A Brickyard engineer’s journey from Sudan to the Scenic City
Brickyard, Chattanooga’s booming venture capital firm on the Southside, is a beehive of activity. But if you were to visit it on any given day, one of the things you may be struck by immediately is the dichotomy of work taking place.
Sure, there are plenty of hi-fives handed out daily, gongs-a-ringing signifying newly closed deals, as well as seemingly countless in-person and Zoom-style meetings going well into the evening. Yet while all these familiar trappings of the high-energy startup world are taking place, you’d also notice dozens of employees parked in front of computer monitors in quiet, almost monk-like concentration, doing the technological gruntwork that powers forward each of the Brickyard portfolio companies.
And this is exactly where you’ll normally find Ahmed Mohamed, a software engineer with Goliath Data, a fast-growing startup in the Brickyard family that leverages AI to connect real estate professionals with homeowners who are ready to sell their properties.
Computer engineering 7,000 miles from home
It’s safe to say that until recently, Ahmed never envisioned himself spending a significant portion of his life in Chattanooga, which is more than 7,000 air miles away from the capital of Sudan, his home country.
Ahmed’s trek to Chattanooga actually started with his two older brothers, both of whom are talented electrical engineers who, after passing international exams and earning scholarships, traveled to the Scenic City to complete degrees from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s College of Engineering & Computer Science.
While they were here, Ahmed remained in Sudan, eventually finishing his undergraduate degree — where he ranked 20th out of roughly 420,000 students in the Sudanese national college exams — before beginning his career at home and elsewhere in the Middle East. After two years, though, Ahmed decided to follow in his brothers’ footsteps and make the journey to Chattanooga to begin graduate school at UTC. But instead of focusing on electrical engineering like his brothers did, Ahmed elected to pursue computer science.
Ahmed settled in nicely at UTC. As he tells it, “One of my favorite things about UTC is the community. Even though you meet people from all around the States and all around the world, you still always feel like you’re at home.”
Two years later, with a master’s degree nearly in hand (eventually achieved with a 4.0 grade point average), Ahmed was wrapping up an internship with an international leader in sustainable mobility and a research project with the University of Tennessee when Goliath Co-Founder and CEO, Max Yuan, called on the Dean of UTC’s College of Engineering and Computer Science asking if they might have any star students who would be interested in joining the startup. An introduction was made, and there began Ahmed’s second chapter in Chattanooga.
From the classroom to coding wizardry
Ahmed officially joined Goliath in November 2024 and quickly got to work contributing to the company’s rapid growth.
“Ahmed solves problems before anyone even knows they exist,” Yuan said. “But he’s more than just a safeguard, he’s a builder. Ahmed ensures we’re moving in the right direction. He’s not just planning for the next three months, he’s planning for the next three years, setting the foundation for our next big steps.”
One of the most prominent variables in the Brickyard ethos is to minimize distractions so every member of each portfolio company can dedicate as much of themself as possible to helping their respective business get to its next lifestage.
In this regard, Ahmed embodies the Brickyard worldview well. On most days, he arrives at his workstation at about 8 a.m. The first portion of his morning is dedicated to learning as much about the real estate industry as he possibly can. After all, if you’re building a solution tailored to a particular industry, you’ve got to be an authority in that space. For the rest of the day, aside from periodic meetings, Ahmed’s time is dedicated to coding and learning as much as he can about the other Goliath business facets.
“I think every engineer should work at a startup early in their career,” Ahmed said. “It teaches you a lot about the software engineering process, and more importantly, it exposes you to many different aspects of the field, helping you explore your interests. At this point, I’m even learning about sales and how to run a fast-growing company.”
The hours are long, and as anyone who’s ever worked in a startup can attest, the to-do list is never-ending. But one of the first things Ahmed likes to point out is that the camaraderie he has with the rest of the Goliath team makes it all worth the grind.
As he puts it, “The Goliath team feels like a group of great friends who just happen to work together. At one point, a coworker told me, ‘Now you have seven new best friends whether you like it or not.’ We laughed, but it’s true.”
The strong Goliath culture is a large part of its success to date, and will no doubt be a substantial driver of its future trajectory. In addition to repeatedly setting monthly revenue records, the Goliath leadership team is currently raising its next round of equity financing that, when complete, will empower the company to expand its engineering team while entering new markets across the South.
Ahmed, it appears, will be very busy for the foreseeable future.
Usually, at some point around 8:30 p.m., Ahmed finishes his day on the Brickyard campus and heads to his apartment downtown. Roughly three years after he began his Chattanooga journey, Ahmed is still smitten on the Scenic City.
“Chattanooga is such a nice city,” Ahmed said. “I’m glad I still get to be here. Honestly, as I was finishing my studies at UTC, I envisioned myself taking a West Coast job and moving to Silicon Valley, but Silicon Valley came to me here.”To learn more about Goliath Data, read this interview from the March 2025 edition of Edge Magazine.
