Humans of Rally: Mohamed Gueye, Founding Engineer

Inside Rally is a behind-the-scenes look at the people building the future of User Research and turning ideas into tools that make research faster, more collaborative, and more human.

Mohamed (Mo) Gueye is a founding engineer and engineering lead at Rally. He splits his time between hands-on coding, mentoring engineers, and shaping the technical foundation that powers customer-facing features.

Mo was drawn by the chance to help build a startup from the ground up and by a mission he personally felt while leading projects at HubSpot. Outside work, he’s all about growth and pushing limits with a “what more can I do?” mindset that shows up in the gym and in his code. 

What motivates you outside of work? 

Mo: Growing through stages. When I was a young kid in Senegal, one of the things that motivated me was my siblings. My sister was always pushing the boundary and doing so much more. She had this saying I remember whenever I’m stressed or scared: je le veux, je le peux et je le ferai  – I want it, I can do it, and I will do it.

As I walk through life, everything feels like a new challenge. If I’m excited about something, I’m going to just do it and try my best. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, it’s fine. I’ll figure out what’s next. I’m always asking myself, what more can I do? How can I keep learning and growing, even just a little bit every day?

What drew you to Rally’s mission?

Mo: When I was at HubSpot, we needed to talk to users. My team was working on the form embeds and cookie banner for HubSpot CMS, and we were redoing a lot of it. We had to understand the expectations of our users and how the updates would impact their websites.

To talk to users, we’d go through a research team, which took weeks going back and forth on questions, finding participants, scheduling sessions. We needed answers fast to guide our work. When I heard about Rally, it resonated instantly. It was literally the problem we had: Making User Research faster and better integrated into product development. 

What’s been your most rewarding “look what I built” moment?

Mo: It’s hard to pick one specific moment. In previous roles, a lot of my work was in the background. Changes would roll out and maybe months later someone noticed. At Rally, changes don’t get lost. When you make an improvement, people spot it right away, go crazy, and as an engineer you get that instant dopamine hit.

You ship something and people immediately start posting about it in our customer Slack channels. At first it’s just one or two people, which is amazing, but by the end of the month the usage is through the roof.

If I had to pick one moment, I’d say it was building our Observer Rooms feature, which lets people watch live user research sessions. It’s a complex system that brings together multiple tools behind the scenes. I thought it might crash or be a little wonky, but it’s running, and so many people are using it, even stakeholders outside Rally. It’s a really rewarding feeling.

What upcoming technical challenges are you excited about?

Mo: Definitely scaling. Imagine Rally today, then imagine it ten times bigger. We’re making the product even simpler for users, with a lot of cool new visualizations and UI to build, and some big scaling work happening on the backend. Both sides of that are really exciting.

Why is Rally a great place to grow your career?

Mo: We’re early. We’re still building systems, teams, and foundations. You’ll get mentorship and as your impact is felt across the company, you’ll get opportunities to grow, learn, and help build teams with us. We care as much about helping people grow and reach their potential as we do about building a great product our customers love.  

How would you describe the vibe of the engineering team and the culture at Rally?

Mo: We’re a group of senior engineers who work hard, explore new tech, and have fun while doing it. We’re fully remote, but it often feels like we’re all in a chill house together, building things, putting out fires, and sending each other memes.

That same energy extends across the company. Rally is full of smart people who want to work hard and build something great together. You can have a serious conversation in Slack, and once the business stuff is squared away, people start memeing and having fun. We work hard, but we know when to pause, breathe, and enjoy the moment.

How has Rally supported your growth?

Mo: With AI and new systems, companies either bring in someone who already knows it or give people time to learn and build it in-house. At Rally, you get the opportunity and support to learn and then implement. The company’s also growing, so as an engineering lead I’m thinking about foundations for a successful org, both the engineer side (learn and ship) and the leading side (establish foundations).

What do you look for in new engineers?

Mo: We look for people who work hard and are excited to learn new things. The best engineers are the ones who can say, “I know this, but I’m willing to learn something completely new, take the time, and contribute.” Since we’re remote, we need people who like to collaborate, chat, and have open, respectful discussions – even when they don’t agree – and still have fun while doing it.

Any advice for someone considering applying?

Mo: In general, bring good vibes and be yourself. It’s a really open culture and everyone adds to it in their own way. The people here are nice, welcoming, and genuinely excited to talk, learn, and build together. If you’re willing to work hard and want to build cool technology people use every day, you’ll fit right in.

For engineering, it’s the same. You’ve built systems, so come tell us about the cool things you’ve built.

💜 Interested in joining a team that ships fast, learns together, and builds for real users every day? Check out our open roles and come say hi.