Software People Stories

In this episode, Karl Hughes, founder and CEO of Draft.dev, sharesStarting his career, working with startups as a software engineerTaking on engineering management and CTO rolesCovid triggering a shift to get into technical writing for developersHow to think of documentation for developers, as an intentional activityHis views on Agile approaches and documentation and the need to right size the documentationHow the product maturity influences the need and depth of documentationWhy writing is the most effective way to document and communicateHis thoughts on effectiveness of visual communicationWriting for a diverse audience and the role of video for communicating with developersImportance of reviews and feedback for greater effectiveness of written contentHow he got interested in writing If writing is a teachable or learnable skillHow he balances and manages his time between the maker and manager modes of workingHis experience with Shark Tank, when his company was invited to pitch at Shark TankWorking with a global, distributed team of software engineersWhether audio has a role to play as a medium for communicating with developersHis career tips for getting into writingBio: Karl Hughes is a former software engineer and CTO in Chicago. He is now the Founder and CEO of Draft.dev, a specialized technical marketing agency that creates content designed to reach software engineers.Twitter: https://twitter.com/KarlLHughesDraft.dev writer application: https://draft.dev/write

In this second part of the conversation with an IT industry veteran, Satyendra Kumar, he sharesHis perspective on Agile approachesAgile approaches are good for certain contexts such as: products, supported by DevOps and other techniquesMay still be reluctant for systems such as critical, real-time systems [nuclear, aircraft etc]For services work, need to be careful; unless there is a strong risk management approach, it may be risky to use Agile approachesExamples from his experiences in helping large organizationsHis approach to understanding an organization to enable change, by starting with a business problemHis tips to address data quality and quantity, by looking at the metrics system and identifying the right lead indicatorsThe need for the quality function to learn and evolveA sneak peek into his upcoming book on building excellence in organizations

In this first part of the conversation with an IT industry veteran, Satyendra Kumar, he sharesComing from a humble background and doing his initial education in a villageGetting into Delhi University based on his good academic performanceHaving to take up a job, to meet some family needsHow he chose a job in a defence agency and rising to a senior levelLeaving his job and getting into consulting and qualitySetting up the Tata Business Excellence Model for the groupWorking with different business units in different domainsSwitching to an IT organization before joining and spending 14 years at InfosysContinuing to work with different organizations post retirement from InfosysHow learning came naturally to him, particularly in very new, challenging and different environmentsHow he gains confidence about being able to do anything, amidst uncertaintyThe experience based on a major decision to switch from the comforts of a government jab, to a small apartment in a distant suburbHow he thinks scale in conceiving and implementing organization wide initiatives, while making sure he has enough bandwidth to plan for the future and growing his team to 700His experience of recruiting people from non IT organizationsHow to get comfortable with delegation, with trust in the teamHis experience of creating an awareness and acceptance of processes among technical teamsThe tendency in quality professionals to become more of audit persons than having a direct connect with the senior leadership, to help them steer the businessWhy there should be shared goals for improvement between the quality function and the business unitsIn the next part, Kumar shares the answer to the question on his experience and perspectives related to Agile approaches and many more interesting points. Do not miss that..Independent Advisor and Consultant to several large and medium scale institutions and enterprises since 2013. Was the Global Head and Senior Vice President– Productivity & Quality, Technology Tools & Software Reuse at Infosys Limited ( 2000 – 2013). Worked as Vice President at IMR Global, USA between 1998 and 2000. Worked as Deputy Chief Executive for Tata Quality Management Services – Tata Group between 1996 and 1998. Has consulted for over 50 national and multi-national clients in areas of Business Excellence, Operational Efficiencies, Customer Satisfaction Management, Business Continuity Management, Project and Program Management, and Quality Management. Had been Board member ( QuEST USA) , On the Panel of Judges - Wisconsin State Award ( USA) , Administrative Reforms Committee of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Chief Technical Advisor to the Confederation of Indian Industry – Institute of Quality.Has been a recipient of IEEE-Software Engineering Institute ( Carnegie Mellon University) International award (2011) and honoured with the “ Life Time Achievement Award for Quality and Business Excellence “ by a IT Industry association

