior and staff-level engineers and practically empty when it comes to skilled tech leadership/management.

Tech skills, especially programming, are globally transferable skills, which exacerbates the issue. A programmer proficient in a programming language can immediately work anywhere in the world, making nationality and background irrelevant. As a result, Iraqi companies are forced to compete with global salaries to retain world-class talent—a difficult task, having a local revenue center yet a global cost center.

I believe the Iraqi government can play a crucial role by attracting global tech companies to establish a presence in Iraq. We see examples of this in Egypt, where Microsoft, Rackspace, and IBM operate, and in Jordan, where companies like HP, Dell, and Oracle have offices employing local talent. If Iraq could attract such companies, it would provide opportunities for local professionals to develop valuable technical and soft skills.

However, this approach is not without complications. While exposure to these global companies would provide world-class opportunities locally, it could also make these individuals more attractive to foreign employers, increasing the likelihood of them leaving Iraq for better opportunities abroad. It is not a simple, clean-cut solution, but it is a necessary step toward addressing the brain drain and developing a stronger tech ecosystem within Iraq.

The hiring process in tech companies differs significantly from that of other industries. Based on my experience with companies like Digital Zone and Fedshi, I deliberately separate the hiring process of the tech workforce from traditional interview processes led by the HR department. Given the fast-changing nature of the talent market, we adopted a fully objective, market-led, data-driven approach to ensure we align with market realities.

Therefore, we post job offers in a straightforward manner. Each offer includes the job description and responsibilities but intentionally excludes salary expectations. This allows us to test the market to see who applies and what skill sets they bring. During the selection process, we aggregate the salary expectations of all candidates and calculate averages and salary ranges, letting the talent market determine the appropriate salary range. Once we identify the most suitable candidates, the hiring decision is made on solid grounds, ensuring that compensation aligns with real market conditions.

From our experience, if a company aims to build advanced technology, an ambitious bar of quality, local market fitness, or delivery timelines, it must consider hiring globally. However, we always prioritize local talent and turn to the global market only if the necessary skills are unavailable locally.

If technology is the company’s core business or primary asset, it is essential to build tech capabilities in-house. Outsourcing in such cases is not a wise choice. Companies in sectors like e-commerce or financial technology, where technology forms the backbone of their business, are better off developing their tech in-house, as their value lies in their intellectual property and technology.

However, for companies that are not tech-focused and simply aim to leverage technology, outsourcing—whether locally or internationally—is usually the better option. There are several reasons for this.

First, software engineering is deep knowledge work, requiring a specialized working environment that many Iraqi companies are not set up to provide. Creating the right environment involves more than just hiring talent—it requires redesigning office spaces, updating work policies, improving benefits and packages, and providing the necessary equipment. Without these adjustments, it is more practical to outsource. Second, technology requires specialized management. The breadth and depth of technical expertise required to get meaningful results from a tech team make it challenging for non-technical managers. Without skilled technical leadership, outsourcing becomes the more viable option.

Ultimately, technology is a tool, not an end goal in itself. If a company’s core business model does not revolve around technology, it should avoid building in-house tech capabilities.

Hiring Iraqi freelancers eases communication, simplifies payments, and reduces a lot of the effort in explaining the local context and norms. But at the same time, it limits you to the talent available locally. For projects that require local context (e.g., content or right-to-left Arabic User Interfaces), Iraqi freelancers have a clear advantage. It is essential to highlight that outsourcing is about finding the right talents for specific deliverables. It cannot be employed to build a company’s team or culture.

In every job opportunity we announce, we prioritize hiring local talent. Since we are structured to work remotely, location is not a limiting factor, and we can hire from anywhere in Iraq. We have also instilled continuous learning as a core value of our tech team. The company fully sponsors learning resources, such as courses, articles, and tutorials, provided they align with our strategic goals. As part of our development cycle, we ensure that every team member is growing daily, reinforcing the idea that continuous learning is not just encouraged—it is essential to our success.

The single most impactful action we can take to improve the status quo is to align the education system with the demands of the job market. Currently, the system provides students with outdated skills that became obsolete decades ago. For example, the Artificial Intelligence department in Iraqi universities still teaches the Prolog programming language—a technology so outdated that most machine learning engineers have never heard of it, let alone used it. Beyond outdated curricula, the assessment processes are impractical and futile, to say the least, focusing more on memorization and theory than learning and practical application. Exacerbating the issue, some teaching staff lack the necessary qualifications for their academic roles. 

I believe that prior industry work experience is a realistic criterion for educational staff in applied fields.

Aligning the education system with market requirements would filter out outdated curricula, improve assessment methods, and raise the qualifications of teaching staff. A key part of this shift is implementing output-based assessments, focusing on what students can practically achieve rather than what they memorize.

Another critical issue is the imbalance between vocational training and higher education in Iraq. The ratio of vocational to academic graduates is skewed and irrational, which shows the lack of governmental planning of occupational needs, even though education is still a social public service. Germany, for example, a leader in engineering, manufacturing, and technology, graduates more students from vocational institutes than universities, providing a model from which Iraq could learn.

In the local context, salaries for employees in the technology sector, particularly in software development, are more than satisfactory. I believe software developers hold some of the most well-compensated careers in the country.

When we shift to the regional context, the picture changes. The lowest-paid developers are found in Syria, Iran, and Egypt, while countries like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia offer salaries that compete with those in the United Kingdom and Europe, which rank among the second-highest globally. Naturally, developers have the highest salaries in the United States. In this landscape, Iraq struggles to compete regionally, being somewhere between Egypt and the UAE. We are at a significant disadvantage in attracting and retaining tech talent, particularly when salary disparities are so stark.

