Career 180

At a glance

Sector

Online education / employability & career services (B2C + B2B + B2G)

HQ

Cairo, Egypt

Geography served

Egypt + MENA

Founded

2016 — by Shrouk Alaa-eldin and Mohamed Akmal

My role

Co-founder & CTO (joined October 2019 as 3rd partner)

Anchor B2B projects & partnerships

B2B Projects & Partnerships

External program

SuperCharger Ventures Malta — 2024 EdTech accelerator (3 months on-site)

Status

Active — Pre-Series A

Personal liquidity event

2022 — sold partner stake at my own initiative; remained CTO

Outcome

Active — Pre-Series A

Career 180 is active and at Pre-Series A stage. I remain CTO. There has been no acquisition or company-level exit; the only liquidity event to date is my personal 2022 partner-stake sale.

What Career 180 does

Career 180 is an Egypt-headquartered platform focused on employability and career outcomes for the MENA workforce. The product combines self-paced online courses, 1:1 coaching and mentorship, career services (CV, interview prep, placement support), events (Career 180's own events plus events organised for other entities), and a SaaS LMS used to power partner programs.

Revenue comes from three channels: B2C (individuals), B2B (companies sponsoring employee development, including major corporate partners), and B2G (government workforce-development programs).

I joined in October 2019 as the third partner and built the platform from scratch — the business existed but had no real software platform; operations ran on manual tooling. The engineering organisation grew past 10 engineers under my leadership in the years since, with a standalone product function eventually established in 2025.

My role and contribution

1. Joining (October 2019)

   Came in as the third partner / co-founder and CTO in October 2019 — just over three years after Career 180 was founded. The business existed but had no real software platform — operations ran on manual tooling. My remit was to build the technical foundation for a venture that wanted to scale beyond manual operations into a proper digital learning + services product.

2. Build phase (2019 → 2022)

   Built the MVP and v1 of the original Career 180 platform end-to-end from a blank repo. Built the events-management module — first version, then extended it to handle Career 180's own events and events organised for third parties. Built the digital infrastructure for the first MENA Career Summit (online edition) — speakers from across the MENA region, not only Egypt. Originated the idea of converting the LMS into a SaaS product, then built the LMS-as-SaaS MVP — the platform behind Career 180's B2B Projects & Partnerships. Architected Career 180's multi-payment integration — multi-PSP, multi-segment B2C / B2B / B2G, Egypt + cross-border. Hired across engineering and tech support. Grew the engineering team past 10 engineers. Introduced Scrum, engineering automation, a cybersecurity practice, and a Data & BI practice.

3. Building product, engineering & QA culture (2020 → 2025)

   When I joined Career 180 in October 2019, the company didn't yet have a dedicated product function — we ran lean, the founders had a clear sense of direction, and I covered the role end-to-end as CTO and de facto product lead through 2023: writing user stories, defining sprints, drafting release notes, and pressure-testing requests that didn't survive validation. After 3+ years of advocating for a standalone product function, founders and board green-lit a trial in early 2024; the first PM ran three months — enough to prove the function added value, not enough for the role to stick that round. It landed for real in 2025, and today owns the PRDs, sprint planning, pre-planning, and release notes I used to carry. The same pattern played out between developers and QC: severity disputes, irreproducible bugs, incomplete defect reports, deadline pressure forcing rushed testing — most of it traceable to the two functions meeting too late in the lifecycle. I worked to reframe the relationship around a shared goal — shipping high-quality software — and the QC→QA shift followed: I formally pulled QA into grooming and sprint planning so test cases get written before code, and we introduced automated testing alongside it. Sprints stopped being blocked by QA. Career 180 went from a startup where everyone did everything and the seams between functions were either nonexistent or adversarial, to a real engineering organisation with distinct product, engineering, QA, and Data & BI functions that interface cleanly. That's the chapter I'm proudest of.

4. Liquidity event (2022)

   Took partial founder liquidity by selling my partner stake. The transaction was at my initiative, not the board's — i.e. founder-led secondary, not a forced exit. Remained CTO immediately afterwards and continue in the role today.