In this episode, Harish Achappa KM sharesChoosing mechanical engineering as a subject of study and getting into TCS engineering servicesWorking on valves and compressorsGetting into programming as part if his workThe experience of having a paid vacation in Italy!How his interest in programming developed after starting to use C, C++ as a hobbyNoticing differences in projects done at client locations v/s in IndiaWorking directly with users and feeding off the energy based on common questionsGetting quicker feedbackUnderstanding that some of the work cannot be done remotelyAvoiding assumptions and getting clarifications in contextRequesting to work in a development projectGetting an opportunity to work on a public infrastructure projectLearning the value and benefit of parametrization while programmingTaking some time to find his feet in a fully software coding roleHis experience of taking up a product manager role, enabled by his ability to ask a lot of clarifying questionsOn product thinking, even for an enterprise solutionHis career adviceCuriosity and willingness to learn: driveConsolidating the learningsTaking the responsibility for one’s frustrationsAre you motivated to build, generate ideas or bothHarish is a product manager with over 23 years of experience; he has been a developer, boot-strapped a firm and been a consultant. You can reach him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/hachappa/

In this episode, Brij Sethi, a Principal Consultant at PM Power, sharesHis growing up days in Pantnagar, near NainiTalHis passion for reading booksHis liking for mathematics and wanting to be an engineerBeing bitten by the electronics bug and electronics engineering in collegeJoining a masters in management in systems in IIM AhmedabadLearning Transactional Analysis Getting into a project to make ECG machines as an engineer, forgetting his MBAJoining WIPRO in 1993 and working on many challenging projectsHis strong feeling in 1998 to be a facilitator, including facilitating 6 sigma projectsTaking up the CTO role with HP, and enabling filing a record number of patents across teamsWanting to teach and getting back to WiproCreating education related media and starting a companyHow he connects various ideas picked up from books and other sources, by letting goBe simple in what he has to shareUsing Obsidian to keep connected points Making conscious efforts to digest what he readsApplying TA in business contextsTransitions across different ways or states of thinkingConsciously spending time in capturing his state of mind before switching statesBeing low on J orientation, can accept contradictions and unresolved stuffTip from his mentor: Need to wear a facilitator hat and outcome hatHis experience of working in a social sector contextA story on the approach of influencing with PowerPoint slidesWhy, Who and What - three questions for a facilitation sessionCreating an empty space for ownershipThe experience of a father-son founding teamThe trigger and satisfaction on launching his podcastHis career adviceLeave yourself open, take some risksBrij is a Principal Consultant with PM Power. He has worked for Wipro and HP for many years and more recently founded a Media Studio to make educational content. He facilitated deep expertise in HP during his tenure as CTO. The number of patents filed in 1 year went up from 6 to 184.Brij is a trained in group facilitation. He helps agile practitioners do personal action planning, undo team dysfunctions by themselves and dream a future by tinkering to a customer context. He also talks about career readiness in his podcast - Ready to work - on brijsethi.com.

