• My fiancé travels for work, and I work remotely, so we are in a long-distance relationship.
• To prioritize our relationship, I travel wherever she is and work from there.
• Our flexible jobs make our relationship possible.

My fiancé and I met on Bumble in September 2021. She lived in Columbus, Ohio, and I lived in Pennsylvania.

When we met in person for the first time, she flew down to Atlanta from Columbus, where I was visiting family. I had been at my family's home for a week and was working remotely.

She flew down on a Friday evening, and I picked her up at the hotel the next day. On our first date, we went to Helen, Ga, and had a wonderful time. The following day, she went back home.

The following weekend was Labor Day weekend. I planned to head back to Lancaster on Sunday, but she asked me if I could go to Columbus instead and spend Labor Day with her. Although I wasn't off on the Tuesday after Labor Day, I only had meetings and could take those on the road back home.

That was the start of our unique long-distance relationship. My now-fiancé travels for work, so we had to get creative building something special.

We knew that if we wanted this to work, we would have to make our work arrangements work for us. Since I had the most flexibility as a remote worker, I decided to travel wherever she worked to spend time together and build our relationship.

Our relationship became a story written across many adventures

Since that decision, we have been to many places. One of the most memorable was a two-week stay in Miami in February 2023. I flew to Miami for the first time and stayed with her in the hotel. During the day, we both worked, but in the evenings and on weekends, we would explore. From beach trips to Miami Beach to enjoying local restaurants, we enjoyed every minute of South Florida.

In April 2023, we spent a week together in California. On one day, she had to drive to different client sites. I could attend my work conference calls while on the road.

One of our memorable stops was an overnight stay in Monterey. We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and had lunch at the Fish Hopper, where it is the best Bloody Mary I have ever had.

That same year, in September, I joined her in Phoenix. I was able to visit the Grand Canyon for the first time. It was the most fantastic experience I've had to this day. As I looked across the canyon, I was in awe of its beauty and how fortunate I was to enjoy one of the world's wonders with my now-fiancé — all because of our work arrangement.

In 2024, we spent the whole month of January in an Airbnb in Rincon, Puerto Rico. Since her job is seasonal, she was off, and I worked remotely during the day. We enjoyed everything that Rincon had to offer.

Entering the long-distance relationship was the best decision of my life

The coordination of our schedules wasn't complicated. In the rare chance that I had to travel for work, I simply adjusted my travel to wherever she was at a time that worked for me but still gave us plenty of time together. It was a lesson in communication and coordination.

Typically, a long-distance relationship would be an obstacle. But my remote status and her work travel were reasons our relationship flourished.

In the end, if I wanted our relationship to work, I needed to see our work arrangement as an opportunity to enjoy each other's company and spend time together doing fun things committed couples do.

• Yope, a photo-sharing app, is gaining traction with 2.2 million monthly active users.
• Users can create private groups to share photos, videos, and audio with.
• Trying out Yope was a good reminder that it's hard to convince your friends to download yet another social media app.

The buzzy new social media app Yope's focus on your private friend circle is also what made it tough for me to start using it easily.

"The difference with Yope is that you're not taking photos just for the sake of taking photos," Yope cofounder and CEO Bahram Ismailov told Business Insider. "Every photo on Yope is captured to be shared with the people closest to you."

Yope is a photo-sharing platform that says it has about 2.2 million monthly active users. Venture capitalists also seem keen on it. The app raised an initial seed round of $4.65 million at a $50 million valuation, Business Insider confirmed.

Yope users share photos, videos, and audio with a private group of friends to maintain a daily streak and view recaps of their days.

I set out as a 25-year-old Gen Zer intending to do a week-long review, but Yope requires users to have friends to work and it took a few days to convince my friends to join another social media app.

When they finally did, it was a fun way to keep up with my long-distance BFF. Their pictures showed up on my iPhone lockscreen as a "Live Activity" when the feature was enabled.

