Iyad Uakoub left Syria seven years ago, before President Bashar Al-Assad began a notorious purge of civil liberties that would end in atrocities. With his wife in tow, the young career services expert, who’d risen up the ladder to create one of the region’s top Human Resources centers, had to look for opportunities abroad. He would focus his attention on furthering his education and ended up with a Fulbright scholarship and a job at Stanford University. Then, after a few years working in tech, he landed a position as the career coach at App Academy’s Engineering Interview Prep, the accelerator that helps programmers land better jobs with higher salaries.

Throughout his long journey, Iyad has kept a positive attitude and an abiding sense to help people in their careers. With his latest position, Iyad says that need is fulfilled.

In a conversation at the App Academy office, we talked to Iyad about his previous work in career coaching, his current assessment of the engineering job market, and much more.

The following has been amended for accuracy and length.

Let’s talk about your career before Engineering Interview Prep. You had a TV show in Syria and ended up in the U.S. as a top career coach. How did that happen?

My undergraduate was in computer engineering. After my undergrad, I worked with the United Nations [where] I helped governments and institutions [with] their business processes and built the first city government website for Syria. I was offered, by the first lady of Syria, to build the first Career Center, [which] helped thousands of young people. I also ran the first live TV show about community development. Doing mock interviews, resume reviews, business plans, how to behave, how to enter the job market. I was [then] offered a Fulbright scholarship and came to the U.S. [where] I did my Masters in Human Resources at Purdue University. [That’s] where I worked after my graduation, then I moved to Stanford University as a career coach, then joined ThousandEyes, the network monitoring company.

Now I’m at JUUL Labs, where I’m a business partner and lead HR for three divisions. JUUL just got a fund of $1.2 billion dollars. I help managers and leaders and employees in their HR needs. It’s coaching, mentoring, performance management training, development and employee relations for strategy. On the side, I do my doctoral studies on meaningful work and how [people] can define meaning. I bridge between higher education and startups, especially Valley startups.

How did you get involved at App Academy and the Engineering Interview Prep?

I left my last job at ThousandEyes and wanted to coach. That’s what I consider myself — I wear the career coach hat more than any other hat. So I decided to walk the talk [and] went on LinkedIn and found the job. One or two aspects of the job description weren’t on my resume, which is great because, you know, [they’re] not supposed to be. You should match at least 70 to 80 percent of the job you’re applying for. So I emailed them and said, I’m interested in the job. Do you have time to talk or can you connect me?” A day after that