In this episode, Thyagarajan, known as Raja - a Senior Management Executive and Chief Operating Officer with nearly 4 decades of experience in the IT industry involving International and multi-cultural environments, shares his story including points related to:How his uncle and brother were influential in getting into software after doing an MS in managementBeing part of a team that started a company, and being an entrepreneur without knowing itBeing a pioneer in the Indian IT industry, by having an approach of creating tools to improve development productivity or products to solve customer problemsInnovating techniques to create solutions, long before others, when there were no standards to do some thingsChallenges of running a company that offered professional services as well as productsTransitioning from a developer to more managerial rolesSome of the lessons learned in being an entrepreneurApplying technology based thinking to create generic solutionsTesting in a development environment versus running in a production environment and related lessons learntBalancing and prioritizing requests from various users and having a process to build the solution in an evolutionary mannerThe ways in which software development has changed over the yearsWhat it takes for someone to shift from a service / project mindset to a product mindsetRaja is a Senior Management Executive and Chief Operating Officer with nearly 4 decades of experience in the IT industry involving International and multi-cultural environments.His experience includes:Managing operations of an IT company, with its offshore center in India and marketing/sales offices in the US, that has over 200 employees.Handling IT projects and product development hands-on combined with heading the operations, ensures understanding of the operations in Toto.All round leadership experience of managing all aspects of the business - S&M, Technology, Delivery, HR and Finance.Innovatively creating products and services and delivering through hands on leadership

In this episode, Muktesh Murthy, a practice head in the information security space, shares his story and touches uponDoing his schooling in many places, as his father was in the Army His interest in accounts, commerce and economics and hospitality managementStarting his career in hotel management and then getting into a computer course, as he wanted to get into roles where he can directly influence the resultsDoing some development work, then managing an account and later on becoming an information security professionalHis motivation to acquire various certifications and desire to learn from everyoneHow he expanded his knowledge around standards, as new specializations were introduced in the areas of information security, business continuity etcHis style of working where he prefers to sit with teams and help them create relevant documents, so that they are confident of doing it themselves in the futureHow he balances the need to be objectively critical and at the same time, nurture positive relationships with peopleThe importance of getting and sharing the big picture with the entire teamHow the SHE policy has been incorporated into every meetingOutthinking the attackersCareer tips to become an infosec professionalAn MBA, PMP and ITIL certified professional with over 29 years of overall experience of which over 26 years has been in the Information Technology field and 3 years in the Hospitality Industry. Presently working as Practice Head in Tech Mahindra, Bangalore.The 26+ years in IT has seen rich and diverse experience in Information Security, Risk and Compliance, Process Consulting, Delivery Management, Program and Project Management, Operations Management, Vendor Management, Account Management and Quality management to name a few. Have extensive experience in domains like Insurance, Logistics, Manufacturing, Health Care, Education etc.Presently the past president at the Project Management Institute (PMI) Bangalore Chapter from Jan 2022 to Dec 2021. Served as the President of PMI Bangalore from April 2020 to Dec 2021 and on the board since 2015.His certifications include* Project Management: PMP, Prince2Agile Practitioner, SAFe Agilist* Service Management: ITIL Intermediate, ITIL Foundation, ISO 20000-1* Compliance: PCI-DSS, COBIT, ISO 27001, ISO 22301, ISO 27701, ISO 9001* MBA: IT and Marketing

In this episode Cynthia Swarnalatha Vice President – Engineering, SW CoE, Compute Business Group & HPE India Site R&D leader, is in conversation with Chitra Gurjar on a variety of stories and matters that that span 3 decades and include Choosing to study computer science with her love of math, being the 2nd batch of CompSc graduates from her collegeHaving a “give-it-my-best” approach and curiosity to learn attitude starting with a role in customer tech supportNavigating learning, delivering and communication by reaching out to people, asking questions and consciously looking at “What I can do differently”?Plunging into new roles and a 3 yr self-checkpoint rhythm to see where she isTransition from IC to manager roles and embracing the decision making challengeBeing a “customer first” person in all roles she has playedKeeping focus on the problem space - an approach to customer driven innovationHer view on “iterative development” and agile in large organizationsManaging transformationsManaging global teams4 point message for aspirants in tech - anticipate change, adaptability, curiosity and passionA global engineering leader with over 3 decades of experience spanning various technology domains. Cynthia’s diverse career includes roles with many enterprise organizations like Wipro, Motorola, Cisco, NetApp, [24]7.ai, Intuit, Pega Systems and now at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. She has led diverse functional teams in Product Development, Quality Assurance, Engineering tools & infrastructure, Solutions Delivery and Operations.She has also led global engineering charters out of India and has been recognized for organizational transformation, institutionalizing processes, building high performing teams and creating an exemplary work culture within the teams I led. She’s passionate about driving value through strategic growth, ownership and delivery of key product development and innovation.She is a strong champion of Diversity & Inclusion and has been the executive sponsor for the Technical Women’s community in her previous companies. She has served on the NASSCOM Regional Product Council for Karnataka, and has been part of ABI’s Grace Hopper India Conference advisory council.