From getting started to maintaining streaks, here's what my 72 hours on Yope looked like before I hit my deadline to file my first impressions.

It's easy to get started if you already have a group in mind

Yope is straightforward and easy to use once you've downloaded the app. I created a profile and enabled Live Activities before making a group called "Jordan's Besties."

The hard part was getting said besties to join the app to make it usable for me. Without them, I was in the private group alone with only myself to post pictures to the collaborative wall.

Your posts aren't at risk of being seen by users outside of the group chat, and there's no "explore" section. You can search for others, but you can only see their content if you're in a joint group.

I finally got my friends to join

Usually, my long-distance BFF and I do weekly recaps of our lives with photos over text. Yope was a cool way to have real-time updates on her daily life.

However, I'm still on the fence about Live Activities. I don't use the feature at all outside of Yope, so it was sort of intense having photos and streak reminders every time I looked at my lockscreen. I enjoyed it the most when I first received a picture; it was a nice surprise.

As working adults, it's hard to remember to snap photos of your day, so the Live Activities choice made sense. Our schedules caused us to slack on updating each other, and that came with multiple warnings that our 24-hour timeframe to send pics was closing.

If I wasn't so distracted by scrolling TikTok and sharing my life on Instagram Stories, it likely wouldn't have felt like a chore to have another place to exist online.

That might just be the point.

Maybe I'm too old and too online

As a 25-year-old, I'm not completely sold that Yope would fit into my life as it is today. However, I see a number of scenarios where it seems like a great app to choose.

I can see myself using Yope while on vacation to give my friends a highlight reel of my trip. If I want to take a break from Instagram and hundreds of people watching my stories, it seems like it would be a way to scratch my "chronically online" itch without being perceived by the masses.

Yope's Ismailov described it as a "shared camera roll" between friends. It's a space without content by influencers or strangers. It's reminiscent of a time when social media was limited to the Facebook walls of people you knew — an era that younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha missed out on.

"Back in 2012, we had Instagram and it was amazing. Now, let's create something even better for the next generation," said Yope cofounder and CTO Paul Rudkouski.

Unlike those born in the mid-to-late-2000s, I was around for almost every era of modern social media. I've had an online presence on MySpace, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Tumblr, to name a few.

Yope has promising components that could help it reach a similar level of recognition, but its product-design choices mean it faces a particular challenge: attracting entire groups, not just individuals.

Mackenzie Dryden, 20, told Newsweek: "You can't necessarily change the situation you're in, but you can control how you react."

Austin Cindric's $50K penalty has become a hot topic in NASCAR's ongoing debate over regulations, now drawing reactions from Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin.

"Because there's no need to Google 'SNL 2013 Lady Gaga featuring R. Kelly,' I won't bring it up!" Lady Gaga said on March 8.

Five years after COVID shook the world, doctors and other health providers continue to suffer from burnout that the pandemic highlighted and exacerbated.

Why it matters: Provider burnout — an ongoing state of significant stress — takes a toll on patients, too.

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• A pre-COVID study found burnout costs the health system about $4.6 billion a year due to physicians leaving the field or cutting back on hours. Another study linked doctor burnout with a doubled risk for patient safety issues.

The big picture: There's been significant progress to reduce the stigma around doctors seeking mental health treatment since the pandemic, but physicians say systemic change to payment and administrative workloads are needed to really improve their wellbeing.

• "We need to address the root causes of the problem, all the failures in our health care system right now that are causing challenges for physicians," American Medical Association President Bruce Scott told Axios.

Where it stands: Nearly half of physicians (48%) say they feel burned out, according to the AMA's most recent poll, published in July. Women physicians face higher levels of burnout and risk of suicide than their male counterparts.

• The overall burnout rate is down from 2021's high of 63%, when the Delta coronavirus variant raged.
• Still, "the fact that one in two physicians in America are showing signs of burnout is an unacceptable number," Scott told Axios.
• Burnout among nurses and other health providers also worsened during the pandemic.

