Gali Katz’s Taboola journey spans an impressive seven years. During that time, she has transitioned from Senior Software Engineer to Algorithm Engineer while pursuing a PhD in Cognitive Science and being an active technology mentor within the community. His role at Taboola is deeply intertwined with cutting-edge technology and innovation, starting with Taboola’s metrics framework, anomaly detection service, localization with large language models (LLM), and semantic similarity. To learn more about Gali’s combined experiences in technology and innovation, I sat down with her to learn about her accomplishments and how her passion for technology has extended beyond Taboola.
Gali in his proudest moments at Taboola
As a tabuolar, I can say with confidence that this ecosystem encourages personal growth. Here you can develop your career, participate in many initiatives and make a difference. Your voice is valued and everything is managed with great transparency.
Reflecting on his reasons for initially joining and growing his career at Taboola, Gali highlights the warm and welcoming environment. “I joined Taboola because of the warm and welcoming people, who saw it as a place where I could be myself and make a difference,” she shares. Growth opportunities in areas such as architecture, data science, and public speaking have been critical factors in his decision to stay and thrive at Taboola.
Gali shares how he embraces unfamiliar technologies and strives to find solutions to problems along the way. He is very proud of his contributions to building several important pipelines from scratch, including the Taboola Metrics Framework, the Taboola Anomaly Detection Service, and the Taboola LLMs pipeline. Each of these projects presented him with diverse and challenging tasks, continually pushing the limits of what was achievable. When working on end-to-end projects, he navigated many challenges and resolved issues as they arose, all while collaborating with multiple teams. In addition, he places great emphasis on fostering a sense of ownership and responsibility for his projects, ensuring that they are clearly articulated for others to understand.
How Taboola has boosted Gali’s professional development
When asked what sets Taboola apart in the industry, Gali emphasizes the company’s commitment to empowering its employees. “The strength of Taboola lies in empowering those who are proactive and interested,” he explains. This supportive culture means that if you identify a potentially valuable path for the business, you’ll be given the resources and access to knowledge to follow it.
Gali has experienced it first hand. After five years in the infrastructure group, she moved to the algorithms department, becoming a machine learning engineer. This shift opened up new opportunities in data science, especially generative AI. It allowed him to pursue his passion and explore new areas such as fine-tuning LLMs, reducing embedding dimensionality and evaluating the quality of semantic embeddings, further developing his skills.
In his words, being part of Taboola means being in an environment that promotes personal growth and values every voice. “As a tabuolar, I can say that this ecosystem encourages personal growth. Here you can develop your professional career, be part of many initiatives and make a difference”, he concludes.
Making an impact in Taboola and beyond
Beyond her technical contributions to Taboola, Gali is deeply involved in mentoring and public prayer. She has participated in the Starship program with Ben-Gurion University three times, where she mentors undergraduate students in developing data science projects and co-authors technical blog posts with them. “I have faith in this program because it introduces students to the industry and accelerates their job search. It’s my way of doing good,” reflects Gali.
Gali also enjoys public speaking and has participated in numerous meetings and conferences. He likes to share his knowledge and discuss his projects with a wider audience. This passion for mentoring and knowledge sharing extends to his day job at Taboola, where he actively advises, teaches and publishes technical content.
His advice to anyone looking to join Taboola is simple yet profound: Dare to take on challenges and pursue your passions. “The best advice I received was to always dare. Choose the path, even if it seems difficult, and set high expectations for yourself,” she says. This mindset has been instrumental in her journey, and she believes it can help others succeed as well.
Gali’s story is a testament to the empowering and inclusive culture at Taboola, where innovation and personal development go hand in hand.
To learn more about why we’re consistently ranked as a great place to work, check out the Taboola Life blog and visit our careers page. Discover your moment with us! #TaboolaLife