In this episode, Scott Schober, the president and CEO of Berkeley Varitronics Systems shares his experiences related to:Getting into the family business years ago, in niche areas solutions in wireless and security / cyber securityStarting in 6th grade to learn about electronicsPivoted from wireless test equipment, shifted more towards securityBeing surrounded by electronics, computer etc in the home-based enterprisePlaying on the Atari as a kid and getting interestedHow he always encourages people when they're looking for a career to not look for something that's just going to make you a lot of money or it's flashy or this or that, or it is the trend, but find something that one would love to do because when one wakes up every morning one will get excited because one is challenged. How one can learn by identifying bugs in other people’s codeHow some requests from customers triggered the idea of using cell phones to locate people that led to the development of a product Wolfhound ProHow satisfying it was to know that this product helped locate a person who was buried under 2.5 meters of snowHow being a hardware / firmware company creating niche solutions and leveraging software has led to many innovationsHow another of their technologies help prevent railroad accidents caused by texting while driving a trainHow he strongly feels that using technology for good to make a difference is very important. Using firmware based solutions to thwart cybersecurity threatsHow he gets targeted, as he educates people on handling cyberthreatsWhy one needs to get into the mind of a cyber criminal to develop solutions to stop themHow they came up with a unique solution to detect mobile phones, even when they are switched off, in prison environmentsHow an innovative device to detect phone activity has been successfully applied to prevent exam fraud by studentsHis career advice for people aspiring to get into cybersecurityHis brilliant tip on putting out misinformation on social media about oneself.. You should not miss thisScott Schober is the President and CEO of Berkeley Varitronics Systems, a 50-year-old, New Jersey-based provider of advanced, world-class wireless test and security solutions. He is the author of three best-selling security books: Hacked Again, Cybersecurity is Everybody’s Business, and Senior Cyber. Scott is a highly sought-after author and expert for live security events, media appearances, and commentary on the topics of ransomware, wireless threats, drone surveillance and hacking, cybersecurity for consumers, and small business. He is often seen on ABC News, Bloomberg TV, Al Jazeera America, CBS This Morning News, CNN, Fox Business, and many more networks. Scott also serves as the CSO and Chief Media Commentator for Cybersecurity Ventures and is a Senior Advisor for Cyberlitica.

In this conversation with Shiv, Tarush Aggarwal, CEO at 5X, shares his experience and views on:Starting as a software engineer and realizing that his interest lay in the bigger pictureWorking on a benchmarking application that later became an analytics themeDiscovering the big picture from a lot of detailed dataHow zooming in and out of data lets one discover insightsData engineering being the bridge between business and the engineering teamHandling unstructured data and data warehousing based on SQLUnstructured data still having some niche applicationsHaving the contextual information on top of dataPredictive analytics is like building a skyscraperIt takes time to understand the company’s data to start having effective modelsHis trigger moment to turn entrepreneur: being in Bali on the first day of covidWhy 5X as the name for his company - inspired by Robin SharmaAn unfamiliar familiar feeling - turning CEOWorking with people and emotions as well as data without emotionsTips for people consuming data based solutionsWhy one should focus on data as a key strategy for any companyHis tips for people considering a career in data : where the playbook is just getting started to be written : #the moderndatastackTarush is one of the leading experts in leveraging data for exponential growth, with over ten years of experience in the field.After graduating with a degree in Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon in 2011, he became the first data engineer on the analytics team at Salesforce.com. Data was in its infancy, and the log metric framework which Tarush built was critical in allowing Salesforce to analyze data across customers and provide benchmarks across different industries and verticals.Most recently Tarush led Data for WeWork. WeWork leveraged data to be able to grow 10x in 3 years, supporting a footprint of 800+ offices in 120+ cities in 23+ countries with over 12,000 employees, making WeWork one of the fastest-growing companies in the world. Tarush scaled the data org from 2 to 100+ and their unique approach allowed them to stay lean while supporting every functional area of the business. In 2019 he moved to China to help establish WeWork’s Asia operations and focus on the hyper-growing Chinese market.Social handles & reachout email - YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyOHdgLesV3FesXXl9-8V_wTwitter - https://twitter.com/DataWith5xInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/datawith5x/Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/DataWith5xLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/datawith5xEmail - [email protected]