Flashback: Providers' poor mental health and burnout has been a problem for years. The pandemic supercharged it, as doctors, nurses and other medical providers worked long hours with less equipment and often in isolation to save the first COVID-19 patients.

• Health providers were lauded as heroes at the start of the pandemic, and some even reported improved wellbeing at work, citing more time spent with patients and less spent on paperwork.
• But that didn't last. "Five minutes later, it felt like those same workers were being questioned about the science, getting spit on, threatened," said Corey Feist, CEO of the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes' Foundation.
• Feist started the advocacy group in memory of his sister-in-law, an emergency room physician who took her own life in 2020.

State of play: There's growing awareness of the stresses on health providers.

• More than half of states and hundreds of individual hospitals have now changed their licensure requirements to remove questions that ask whether a doctor has received mental health treatment or diagnoses. Those questions have historically deterred doctors from seeking needed help.
• The Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes' Foundation coordinates learning collaboratives for hospitals and medical groups to work together on implementing operational changes that support provider wellbeing.
• Congress also passed a law in 2022 that opened federal grants for training health providers on strategies to reduce and prevent burnout and other issues. The funding authorizations expired last year, but lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill to extend them.

Yes, but: Real improvement requires tackling structural issues, like decreasing Medicare payment rates that make it harder to operate a practice and rising administrative burden associated with insurance claims, doctors and experts say.

Zoom in: The primary driver of health care provider burnout is too much work for too few people, said Srijan Sen, a psychiatrist who researches physician well-being at the University of Michigan.

• "Increasing the number of people working, and, even more long term, helping people stay healthier, so less people need health care — those sorts of things will be a big part of the solution," he said.

What to watch: Scores of health tech companies now advertise tools, often driven by artificial intelligence, aimed at cutting down provider workload by automating administrative tasks.

• It's not yet clear if they'll deliver, Sen said. The electronic health record once promised to make a physician's job easier, and research now shows it has directly contributed to increased burnout.
• Despite the stressors and predicted workforce shortages, health care still is projected to add the most jobs in the U.S. of any sector over the next decade, and medical schools are seeing more interest than ever.
• Today's students are more attuned to their mental health than in the past, and they're asking what can be done to make the field one they want to continue working in, said Kelly Holder, chief well-being officer at Brown University's medical school.

• Tech giants Amazon, Google, IBM, and Microsoft are racing to develop a functional quantum computer.
• Each has released a prototype quantum chip with different approaches and potential applications.
• The field is rapidly evolving, but major hurdles remain before it becomes commercially useful.

The quantum race is heating up.

Tech titans Amazon, Google, IBM, and Microsoft each recently announced advancements in their prototype chips, tightening the race to develop a commercially useful quantum computer that could solve some of the universe's stickiest problems faster than a classical computer ever could.

Quantum computing is a rapidly evolving — though still largely theoretical and deeply technical — field. But cracking it open could help discover new drugs, develop new chemical compounds, or break encryption methods, among other outcomes, researchers say.

Naturally, each of the major players in Big Tech wants to be the one to take quantum computing mainstream.

"You're hearing a lot about it because this is a real tipping point," Oskar Painter, the director of quantum hardware at Amazon Web Services, told Business Insider in late February, following the company's announcement of its Ocelot chip.

Stick with us — here's where it gets complicated.

Where classical computing uses binary digits — 0s and 1s, called bits — to represent information, quantum computing relies on a foundation built from the quantum equivalent of bits, called qubits. When they behave predictably at a large enough scale, qubits allow quantum computers to quickly calculate equations with multiple solutions and perform advanced computations that would be impossible for classical computers.

However, qubits are unstable, and their behavior is unpredictable. They require specific conditions, such as low light and extremely cold environments, to reduce errors. When the number of qubits is increased, the error rate goes up — making advancement in the field slowgoing.

Small-scale quantum computers already exist, but the race is on to scale them up and make them useful to a wider audience rather than just scientists.

