‘Say yes’: How two Microsoft mentors helped Najmah Mohamed into a technology career
Microsoft UK’s Beyond the Badge series spotlights extraordinary people at Microsoft who go beyond their day jobs to help others. In the latest instalment, Cloud Solution Architect Najmah Mohamed explains how two mentors helped her find a route into technology, and why she is now helping others find their own path.
For much of her early life, Najmah Mohamed felt she was navigating without a map.
The eldest of five children in a Somali immigrant family, she balanced schoolwork with helping at home and caring for her younger siblings. Her parents had arrived in the UK knowing little English, and the country’s education and career systems were unfamiliar to the whole family.
When faced with difficult decisions, Najmah often turned to the internet for help.
“I didn’t really have anyone to ask questions of when I needed guidance,” she says. “It was literally just me and an online search. It was a really frustrating experience because it felt like I had to battle so much harder than everyone else.”
Some of her peers could ask tutors, parents or family friends for advice. Najmah had determination, but little access to the networks that can make an unfamiliar path easier to understand.
Family drive
The pressure she felt was matched by a strong sense of purpose.
“I knew my parents had overcome countless challenges to get here,” Najmah says. “I wanted to make the most of the opportunities available to me. Not just for myself, but so I could support my parents and set an example for my younger siblings.”
She initially considered medicine, which seemed to offer a clear route to a successful career. She later decided it was not right for her and accepted an unconditional offer to study Medical Biosciences at Imperial College London.
The course kept her options open. Away from the laboratory, she attended careers events and explored roles beyond her degree. That curiosity eventually led her towards technology.
Turning point
At a university careers event run by social mobility charity upReach, Najmah met Microsoft employees Francis Nwofor and Sean Cox.
They answered her questions, shared advice, reviewed her CV, introduced her to other people, and helped make an unfamiliar industry feel more accessible.
“Honestly, it felt like a relief,” she says. “For so long I’d been doing everything by myself. Suddenly it felt like I didn’t have to do everything alone.”
Representation mattered, too. Meeting people with backgrounds she could relate to changed her sense of what was possible.
“I just felt that if someone else can do it, then I 100% can,” she says. “It didn’t feel impossible anymore.”
With their support, Najmah built her confidence and professional network, applied for roles and secured several job offers. One was from Microsoft.
Today, she works as a Cloud Solution Architect, helping organisations understand and use cloud technology.
Coming full circle
Najmah hasn’t forgotten how difficult it was to find reliable guidance early in her career.
So she now volunteers with upReach, the charity that helped her, and supports its Tech 500 programme. Her aim is to make the route easier for people facing similar barriers.
“I had to spend so much time searching for answers,” she says. “If I can help someone find the right person, the right opportunity, or even just point them in the right direction, then they don’t have to go through all of that alone.
“The charity helped me. People at Microsoft helped me. Now I’m in a position where I can help someone else.”
The power of yes
Her advice to anyone asked to mentor someone, review a CV or answer a networking message is: “Say yes.”
A short conversation over coffee may feel ordinary to the person offering help. To someone without an established professional network, it can provide information, confidence, and a way forward.
“You could literally change someone’s life,” Najmah says. “It can be easy to ignore a LinkedIn message or forget to help someone who reached out, but don’t underestimate the power you have to totally change someone’s future.”
Najmah’s story is shaped by persistence, but also by the people who took the time to help. Their actions didn’t remove every obstacle, but they made the next step clearer.
Now she is doing the same for others.
MORE ‘BEYOND THE BADGE’ STORIES
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‘Remember what you’re here for’: Francis Nwofor’s social mobility story
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