In this episode, Chitra is in conversation with Baiju Joseph, Product Operations leader where he shares events from his careerStarting out at AIR (All India Radio) as a broadcasting engineer & self-learning programming , developing a few apps for his workplaceWork break after joining Novell, getting the latest and best system test training, and leadership training, acknowledging the influence of mentorsDoing various leadership roles at Ariba, handling delivery, setting up quality engineering, dev ops, labs & teams and handling operations as well as facilities for the India development centreBeing part of the initial leadership team, setting up the right culture and building people focused teamsHow he has assimilated and practiced Agile values and principles through his career and learning how to setup “distributed agile”Discussing innovative methods to help companies adopt and realise benefits of agile software development, including street playsLeading the quality engineering group at Yahoo, for emerging products, setting up quality engineering team, release engineering teamLessons from building products, starting with the “Why” and trying to share the same “belief systems” between customers and producersNew product evolution experienceReminiscing events that didnt quite pan out as they should have and reflectionsBuilding and ecosystem for tolerance, early failure detection through dev ops chains & microservices, canary practices and deployments, sensing signals, the canary confidence factors, zero touch deploymentsHire for attitude and train for skills, a learning from his past and other messages for young aspirantsBaiju Joseph Thalupadath is working as a Product Operations leader with a large US telecom company. Prior to that Baiju was working with Yahoo Small Business leading the Quality & DevOps teams. He has around 20+ years of IT experience. Prior to Yahoo, Baiju has experience working with Ariba Inc , Novell Inc and the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. Baiju Joseph is a proven Engineering leader with a unique mix of Quality Engineering, DevOps, Production Engineering and Software Development leadership experience. He has extensive experience leading agile, CI/CD/CT, and DevOps transformations. Baiju has built and led global teams shaping the culture of collaboration, customer focus, and velocity.Baiju is a seasoned Agile coach. Delivered talks on Agile, DevOps, Quality Engineering, Leadership, Website performance etc... in conferences, industry forums, and universities. He holds an M.S. in Software Systems from BITS, Pilani, B Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering and Diploma in Management.Email : [email protected] LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/baijujoseph/ 