Recently, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have announced new prototype chips, and IBM has made strides in its existing quantum road map. Each company is using unique approaches to solve the error reduction and scalability problems that have long plagued the field and make useful quantum computing a reality.

Here's how each approach stacks up.

Microsoft

Approach to quantum: Topological qubits

Most powerful machine: Majorana 1

In February, Microsoft unveiled its new quantum chip, Majorana 1. The aim is for the chip to speed up the development of large-scale quantum computers from decades to years.

Microsoft said the chip uses a new state of matter to produce "topological" qubits that are less prone to errors and more stable. Essentially, this is a qubit based on a topological state of matter, which isn't a liquid, gas, or solid. As a result, these quantum particles could retain a "memory" of their position over time and move around each other. Information, therefore, could be stored across the whole qubit, so if any parts fail, the topological qubit could still hold key pieces of information and become more fault-resistant.

"Microsoft's progress is the hardest to get an idea about because it's very niche," said Tom Darras, founder of quantum computing startup Welinq. "Even experts in the industry find it difficult to assess the quality of these results."

Quantum experts agree that Microsoft still has many roadblocks to overcome, and its peer-reviewed Nature paper only demonstrates aspects of what its researchers have claimed to achieve — but some in the quantum ecosystem see it as a promising outcome.

Google

Approach to quantum: Superconducting qubits

Most powerful machine: Willow

In December, Google announced Willow, its newest quantum chip, which the company claims takes just five minutes to solve a problem that would take the world's fastest supercomputer 10 septillion years.

Perhaps more impressive was Google's breakthrough in how quantum computers scale. Historically, the more qubits that are added, and the more powerful the computer becomes, the more prone it is to errors. With Willow, Google's researchers said that adding more physical qubits to a quantum processor actually made it less error-prone, reversing the typical phenomenon.

Known as "below threshold," the accomplishment marks a significant milestone by cracking a problem that has been around since the 1990s. In a study published in Nature, Google's researchers posit this breakthrough could finally offer a way to build a useful large-scale quantum computer. However, much of this is still theoretical, and now Google will need to prove it in practice.

Amazon

Approach to quantum: Superconducting qubits

Most powerful machine: Ocelot

In late February, Amazon Web Services announced its Ocelot chip, a prototype designed to advance the company's focus on cloud-based quantum computing.

An Amazon spokesperson told Business Insider the Ocelot prototype demonstrated the potential to increase efficiency in quantum error correction by up to 90% compared to conventional approaches. The chip leverages a unique architecture that integrates cat qubit technology — named for the famous Schrödinger's cat thought experiment — and additional quantum error correction components that can be manufactured using processes borrowed from the electronics industry.

Troy Nelson, a computer scientist and the chief technology officer at Lastwall, a cybersecurity provider of quantum resilient technology, told Business Insider that Amazon's Ocelot chip is another building block that the industry will use to build a functioning quantum computer. However, its error rate needs to be substantially lowered, and its chips would require more qubit density before they're useful.

"There's lots of challenges ahead. What Amazon gained in error correction was a trade-off for the complexity and the sophistication of the control systems and the readouts from the chip," Nelson said. "We're still in prototype days, and we still have multiple years to go, but they've made a great leap forward."

IBM

Approach to quantum: Superconducting qubits

Most powerful machine: Condor

IBM has been a quantum frontrunner for some time, with several different prototype chips and its development of Q System One, the first circuit-based commercial quantum computer, unveiled in January 2019.

IBM's Condor chip is the company's most powerful in terms of its number of qubits. However, since its development, IBM has focused its approach on the quality of its gate operations and making its newer quantum chips modular so multiple smaller, less error-prone chips can be combined to make more powerful quantum computing machines.

Condor, the second-largest quantum processor ever made, was unveiled at the IBM Quantum Summit 2023 on December 4, 2023. At the same time, IBM debuted its Heron chip, a 133-qubit processor with a lower error rate.

