A haredi Chabad Rabbi has become Microsoft's most senior ultra-Orthodox engineer, having been promoted to corporate vice president this month.
Rabbi Yitzhak Kesselman, 40, posted on his LinkedIn account this week that he was "incredibly honored to step into a new role as Corporate Vice President, Messaging and Real-Time Analytics."His work focuses on enterprise software and a management product called Fabric.
The Messaging and Real-Time Analytics Platform team was created less than two years ago, with Kesselman being brought in as Vice President at the time following a one and half year stint at Google. Prior to that, he worked at Microsoft for almost nine years as Partner Director of Software Engineering.
Journey from Israel to New York
Kesselman was born in Riga, Latvia, and raised in the Israeli-Arab city of Ramle in Israel from the age of six. He has a bachelor's degree in computer science from Tel Aviv University.
His IDF service was spent in the computing unit of the Intelligence Corps as part of the academic reserve program.
"In the mornings, I studied differential and integral calculus and data structures as part of the academic reserve, and in the evenings, I studied the Talmudic tractate Berakhot and Chabad teachings at the yeshiva," he wrote in a LinkedIn post.
He then spent seven years as an Engineering Manager at two Israeli tech companies: Retalix and Smartech Medical.
He was one of the first haredi employees at Microsoft's center in Israel.
He is now based in New York, where he lives with his five children, according to Ynet. However, many of his team of 400 people are based at the Herzliya development center, so Kesselman would regularly travel to Israel, Ynet added.
Becoming a rabbi
Kesselman began his studies to become an Orthodox Rabbi in 2023, telling Globes that "This is a full year of intensive studies, in which we delve deeper into issues relevant to the daily life of the Jews."
"In the program I am taking [in the US] are seven exams, each of which is oral and written, and in order to succeed it is necessary to demonstrate knowledge of the subject across the entire chain of law, from the halachic rulings to the latest rulings."
He added that becoming a rabbi is something he had wanted to do for many years.
Kesselman added that Microsoft has strong policies around inclusion and diversity and has never made him feel uncomfortable about his Judaism.
"I have never seen any dissonance between my work and my faith," he told Globes.
He recounted a time when, a few months after his relocation to New York, during an online meeting with a large client, he was asked to schedule a follow-up meeting for Friday. He told Globes: "My manager put the call on mute and asked me when Shabbat was coming in, so I wouldn't have to feel uncomfortable."
Kesselman added that he works with other Haredi men and women, some in the US and some in Israel.
"When talking about Haredim, even in Haredi society, there are many streams, each of which has its own nuances. It makes the job interesting on a personal level as a manager, to work with people from dozens of countries, and of course also from many streams in Haredi society."
He told Globes he has also been personally involved in hiring Haredi women to work at Microsoft.
"We looked at how it was possible to diversify the company's employees without compromising on quality," he said. "We had to look outside the box and examine candidates from different educational institutions, for example, higher education institutions for Haredi women."
"I believe that every man and woman from the Haredi community who wants to integrate into the tech industry can do so like anyone else – with hard work, curiosity, and a willingness to learn and improve."
