Natalia Burina, a refugee from Yugoslavia who migrated to the U.S in the early 90s is now a successful tech entrepreneur

Natalia Burina, founder of social media platform, Parable is one of the prominent personalities in the list of young women achievers in the field of software technology. Parable, a photo-networking app, amalgamating thoughts, emotions, and image as one, earned Burina the fame and glory in the tech industry. Parable was later bought by Samsung. The charismatic, self-made entrepreneur whose journey from surviving the war of independence and insurgencies in Yugoslavia in the early 90s to becoming a computer programmer is inspiring enough for every ordinary girl to live up to her dreams.

Born to a well-off family in Yugoslavia, her family had to immigrate to Seattle to escape the war raging in the country. Being completely unaware of the place, and the language, as well as the post-war financial burden, affected their lifestyles. "It just seemed like we went from having a fairly good life where we would drive to Croatia every summer, and we went from that to just like, oh, we have five suitcases of clothes and we don't know anyone, we don't speak English," Burina spoke about her hostile experiences as she recollects the childhood paranoia of war and survival.

Burina started her career as a software engineer after pursuing bachelor's degree in Applied and Computational Mathematics from the University of Washington and focused on the implementation of Applied Maths in the field of Computer Science.

Leading the product teams at various top giants like Microsoft, eBay etc., she has added many feathers to her cap in her multiple roles as a software engineer, product lead, analyst etc. She has more than 15 years of experience as a technologist in Product Management and leadership.  

She is presently working at Facebook as an Artificial Intelligence Product Lead for assisting on Applied Machine Learning. Prior to working at Facebook, Burina joined Foundation Capital as an Entrepreneur in Residence to help portfolio companies to focus on enterprise AI.

Burina has been recognized as “The Most Powerful Female Engineer in 2017” by Business Insider. Although she loves the tech space and strongly believes that nobody can escape from it in the computer-driven culture of Silicon Valley, she had never imagined that she would be a tech entrepreneur. She has always been fond of literature and a voracious reader who loves to write. A multilingual person, who understands the power of language or how a well-written communication can change the future of a business!

To combine her interests in software development as well as language, she created Parable along with a classmate from the University of Washington. The app, according to her, is for intelligent conversation and posting meaningful and inspiring quotes. Parable was well received by the tech savvies. It garnered acquisition interests from Facebook and Pinterest.

She has come a long way from surviving the war to fighting her inner battles. As the software development field looks male dominating, evolving as one of the most creative developers, this woman broke all the stereotypes!