Rob Schoelkopf, cofounder and chief scientist of Quantum Circuits, told Business Insider that IBM has prioritized "error mitigation" over traditional error correction approaches. While IBM has so far been successful in what Schoelkopf calls "brute force scaling" with this approach, he said the methodology will need to be modified in the long run for efficiency.

Who leads the race?

Sankar Das Sarma, a theoretical condensed matter physicist at the University of Maryland, told Business Insider that the Amazon Web Services Ocelot chip, Google's Willow, and IBM's Condor use a "more conventional" superconducting approach to quantum development compared to other competitors.

By contrast, Microsoft's approach is based on topological Majorana zero modes, which also have a superconductor, but in "a radically different manner," he said. If the Majorana 1 chip works correctly, Das Sarma added, it is protected topologically with minimal need for error correction, compared to claims from other tech companies that they have improved conventional error correction methods.

Still, each company's approach is "very different," Das Sarma said. "It is premature to comment on who is ahead since the whole subject is basically in the initial development phase."

Big Tech companies should be cautious about "raising expectations when promoting results," said Georges-Olivier Reymond, CEO of quantum computing startup Pasqal. "Otherwise, you could create disillusionment."

Reymond's sentiment was echoed by IBM's VP of quantum adoption and business development, Scott Crowder, who told Business Insider he is concerned "over-hype" could lead people to discount quantum technology before its promise can be realized.

"We think we are on the cusp of demonstrating quantum advantage," said Crowder, referring to when a quantum computer outperforms classical machines. "But the industry is still a few years from a fully fault-tolerant quantum computer."

• Consulting attracts young professionals for prestige, pay, and flashy exit opportunities.
• Many consultants go on to found hugely successful companies.
• DoorDash, Warby Parker, and Faire were all founded by former consultants.

Young professionals are drawn to consulting for its prestige, competitive pay, and breadth of on-the-job experience — but also for its exit opportunities.

It's why many young consultants say they don't plan to stay in the industry for the long haul. Instead, they plan to put in a few years for the doors it will open when they leave, as well as the wide range of skills they expect to pick up very quickly.

Consultants often end up in the C-suite at the world's biggest companies, or launching businesses that go on to become hugely successful.

A LinkedIn career history analysis conducted by the small business-lending platform OnDeck in 2023 found consulting firms were the most common places for founders to begin their careers. The analysis found the companies that produced the most founders were Bain & Co., Oliver Wyman, and McKinsey & Co — all of which are considered leading management consulting firms.

From eyewear to healthcare and travel to e-commerce, here are 11 successful companies founded by former consultants.

• This post originally appeared in the BI Today newsletter.
• You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. I'm Steve Russolillo, BI's chief news editor, filling in for Jamie Heller these next couple of weeks.

I've got Katie Notopoulos' impassioned argument about daylight-saving time on my mind. She says the Monday after it starts should be a federal holiday. Where do you stand? Let me know: [email protected].

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On the agenda today:

• The four biggest multistrategy firms' dominance has made it harder for under-the-radar funds to compete.
• Meet the PR maverick Bari Weiss and Sam Altman can't get enough of.
• Elon Musk is wielding a chainsaw at DOGE. Management experts call it 'comically clumsy.'
• Millennials have a terrifying new role: being full-time adults.

But first: Blocked.

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If this was forwarded to you, sign up here. Download Business Insider's app here.

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This week's dispatch

Meta has these lists

Getting rehired at Meta could be more challenging than you might think.

In a bombshell report this week, BI's Meta correspondent Pranav Dixit uncovered how Mark Zuckerberg's company maintains internal "block" lists that can prevent some former employees from being rehired.

Pranav has delivered scoop after scoop since joining BI a few months ago. I sat down with him this week to learn more about his latest exclusive and what it all means for Meta's future.

Q: What's the reaction been to your coverage of Meta's "block" lists?

