In our new blog series, Meet Castlight Tech, we’re featuring some of the brilliant minds on our R&D and Engineering team. In this Q&A, we learn more about Hina Ramani, an engineering manager at Castlight India. 

Describe your position and why working in healthcare is important to you. 

Healthcare is very personal to me; it impacts millions of people, and I believe any opportunity to make it better should be treated with care and addressed immediately.

As an engineering manager at Castlight, my main responsibility is to provide everyone on the team with an environment in which it’s easy to innovate, learn, and develop new skills. Being a technology-driven group, we are always the first ones to get our hands dirty with proofs of concept, then come up with long-term use cases. One example of a project our team worked on was migrating more than forty microservices to Java 11, which required a deep understanding of the entire infrastructure, and the team was able to complete the project in a very well-planned way.

What led to your decision to accept the full-time offer with Castlight earlier this year?

Castlight already had a solid presence in India when the company decided to establish its new R&D center in Hyderabad earlier this year. By then, I had been associated with Castlight for four years. When I got the chance to become a full-time Castlight employee in June 2021, I was more than happy to accept, as I knew doing so would provide enormous opportunities for me to grow both personally and professionally. Plus, one thing I admire most about this company is that leadership constantly tries to keep employees happy and to provide an excellent work-life balance for all. 

What’s your favorite part about being an engineer at Castlight? Any favorite projects you’ve worked on?

At this company, the team is the biggest asset—and that has always been my favorite thing about being a Castlighter. Everyone is so keen to keep the product up to date so users can have a smooth healthcare experience. When everyone on the team is so passionate about the same goal, there are endless possibilities.

During my tenure here, I have been a part of many different projects, but my favorite so far was working alongside some brilliant engineers for the single sign-on (SSO) implementation.

Why do you think it’s so important for more women to join the Engineering field?

Why do you think it’s so important for more women to join the Engineering field?

Diversity is critically important for every field; it makes the product or service you’re providing better overall. As of now, only 15% of engineers worldwide are women, though I believe this is changing. I think many female students are reluctant to enter this field because it’s dominated by males, so they don’t think there’s space for them or that they’ll be able to excel. But there is space for women in engineering—a lot! Some of the most innovative people I’ve worked with are women. And we need more women to join us on this career journey. I truly believe some of the innate qualities many women possess—multitasking, innovation, patience, logical thinking—make females ideal engineering candidates. 

How do you think companies can better support women in this field?

As women, we have a lot on our shoulders. I think it’s crucial for leaders at every company to understand this, and to not let it get in the way of providing everyone with equal opportunities to grow, no matter what their gender is. This is the dream of every woman—to be treated with respect.

At the beginning of my career, I faced gender bias, but I was able to change people’s thinking with the quality of my work. At Castlight, though, I have never faced or even heard any such problem. Here, I believe everyone has equal opportunity and worth. 

What are you passionate about outside of work?

I love traveling, exploring new areas, and meeting new people and learning about their history and culture. I’m also an avid reader, a true Potterhead (i.e., Harry Potter fan). My all-time favorite character from that franchise is Luna Lovegood, mainly because of her strange out-of-the-box thinking—and because of that, I also place Ravenclaw above any other house.