5. External program: SuperCharger Ventures Malta (2024)

   Selected to represent Career 180 at SuperCharger Ventures, a Malta-based EdTech acceleration program. Spent 3 months on-site in Malta as the company's founder representative — carried Career 180 through the full program, pitched on demo day, built the partnership pipeline ahead of the BD team, and sourced two partnerships from the cohort network (one during the program, one ~a year later). During the same Malta period, also represented Career 180 at the annual Startup Festival summit in Malta.

6. Current

   Still CTO. Continuing to run the engineering and product platform that supports the company's push to Series A.

Things I owned

• Built the original Career 180 platform (MVP + v1) from a blank repo (2019).
• Built the events-management module powering Career 180's own events and events organised for third parties.
• Built the digital infrastructure for the first MENA Career Summit (online edition) — speakers from across the MENA region.
• Originated AND built the LMS-as-SaaS — the platform behind Career 180's B2B Projects & Partnerships.
• Architected the LMS, the multi-payment integration (multi-PSP, multi-segment B2C / B2B / B2G, Egypt + cross-border), the billing layer, and the B2B-B2G contract-integration systems.
• Hired and led the engineering and tech-support organisations; grew engineering past 10 engineers.
• Introduced Scrum, engineering automation, a cybersecurity practice, and a Data & BI practice into Career 180.
• Built the case for a standalone product function over 3+ years of advocacy with founders and board — operating as CTO and de facto product lead through 2023; the function was established in 2025 and today owns PRDs, sprint planning, pre-planning, and release notes.
• Healed the product↔engineering and dev↔QC seams as the org matured, and led the QC→QA shift — pulled QA into grooming and sprint planning so test cases get written before code, introduced automated testing; sprints stopped being blocked by QA.
• Made the stack decision (Laravel / MySQL / TALL) for the second time in a production setting.
• Represented Career 180 at SuperCharger Ventures Malta (2024) and the annual Startup Festival summit in Malta — pitched at demo day; sourced two partnerships from the accelerator network.

Things I contributed to

• Career 180's growth as a brand across Egypt + MENA.
• Career 180's B2B Projects & Partnerships (built the SaaS LMS behind them; did not run the commercial deals).
• B2G traction with government workforce-development programs.
• Pre-Series A fundraising readiness from a tech-organisation standpoint.

What I claim — and what I don't

What Career 180 does

Career 180 is an Egypt-headquartered platform focused on employability and career outcomes for the MENA workforce. The product combines self-paced online courses, 1:1 coaching and mentorship, career services (CV, interview prep, placement support), events (Career 180's own events plus events organised for other entities), and a SaaS LMS used to power partner programs.

Revenue comes from three channels: B2C (individuals), B2B (companies sponsoring employee development, including major corporate partners), and B2G (government workforce-development programs).

I joined in October 2019 as the third partner and built the platform from scratch — the business existed but had no real software platform; operations ran on manual tooling. The engineering organisation grew past 10 engineers under my leadership in the years since, with a standalone product function eventually established in 2025.

My role and contribution

1. Joining (October 2019)

   Came in as the third partner / co-founder and CTO in October 2019 — just over three years after Career 180 was founded. The business existed but had no real software platform — operations ran on manual tooling. My remit was to build the technical foundation for a venture that wanted to scale beyond manual operations into a proper digital learning + services product.

2. Build phase (2019 → 2022)

   Built the MVP and v1 of the original Career 180 platform end-to-end from a blank repo. Built the events-management module — first version, then extended it to handle Career 180's own events and events organised for third parties. Built the digital infrastructure for the first MENA Career Summit (online edition) — speakers from across the MENA region, not only Egypt. Originated the idea of converting the LMS into a SaaS product, then built the LMS-as-SaaS MVP — the platform behind Career 180's B2B Projects & Partnerships. Architected Career 180's multi-payment integration — multi-PSP, multi-segment B2C / B2B / B2G, Egypt + cross-border. Hired across engineering and tech support. Grew the engineering team past 10 engineers. Introduced Scrum, engineering automation, a cybersecurity practice, and a Data & BI practice.