In this conversation - as part of the Women’s month in 2022 - Shiv is in conversation with Poornima Shenoy, CEO - Hummingbird Advisors.Poornima shares her thoughts and experiences related to:Wanting to be in advertising when she started to work 30 years agoStarting her own company - Nexus - into recruitment and getting Wipro and Infosys as their first customersHow the IT industry grew by attracting people with non IT backgrounds and how passion and integrity were the key skills that helped them succeedHow her gut has always played a key role in her success - a combination of hard work and some luckNot sure if you can develop your gut, no substitute for hard workHer career in three phases : entrepreneur, Corporate world - for profit companies, not-for-profit world NASSCOM Semiconductor Association, Her experience in setting up the India Semiconductor Association, a first of its kind in IndiaHer perception of differences between software and hardware professionals, without stereotypingEntry of women into the sector is not so much of a problem as it is to retain them in the sectorWFH: problem to find physical space for people who live in shared spaces’ but it is a plus when people needed to run around to manage day to day choresThere are benefits that come with a corporate job; but, as an entrepreneur, nothing can be taken for granted to enable switching offFirst time entrepreneurship was because she could not get along with her bossWomen should not hesitate to talk about money: salary, funding, accounts etcAbout her book for women entrepreneurs: wanting to write from her teenage years, but kept postponing it after some other milestoneName of the book: ‘Accelerating her business’Her experience in getting funding as a woman entrepreneurStarting conversations first with your familyPoornima Shenoy Is the CEO of Hummingbird Advisors which works with young companies. She is on the Boards of 4 companies –Dixon, NSEIT, Co-Forge BPM, and Padget Electronics. She is a TiE Charter Member and a British Chevening Scholar. Poornima is the Co-author of Accelerating Her Business which focuses on women's entrepreneurship.She lives in Bangalore with her family.Twitter:@PornimaShenoylinkedin.com/in/poornimashenoyEmail: [email protected]

In this episode, Gayatri is in conversation with Jaya Vaidhyanathan, CEO BCT DIgital . She shared her story, experiences and thoughts related to:How she started her career as an investment banker in wall street and moved to Accenture and HCL to head their large deal space in the financial sectorWith her technology background and her financial acumen, she found her footing in several leadership roles in HCL, Accenture and Standard CharteredAfter holding several executive posts, Jaya looked for opportunities where she can contribute back to the countryHer organization BCT Digital builds products using the latest digital technologies including the predicting analytics and AI Space.She shares her early exposure by her mother to talk on different podiums that made her find it easier to articulate on any topicAs an entrepreneur, she views her role as dream convertor. When employees join the startup, they are putting their livelihoods at stake and Jaya often feels that any questions that the team is asking needs to be answeredJaya uses the term - more you chip the stone, sculpture emerges and that’s a team effortCreating a compelling journey and excited about the vision of where you want to take the org is the formula she finds it her mantraShe shares some stories on how you can create support system and help them be part of your journeyHaving dogged focus despite having struggles is something she learnt, particularly moving from executive leadership to an entrepreneur Hard work is not the same as perseverance. Everyone works hard, Perseverance is when you keep at it when things are not moving the way you want itFocus is about building expertise and able to stay the courseBeing an intern has helped her understand the next AI technology or the Web3.0 with a new lens.Perseverance, Discipline and Focus along with Tossing aside your Ego is her mantra Smiles come when roadblocks are removed and big goals are achieved. She attributes her mom for being a constant inspiration to where she is. Jaya is currently the CEO of BCT Digital. BCT Digital is a global technology company specializing in digital transformation, predictive analytics, and AI space for the Banking and Financial Services Industry. With over two decades of experience in large organizations like HCL, Accenture, and Standard Chartered Bank globally, she has been instrumental in building businesses from the ground up and transforming them into multi-billion-dollar businesses and building team of 60000 + employees. At Accenture, as its Managing Partner for its Financial Services business, she was part of the seeding team to build Accenture India. Jaya has served on the boards of Mahindra Sanyo Steel and Altran. Currently, she serves on the board of UTI Asset Management Company and IndiGrid and NGO boards such as Mastermind Foundation and Kaarwan Foundation. Jaya holds an MBA in Finance & Strategy from Cornell University, the USA, and a BE in Computer Science & Engineering from Madras University, India. She is also a CFA Charter Holder.Jaya can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaya-vaidhyanathan-26039510/ 

