Meet Zeeshan! He’s a HubSpot Integrations Lead at Computan. He also is a great writer, thinker, and family man. In this installment of Behind The Coding, Zeeshan explains his fascination with serial killers, the magic that led him into engineering, and which Computan colleague loves their wife the most!
Hi Zeeshan! How are you?
I am good, Sajeel. How are you?
Good thanks! What are the last 3 things you Googled?
The most recent thing I Googled is ‘When does the sunset today?’
Yes! This is an important thing to know! Can you explain why?
Obviously, we are in the holy Islamic month of Ramadan, and that means no food or drinks from sunrise to sunset. The official time in the evenings is when we’ll eat again, say our prayer, and continue with dinner.
Absolutely. What else have you been Googling?
I saw a Netflix trailer for a new documentary coming out about Donald Cline.
Donald Cline? Who is that?
He’s a criminal who did some shady business in his fertility clinic.
Do True Crime TV and Movie interest you?
Yes! Quite a lot. I love to learn about true crime.
Why though? This stuff kind of freaks people out doesn’t it?
Yes, it does. I like to learn about criminals, find out why they act the way they do, and do what I can to avoid their bad habits.
So you watch it as a life lesson in some way?
Yes exactly.
I guess that is a thing. Personally, I am always fascinated by the origin stories of supervillains in comic books. Trying to understand what makes them tick.
Yes, this psychology is pretty interesting. So that’s why I was researching Donald Cline.
Ok, what else have you Googled?
I am a fan of domain names and was looking at different prices of domains.
Do you have domains that you have invested in?
Yeah, I have one domain name – tagive.com which I believe is a pretty good one.
What makes tagive a good domain name?
Domain names are becoming a rare thing. For example, 4 or 5 letter .com names are worth 5 figures now.
Really!?!
Yes absolutely. So this domain which I own, tagive.com, which is 6 letters but has the word ‘tag’ in it.
Yes, so that makes it more valuable?
Yes, you can say so especially if I or someone wants to start a business with the word tag in it.
Very interesting. When was the last time you sat after hours to solve a hard problem?
I was trying to help Huzaifa (Huzaifa Arain) with a HubSpot and SAP custom integration. Initially, I worked to connect with SAP through API. So he and I worked on it together since I have experience with this. Then the other time was to build a Propertybase and HubSpot integration.
What made coding a Propertybase and HubSpot integration difficult?
The fact that there is no proper API documentation for Propertybase made it difficult. So I had to figure out a lot on my own. This is also the joy of coding too, though!
Problem-solving is part of the game. Who are three people you'd like to have dinner with at the same time and why?
My three very close friends. Sohail Khan, of course, is a Senior Laravel and HubSpot integrations team lead here at Computan, Akthar, another friend of ours who works at a company called i2c, and our dear friend Zubair Gohar Qureshi who is a senior HubSpot front-end developer at Computan also.
Hahaha yes! I don’t know Akhtar, but I know you, Sohail and Zubair are all very good friends and work on 3 different teams here.
Yes exactly. Sohail, Zubair, and I are all friends and have been for a long time. Sohail and I get together often, but Mr. Zubair Gohar Qureshi sir is our role model.
How so?
He really loves his wife and his family a lot.
Hahahaha! I am detecting some sarcasm.
No no. Mr. Zubair Gohar really loves his wife and never has time for his dear friends Sohail, Akthar, and me anymore 😊.
What would you guys do together? Where would you guys eat?
We would just have a lot of fun doing things friends do – talking, going to different places, eating out, and things like that.
Where was your favorite place to eat?
Ilyas Dumba Karahi
What makes Ilyas Dumba Karahi good?
Karahi is a type of South Asian cooking. It involves skewered and yogurt-marinated meat, sauteed vegetables, curry, and vegetables.
Yup, it’s pretty common. What makes Ilyas Dumba Karahi such a good place for it?
Everything is cooked with charcoal. No gas or electric stoves. This gives a different taste to the lamb karahi, which is amazing.
Sounds great.
It is great. Hopefully, Zubair Gohar Qureshi will have time to come out and try it with us sometime 😊.
Hahaha! When was the last time you cried tears of laughter?
Maybe with my wife. We talk about old memories and laugh a lot quite often. Then also with my friends Sohail and Akhtar. Zubair, too when he is not too busy with his wife and family 😊.
He’s going to enjoy reading all of this, I am sure. When was the first time you saw a laptop/computer?
I will never forget this day because it is the reason why I am an engineer, and we are having this conversation right now.
Really!? Wow! Please explain.
I was nine years old and visiting my Mamoo (mom’s brother’s) house. His brother-in-law had a small computer lab separate from their residence, where they had 2 or 3 desktop computers.
What happened?
I was fascinated by this machine. I wanted to learn about it. What does it do? What makes the cursor blink? How do I work it out? Then it happened.
Then what happened?
I pushed a button on the keyboard, and something happened. I was excited and mystified. From that moment, I thought I would dedicate my life to discovering all I could about this amazing machine and unlocking its potential.
Your engineering career started when you were 9?
In some ways, yes. My dad wanted me to be a banker like him, but I resisted every chance I could. I wanted to be an engineer.
Resisting one’s father isn’t something easy to do in our culture. How did that go?
You are right. My dad loved me a lot, and I loved him a lot. I also respected him and had a healthy fear for him too.
So what did he do?
He allowed me to study engineering! At 17, I left home and traveled 60 km to attend engineering school. It was the first time I had ever traveled alone that far and on top of that, I was leaving home to go to school.
That is a big step in a young person’s life.
It certainly is. It was a huge step for me.
What is something your teammates don't know about you?
Many team members don’t know that I have two kids – Ayesh and Abdullah. Ayesh is the older, and Abdullah is the younger.
What else?
That I really enjoy writing.
I know you write really good English. Do you write in other languages?
Yeah! I can write poems in Urdu (the national language of Pakistan) as well.
Who are your favorite poets?
Wow. Too many to tell. Gulzar for sure and Jaun Elia too.