A: We've had a wave of outreach since publishing. More former employees, both from Meta and other tech companies, have come forward to share similar experiences of being blocked from rehire. Their initial accounts suggest that this practice may be more widespread than initially thought. The story really took off when Laszlo Bock, Google's first HR head, shared it on LinkedIn. That sparked a robust debate.

Q: What's the most important thing you learned from your reporting?

A: I was struck by the remarkable lack of transparency in corporate hiring practices. While we have laws designed to prevent discrimination and retaliation, those protections only extend so far. There's a vast gray area where companies have near-complete discretion.

I was particularly surprised by how much influence middle managers seem to have in this process. In some cases, a simple form or classification from a single manager can profoundly impact someone's future employment prospects.

Q: Meta has undergone a pretty big transformation in the past few months. How does the story fit into what's next for the company?

A: This story captures a key tension in Meta's evolution. The company is still in what CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls the "Year of Efficiency," making aggressive cuts while simultaneously competing fiercely for AI talent. These "block" lists represent the collision of those two imperatives.

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Hedge funds' growing divide

Smaller hedge funds used to outperform their larger rivals. Now, the tide has turned, and the Big Four — Millennium, Citadel, Point72, and Balyasny — have taken over.

BI heard from over a dozen fund founders, allocators, and industry experts about how difficult it's gotten for under-the-radar names to compete. The key for smaller firms is doing something bigger multistrats can't: recreate the same returns but with fewer people.

David faces four Goliaths.

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The book of Lulu Cheng Meservey

Silicon Valley's highly sought-after comms guru won the hearts of startup founders with her edgy, direct, and nontraditional style. Bari Weiss loves her. Sam Altman's in her corner.

Less enchanted with the PR maverick are her peers. "She does not have a thriving business. What she has is a thriving Twitter following," one sniped. That doesn't change the fact Cheng Meservey's style is effective — even if she ruffles some feathers in the process.

PR's fiercest pitbull.

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DOGE's report card

When Trump announced the Department of Government Efficiency under Elon Musk's leadership, management and policy experts told BI they were cautiously optimistic about its efforts to cut governmental waste. But six weeks in, they've got serious concerns.

Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, Musk has challenged the limits of the law by dismantling USAID, and his engineers have infiltrated government IT systems. Those same experts now describe DOGE's tactics as "clumsy," "wrongheaded," and full of "political recklessness."

A case study in bad management.

Also read:

• We found a DOGE guy at NASA because his Google Calendar was public

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Millennials are in charge now

The generation once known for being young is coming to terms with the fact that's no longer the case. Millennials are buying homes, starting families, and getting promoted at work. They're moving up the ladder in their personal and professional lives — and it's a bit daunting.

In addition to the exhaustion that comes with this new phase of life, millennials are losing the automatic cool factor bestowed by youth. Their jeans and side parts are out of style. But the good news is they're so wrapped up in the trappings of "adulting" that they probably don't have the time to care.

The new grown-ups.

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This week's quote:

"It takes too long to performance-manage folks out."

— A Microsoft executive describing the tech giant's performance review process, which the company is currently reevaluating.

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More of this week's top reads:

• 'Bond King' Bill Gross says he's scared to wake up and check the news each morning. He shares 4 stock picks with BI.
• I worked at Amazon during its early years. Jeff Bezos didn't seem to care about anything but his mission — but it was hard not to like him.
• Millennial moms want more kids — they just can't afford them.
• TV networks like Fox, NBC, and ABC finally figured out how to boost ratings — and it took them forever.
• Young Americans are finally buying homes. It may not pay off.
• A new DOGE staffer at the Department of Labor has helped run a fertility clinic and has pronatalist ties.
• This chart shows just how bad things have gotten for software engineers.
• We sent our reporter to Kyiv. Here's what he learned from a top Zelenskyy advisor just days after the disastrous Trump meeting.
• Shopify was cutting resources for diversity groups before it was trendy.
• Post-Roaring Kitty: Meet the new class of day-traders attracting swaths of followers online.

• Pulse check: 6 months of Brian Niccol's 'Back to Starbucks' plan.