From a macroeconomic perspective, the Iraqi market will require more implementers of existing software than builders of new software. As a developing economy lagging in digital transformation, our focus will not be on reinventing the wheel but on applying ready-made, globally-tested solutions.

One key area of demand will be system integrators who are responsible for managing, customizing, deploying, and training staff on business software systems like enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. In addition, Software as a Service (SaaS) resellers will play a critical role as companies increasingly rely on ready-made programs available through reseller partnerships or white-label solutions.

In terms of specific skills, the market will need general tech specialists more than highly specialized deep-knowledge experts. There is high demand for web developers, mobile developers, front-end developers, and others who can work across various technology platforms. In addition, emerging roles such as application security engineers, cloud engineers, and data engineers will be increasingly important.

While there are initiatives aimed at digitally transforming the Iraqi ecosystem, they are fragmented and poorly aligned. True digital transformation cannot be achieved through scattered efforts—everyone involved must be aligned and working toward a unified plan. A successful digital transformation strategy must be clear, well-informed, and forward-thinking because what we are building now is the foundation of Iraq’s national digital infrastructure. Once this infrastructure is in place, making changes later will be incredibly difficult.

We can already see examples of this challenge globally. For instance, the US banking sector still operates on legacy systems (COBOL), which has proved extremely hard to modernize. If Iraq establishes its infrastructure without proper foresight, it will face similar challenges in the future.

One of the main challenges is that both the legislative and executive branches of the government lack a clear understanding of what is required for effective digital transformation. To succeed, the initiative must come from the highest levels of government and cover all aspects of the economy, as well as the public and private sectors.

The brain drain in Iraq has contributed to a severe shortage of senior talent, making it difficult to cultivate skilled managers in the tech sector. In addition, being good at software development requires a very distinct personality and lifestyle that does not necessarily intersect with people management and leadership skills. I have always believed that forcing a talented engineer to switch to a management job for the sole reason of hitting the ceiling in the salary ladder is such a waste of rare talent. In my current and previous roles as CTO, I introduced a structured approach with three distinct career paths within the tech department: individual contribution, technical leadership, and technical management.

Each team member can choose to remain on their preferred path; the growth ladder progresses from junior to middle and senior. Therefore, employees do not need to move into management, as each path provides opportunities for growth and progression.

These paths are divided because each role requires different skill sets and mindsets. In companies that lack an understanding of technology, employees are often moved into roles outside their skill sets, which is rarely effective. The Middle East region has not widely adopted the three-paths model, and tech team/department structures are often underdeveloped and superficial.

Both individuals and businesses are ready to use AI tools since these technologies are designed for end consumers and require no special prerequisites to adopt. However, using AI tools is not the same as building AI tools and systems, and in that case, the answer is more complex. The vast majority of companies are not yet prepared to develop AI solutions, even if they have some of the required foundations.

AI development rests on three essential pillars: data, computing power, and algorithms. While algorithms are readily available online, the lack of sufficient data presents a significant obstacle to AI development. Without data, machine learning is impossible. Since Iraq has not yet undergone a complete digital transformation, there is currently a lack of structured, usable data—making it difficult for most companies to pursue AI development.

There are, however, exceptions. Large corporations, particularly in the telecommunications and internet service provider (ISP) sectors, have the infrastructure and data needed to leverage AI. These companies have been integrating technology from the start, accumulating both data and computing power, which gives them the potential to explore AI solutions.

Globally, the technology revolution went through multiple stages before nearing AI: digital transformation, big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, and finally, AI. For Iraq to develop and benefit from AI fully, it is logical to assume that we need to progress through these stages in sequence.

As with any technological advancement, AI will inevitably both replace existing jobs and create new ones. The key for individuals is to stay informed, follow global trends, and continuously update their skills to avoid falling behind. However, the impact of AI on Iraq will likely be less pronounced than in other parts of the world, primarily due to the lack of infrastructure necessary for AI to make significant changes. Many of the roles being replaced by AI in 1st world countries do not even exist yet in Iraq.

In Iraq’s public sector, where at least 70% of the workforce is redundant, the challenges go beyond AI. These redundant roles do not require AI for replacement—digital transformation and good governance would be enough to demonstrate that many of these positions are unnecessary. For the remaining 30% of public sector employees, some roles could be replaced by software solutions that have existed since the 1990s. AI is not a major disruptor for the Iraqi public sector. Digitalization and better governance will have a far greater impact on restructuring the workforce and human capital within government institutions.

As for the private sector, while it continuously seeks optimization, it is still relatively small and lacks the weight to significantly affect the economy or the job market. AI may enhance efficiency and create some new roles in specific industries, but its overall impact on employment in Iraq will remain limited in the short term.

While there are a few acceptable AI training programs and workshops available, many seem to exist more for prestige rather than for practical outcomes. There is a noticeable international focus on AI workshops, and Iraq has followed this trend. However, we are currently building more supply than the actual demand for AI skills in the local market.

The question arises—what will the graduates of these programs do? Some individuals have even switched careers in pursuit of AI, yet the market does not have sufficient demand to absorb these newly trained professionals. Simply following global trends without considering local needs is not a sustainable approach. The role of workshops and training programs becomes meaningful only when they are integrated into a broader strategy—one that coordinates universities, companies, and the ecosystem to align educational outcomes with future industry demands.