Avital Mashuta, a Data Integration Lead at eBay Israel, credits her love of innovative new technologies for driving her career forward. In a Q&A in our series on our technology leaders, she shares her approach to data science and how it spurs innovation.
Mashuta has been with eBay for more than three years, and has a strong academic background in Industrial Engineering and Management. She leads the exploration and implementation of large-scale data processes on the Structured Data ETL Engineering team, and is helping eBay leverage the power of Big Data tools such as Hadoop.
Her team is in charge of integrating external data into eBay's product catalog and building tools for other teams. Here are her thoughts on her work.
What got you interested in the technology sector and brought you to eBay Inc.?
I was always interested in finding a field that would allow me to combine working with people with developing tools using the newest technologies.
That is why I decided on Industrial Engineering and Management for my academic education majoring in Information Systems.
For me, it was apparent from the start that the diversity of human resources at eBay Israel, together with cutting edge technologies, could present the work environment I was looking for. My role at eBay Israel enables me to work with different individuals and develop new tools that improve and facilitate their work, making it possible to do things faster and more efficiently.
This also allows for valuable time to be redirected toward new initiatives.
What are you working on that is helping to fuel eBay Inc.’s business?
The Structured Data organization is currently focused on scaling out our product creation infrastructure and related operational activities without compromising on quality.
Our main goal is to increase product coverage across all categories in all major sites to support unified product-based experiences. We’re also working to improve various data-driven platforms such as merchandising, traffic, buying and selling flows.
As part of building this new infrastructure, our team is in charge of developing new tools and services for streaming data from various sources into this infrastructure.
We are aiming to build these tools in a way that will allow the operational teams to smoothly transition to the new infrastructure, enabling them to benefit from exciting new features and improve their productivity.
How do you embody eBay Inc.’s purpose and values through your role?
I believe that being open, honest and direct is one of the company’s key values that I’m implementing in my daily work.
I believe that teamwork must be based on open discussion, sharing ideas and listening to different opinions.
When working on a new project, I first like to share my ideas with team members, listen to their opinions and only then decide on a course of action.
I always feel confident to express my opinion with my colleagues, even when my opinion is in the minority. I’ve learned during my work at eBay that taking the direct approach can sometimes lead to breaking old barriers and achieving great results.
What's the best career advice you've received, and how has it helped you develop your career in technology?
I think that the best career advice I’ve received was to dare and try new things even if success is not guaranteed. It’s better to have tried and failed then not to have tried at all.
During my time at eBay, this approach has allowed me to learn new things and acquire many skills that seemed impossible at first. I was able to participate in a variety of projects, enter into the Big Data world and stay on top of new technologies.
I believe that the courage to try new things helped me to get to where I am today, and will help me to meet new challenges in the future.