  ---

  The BI Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York. Elizabeth Casolo, fellow, in Chicago.

Phil Mickelson recalled his Ryder Cup success when discussing a possible career-best finish at LIV Golf Hong Kong.

If your cat is stressed or anxious, these three veterinarian-approved tips may help you improve their mental health.

93 percent of Gen Z and young millennials would contact a colleague who is on vacation.

An "armed confrontation ensued" after the individual brandished a firearm, the Secret Service said in an update.

SNL highlighted Elon Musk's role in the White House in a sketch making fun of his reported feud with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

"Once I touch a stove and I get burned once, I don't touch that stove again," said Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

• The Grand America Hotel is one of the few 5-star hotels in Salt Lake City.
• I stayed in an 880-square-foot suite with a living room and a marble bathroom for $340 a night.
• The room was so spacious and luxurious that I thought it would have cost much more.

I've stayed at many upscale hotels that charge upward of $1,000 a night. And my $340-a-night stay at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City was just as luxurious as any of those.

As one of the few 5-star hotels in Salt Lake City, the Grand America Hotel boasts spacious suites, Italian marble surfaces, and spectacular skyline views.

After looking around my suite, I could see why it was recently ranked one of the best hotels in the world by CN Traveler's 2024 Reader's Choice Awards.

• Ankit Masrani shared the résumé that landed him a Microsoft role building security infrastructure.
• Prior to Microsoft, Masrani studied IT, got a Master's in computer science, and worked at AWS.
• He said data experience and security knowledge are needed to transition to cybersecurity.

Breaking into the cybersecurity field can be a challenge for some — but 36-year-old Ankit Masrani stumbled into it.

The Seattle-based Microsoft employee told Business Insider that while he had plans to become a software engineer, he didn't expect to work in the security space. Now, he develops sovereignty controls for the tech giant's security platform, ensuring sensitive customer information remains within geographic boundaries.

After studying information technology in college and working in roles building software systems, Masrani came to the US to get a Master's degree in computer science. After completing a six-month co-op internship at AWS while he was in school, he converted to a full-time employee, where he focused on securing data and networks until he felt the need for a change.

"To be honest, it was very tiring," Masrani said about his six and a half years at AWS. "And I wanted a change in my job to try something different."

Masrani said his final project before joining Microsoft involved building a customer-managed key encryption feature, which required research into best practices for data security. He said he found the work "really interesting" and began exploring teams focused on data governance and security. He said working alongside engineers who were truly "passionate" about their work was a top priority for him.

Here's the résumé he used to get his job at Microsoft, where he started on Microsoft's Purview security team as a senior software engineer. Now, he's a principal software engineer working on Microsoft's Security Platform.

Masrani said he applied by going to the company site and didn't have any references. He said if he were to apply again today, he might not include such a lengthy education section because people would probably focus on his 10 years of experience. When he was a year or two out of school, though, he said he thinks it helped him get interviews.

Specializing in security

Masrani came into the role with a background in IT, computer science, and data experience — all of which are recommended routes to enter the field, according to industry veterans.

Masrani's pivot wasn't drastic, but he said certain skill sets are needed to transition from general software engineering to the security side.

As a software engineer building cybersecurity services, Masrani said he handles large volumes of security logs, user activity data, and threat intelligence data. Masrani said he isn't "actively doing security threat hunting" but is building services for a platform that does.

Masrani said experience with big data technologies like Hadoop, an open source framework that processes large amounts of data for applications, is important for learning how to build data pipelines. He added that machine learning and anomaly detection is also useful for working on security product services.

Masrani also recommends experience with cloud services like AWS or Microsoft Azure to understand scalable data processing.

"Storage is very important since cloud services are leveraged everywhere from small to large software systems," Masrani said.

Masrani also said security knowledge is necessary to pivot to the cybersecurity sector. Masrani said safety protocols and data processing guidelines are often specific to regions.

