Take action in WHM

To kickoff Women’s History Month (WHM), I was honored to be featured in a spotlight article sharing my story with my org, Digital Transformation Platform (DTP), which is a Microsoft org of more than 15k employees spanning the globe. I also wanted to share my message with you all here today on my blog. I hope it serves as a motivation to take action during and beyond WHM.

Meet Marleine Daoud

“My name is Marleine Daoud and I’m the Engineering Manager for the Frontend team of D365 Supply Chain Insights (SCI). SCI is a new offering from Microsoft, currently under Public Preview, that aims to help organizations make their supply chains resilient, efficient and sustainable. Given all the supply chain disruptions that we hear about in the news and that affect us directly, SCI provides insights and visibility into upcoming potential risks so that organizations can proactively and collaboratively work on mitigation plans. With my focus on the frontend, my team’s mission is to build an insightful portal UI for our enterprise customers to gain visibility & build resiliency into their supply chain. We have a focus on engineering excellence, customer experience, product quality and team culture with true care for cultivating an inclusive, energetic and fun team environment that resulted in having a 100% WHI on our last MS Poll. Knowing my team members’ aspirations, investing in the growth of others, and caring for their success is a passion of mine.

I spent my childhood on the French side of Canada in Montréal, then, as a teen, moved to Egypt where my family is originally from. I started my B.Sc. in Egypt then transferred to complete my degree and continue with a M.Sc. in Universität Stuttgart in Germany. Upon graduation, I moved back to Canada to start my professional career in Vancouver before finally moving to the USA for an opportunity with Microsoft 8.5 years ago. Within Microsoft, I worked on consumer facing products, enterprise B2B focused products, and internal tools. I worked on cutting-edge technologies while developing the in-box Weather app for the Windows 10 release as well as while developing the Microsoft Rewards program on Xbox after its great success on Bing. Given this background across continents, languages and cultures, I deeply value diversity. My D&I core priority is to ensure that everyone is being listened to and knows that their opinion matters so that each one of us can bring their full authentic self and deliver their best, all while having a strong feeling of true belonging at Microsoft.

Throughout my journey, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be inspired and to see the potential of what can be accomplished without looking up to those empowering women and allies, especially in tech. When I received my Principal promotion, an individual I highly respect had an admirable courage to tell me: “you are the first woman principal engineer I got to know’’. This made me realize the extent to which it

can be difficult for women in engineering to get a chance to work with and meet other women role models, especially in Principal+ positions. It is crucial for this to change so that, ideally, we never hear someone else say the same. I work every day to change this reality. Every person deserves to have a role model that they can relate to.

Women’s History Month (WHM) is an opportunity to celebrate and recognize the achievements of women in all facets of life. This has a huge impact on the development of self-respect and new opportunities for young women as it highlights role models, the importance of the presence of women from all backgrounds, and their role in the industry. The 2022 Women’s History theme, “Providing Healing, Promoting Hope”, is both a tribute to the ceaseless work of caregivers during this pandemic and also a recognition of the thousands of ways that women of all cultures have provided both healing and hope throughout history, and are helping to promote and sustain hope for the future betterment of all.

I implore each one of you to use WHM as an opportunity to reflect on the role you can play to make a difference. Be an ally, drive a D&I initiative, mentor others, and for women in tech, leverage this community and seek mentors everywhere. After WHM, continue on. You might be surprised by how much your presence in someone’s life might have an impact. A tremendous Thank You for every action you take; you are helping provide a better future.”

Marleine Daoud (she/her)
Principal Software Engineering Manager @ Microsoft
Frontend team of D365 Supply Chain Insights
Learn more about Marleine on LinkedIn