Meet the Team

With Meet The HARMAN Luxury Team, our goal is for you to get to know us better. In each edition we feature a different member of the team, and this month it's Maria Cyriac, Principal Software Engineer.

How would you describe what you do in your current role?

I play an embedded software programmer role in creating HARMAN’s next generation Luxury Audio products.

What did you study in school? Did you always imagine yourself doing something like what you’re doing now or did the fates just take you in that direction?

I did my bachelor’s in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. I was very interested in animation in school and thought I would probably become an artist or something along those lines. But in college I studied C programming as part of my professional course and got hooked. I realized I have an aptitude for problem solving and since I am an EE engineer, I naturally turned to embedded software programming.

How did your career path lead you to HARMAN?

I was working in Sky when I was contacted by a very nice recruiter from HARMAN, who was interested in my application to a role that was advertised in LinkedIn. The advertisement appealed to me since it seemed an opportunity for me to grow as an engineer. It was also an opportunity to work on some very high-end, sophisticated audio products. During the interview the team seemed wonderful, so I decided on working at HARMAN if everything went well.

What is the most important thing you have learned over your career?

Work hard and take regular breaks in between.

Any other advice you would share with people just starting out in this industry?

Keep an open mind to new concepts and ideas. Grab every opportunity you get to learn something new.

What are you most proud of in your life?

My family 😊

What current technology impresses you the most?

Extended Reality has great potential to be used in a lot of different ways that could change the way we live our lives.

Favorite music genre?

I like listening to all kinds of music. I’m not partial to a particular genre. Any music that makes me lose myself in the rhythm and beats and the melody is good music to me.

The desert island question, of course. If you were marooned for eternity and could listen to only three albums, what would they be?

1. Where are you now - Lost Frequencies
2. Making Mirrors – Gotye
3. Night Visions – Imagine Dragons

You have the floor. In closing, tell us anything else you want us to know about yourself.

I’m an amateur artist. I do pencil sketches of people from their photographs, mainly because I can’t get anyone to sit still for hours at a stretch for me to sketch them 😊