He said domain knowledge around data governance and other security products is important, as well as familiarity with regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation. He said it's also important to know fundamentals around data encryption, network security, and application security.

"Any handling of customer data must be done in a safe and secure manner," Masrani said. "Having knowledge of best practices for handling data is very important.

• My husband and I got married in our early 20s, and we loved being DINKs.
• Then, my father-in-law told us he wanted grandkids. We decided to have children.
• Having our son changed our lives in so many ways, but I regret nothing.

My husband and I married at the tender ages of 21 and 24. I loved our child-free life — biking to nearby bars and restaurants, staying up late and sleeping in, and road-tripping with friends. We were young, in love, and the world felt wide open. Deep down, I wasn't even sure I wanted children. It felt like we could go on being DINKs forever.

Then, in 2012, a conversation with my father-in-law changed everything.

My father-in-law told us he wanted grandkids on his birthday

For his 60th birthday, we celebrated at an all-you-can-eat buffet inside a smoky casino. I sat next to him. "We didn't know what to get you for your birthday," I said, feeling guilty that my husband and I showed up empty-handed. "What do you want?" I asked. "We'll bring it next time we see you."

"Grandkids," he said, matter-of-factly as he split open a crab leg.

My face turned red.

"Oh, don't listen to him," my mother-in-law said, swatting him playfully.

My father-in-law shook his head. "No. I'm serious." There was a sparkle in his eye. Suddenly, I saw life from his perspective. He was 60 with no grandchildren. His own father died when he was young, and his mom didn't live very long past 60. In his mind, he didn't know how many good years he had left, and he wanted to spend them with his grandbabies.

I didn't want to deny him that, but I was also young with my whole life in front of me. A baby would derail the life I loved.

Then, my husband and I babysat an 18-month-old baby for a weekend. Watching my husband push him in the swing, his little giggles erupting, tugged at my heart.

At that moment, I saw the beauty of parenthood for the first time. Later, I spoke to my husband about it. Unlike me, my husband didn't have aspirations to travel before having children — he was happy to settle into fatherhood at age 26.

By the time I'd talked myself out of motherhood, I was pregnant. I felt torn between the life I envisioned and this new future that included a baby, but ultimately, I chose to look at the circumstance through the lens of the adage: everything happens for a reason.

Though that attitude helped me feel more excited about my pregnancy, I still found it difficult. The constant nausea and exhaustion made it harder to focus on my graduate degree studies and full-time work.

My husband and I fought more, too, mostly over the new responsibilities we faced and my pregnancy hormones. The blissful days of the honeymoon stage seemed to be slipping through our fingers. Still, neither of us regarded the pregnancy with regret.

When we took my in-laws and parents out to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant, I handed them each a gift — my favorite picture book, Madeline. Inside, I'd scribbled the words, "Read to me November 18th," and then informed them we were pregnant and that was my due date.

Catching the look of joy on their faces, especially my father-in-law's face, amplified my excitement.

At our gender reveal, we told everyone we were having a boy, and his middle name would be Ignacio, after my father-in-law. When I turned to catch his reaction to the news, tears flowed down his cheeks.

Having a baby early in our marriage changed things

I became a mother three weeks after turning 24. Having a baby added strain to our marriage; our focus was now on the child and not our connection. However, watching my husband care so much for another human being gave me a deeper respect for him. As parents, we learned to be more selfless, and our marriage is better for it.

Motherhood turned out to be the sweetest gift for other reasons, too. At a "Mommy and Me" class, I met a group of extraordinary women. We bonded over sleepless nights, breastfeeding woes, and baby milestones. Our friendship dug deep, and 12 years later, I am still close to this group.

I don't regret anything

My in-laws turned out to be the most devoted grandparents in the world. Our son is an important part of their life. Their phones are full of photos and videos of him — they say he gave them a new calling and purpose.

And, of course, I wouldn't trade my son for anything, either. If we'd waited to have kids longer, I'd never have known this child, this joy, this love.

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