3. Building product, engineering & QA culture (2020 → 2025)

   When I joined Career 180 in October 2019, the company didn't yet have a dedicated product function — we ran lean, the founders had a clear sense of direction, and I covered the role end-to-end as CTO and de facto product lead through 2023: writing user stories, defining sprints, drafting release notes, and pressure-testing requests that didn't survive validation. After 3+ years of advocating for a standalone product function, founders and board green-lit a trial in early 2024; the first PM ran three months — enough to prove the function added value, not enough for the role to stick that round. It landed for real in 2025, and today owns the PRDs, sprint planning, pre-planning, and release notes I used to carry. The same pattern played out between developers and QC: severity disputes, irreproducible bugs, incomplete defect reports, deadline pressure forcing rushed testing — most of it traceable to the two functions meeting too late in the lifecycle. I worked to reframe the relationship around a shared goal — shipping high-quality software — and the QC→QA shift followed: I formally pulled QA into grooming and sprint planning so test cases get written before code, and we introduced automated testing alongside it. Sprints stopped being blocked by QA. Career 180 went from a startup where everyone did everything and the seams between functions were either nonexistent or adversarial, to a real engineering organisation with distinct product, engineering, QA, and Data & BI functions that interface cleanly. That's the chapter I'm proudest of.

4. Liquidity event (2022)

   Took partial founder liquidity by selling my partner stake. The transaction was at my initiative, not the board's — i.e. founder-led secondary, not a forced exit. Remained CTO immediately afterwards and continue in the role today.

5. External program: SuperCharger Ventures Malta (2024)

   Selected to represent Career 180 at SuperCharger Ventures, a Malta-based EdTech acceleration program. Spent 3 months on-site in Malta as the company's founder representative — carried Career 180 through the full program, pitched on demo day, built the partnership pipeline ahead of the BD team, and sourced two partnerships from the cohort network (one during the program, one ~a year later). During the same Malta period, also represented Career 180 at the annual Startup Festival summit in Malta.

6. Current

   Still CTO. Continuing to run the engineering and product platform that supports the company's push to Series A.

Team and tech stack

10+ engineers under my leadership at peak, plus a tech-support function I built. The standalone product function was established in 2025 (see the product/QA culture phase above).

Backend

PHP / Laravel

Database

MySQL

Frontend

TALL stack (Tailwind, Alpine.js, Livewire)

Engineering practice

Scrum (build phase)Engineering automationCybersecurity practiceData & BI practiceQA in grooming + sprint planning (later)Automated testing (later)

The same Laravel / MySQL / TALL family I shipped at scale at Platform One — re-using the stack let me move fast on the rebuild and bring proven operational patterns. Scrum, engineering automation, a cybersecurity practice, and a Data & BI practice came in during the build phase. The QC→QA shift — QA in grooming + sprint planning, automated testing alongside it — landed later, once the standalone product function was in place.

Things I owned

• Built the original Career 180 platform (MVP + v1) from a blank repo (2019).
• Built the events-management module powering Career 180's own events and events organised for third parties.
• Built the digital infrastructure for the first MENA Career Summit (online edition) — speakers from across the MENA region.
• Originated AND built the LMS-as-SaaS — the platform behind Career 180's B2B Projects & Partnerships.
• Architected the LMS, the multi-payment integration (multi-PSP, multi-segment B2C / B2B / B2G, Egypt + cross-border), the billing layer, and the B2B-B2G contract-integration systems.
• Hired and led the engineering and tech-support organisations; grew engineering past 10 engineers.
• Introduced Scrum, engineering automation, a cybersecurity practice, and a Data & BI practice into Career 180.
• Built the case for a standalone product function over 3+ years of advocacy with founders and board — operating as CTO and de facto product lead through 2023; the function was established in 2025 and today owns PRDs, sprint planning, pre-planning, and release notes.
• Healed the product↔engineering and dev↔QC seams as the org matured, and led the QC→QA shift — pulled QA into grooming and sprint planning so test cases get written before code, introduced automated testing; sprints stopped being blocked by QA.
• Made the stack decision (Laravel / MySQL / TALL) for the second time in a production setting.
• Represented Career 180 at SuperCharger Ventures Malta (2024) and the annual Startup Festival summit in Malta — pitched at demo day; sourced two partnerships from the accelerator network.

What I claim — and what I don't