In this episode, Shiv is in conversation with Anjali, a 11 year old girl, who has been into coding since she was 7. Anjali shares:Her interest in horses and dogs, and other interestsHow she got into codingCalling herself an introvert, but enjoying competitionUsing logic to interact with animalsWhat she likes and doesn't like about codingCreating a tic-tac-toe to play with an AI opponentAbout writing programs alone or with others sometimesHow she comes up with ideas when entering a competitionWhere programming can be appliedHow she finds time to program.. Do not miss it!How she influenced a friend to learn codingThe pranks she and her friend play during online classesWhat she would love to be known for : making a robot that passes the turing testHer experience with using big computersHow she gets into a calm state of mind - to write programs or even in other situationsHow to get a 5 year old to start codingIf there is a difference between boys and girls on how they learn codingOn programming as a class subject and as a hobbyHer message for older women in ITAnjali Jayaraman is in Grade 7 and lives in Chennai. She loves horse riding and puppies. She is good at debating. Besides coding, her favourite activity is to create worlds in Minecraft and play video games.Her project ‘Toothzy’ was chosen for 'Best Design/UI’ in the 2021 California AI + Healthcare Summit Ideathon competition. https://www.girlscomputingleague.org/Link to the project: https://youtu.be/xxwI36-weJs Certificate https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LBiLp47trP28jvIfuv_c3Jwlj3nERAQY/view?usp=drivesdkShe got a $700 scholarship for ‘Introduction to Quantum Computing for High school Students’ https://www.qubitbyqubit.org/Her idol is Warren Buffet and she wants to be either an entrepreneur or an Investor in technology business when she grows up.Her other projects: https://youtu.be/UlcywVyvWxM Teaching AI to Shakespeare: To AI or not to AI

In this conversation, Krupa, a senior HR professional, shared her story, experiences and thoughts related to:Her first job, by chance, to get into IT trainingMoving to software firms laterHaving a natural inclination to be in HRHer family [of HR people]How the relationship between HR and technical persons has evolved over the yearsIncreasing use of analytics by HRData alone cannot be the basis for interacting with an individualHow the first level or reporting manager is the starting point for HRHow organizations are sensitive to an individual's natural preference for a career path to growAddressing challenges in working with peers till yesterday, team members todayHer experience with managing mergers and acquisitions, from a cultural integration perspective of teams and individualsMaking rules apply seamlessly with the global and local contexts being taken into considerationNeed for empathy, listening abilities to make the new employees feel included and treated fairlyHow she de-stresses and some of her hobbiesOptions for technical persons taking up a HR role or HR persons taking up business responsibilitiesThe indeed to invest in oneself into the chosen line and constantly upskillAn HR professional with over 20 years of experience. Still excited to learn the ever changing human dynamics at work place. Working with HCL over 15 years and currently as Associate Vice President HR heading Industry Software and IoT WoRKS.A person filled with few hobbies that believe is a must to keep one Alive and enthusiastic. An avid biker, a poet, an amateur Singer and blog little joys of life.https://www.linkedin.com/in/krupa-n-s-694655/

In this episode, Gayatri is in conversation with Joseph Wong, General Manager, Asia Pacific & Japan, OpenLegacy and Board Member of AppSolute Ltd talks about his career journey, Joseph sharesBorn in Hong Kong, moved to Canada to complete his studies and worked in the US, Australia and now working in Hong KongJoseph understood early on that he enjoyed working in smaller companies and scaling itHis consulting experiences helped him enjoy very different domains starting from gaming to CRM and Middle tier and talent management functional domainsHis success mantra is to understand the domain as deeply as possible and build competencies in self. This ensures that he’s never bored Along with functional domain changes Joseph shares changing from technology to pre-sales to sales and executive leadership roles he has taken in different parts of the careerJoseph shares that moving continents was easy from the work but convincing family and personal settingsJoseph set up the Australian team for his firm. He shares balancing the growth and setup the culture with the right people and continuously making the right decisions. He uses the taking the Long Term View He considers himself as a generalist and becomes an pseudo expert in the areaEvery role that he has played has helped him understand the world better and ensuring problems a little better Being in sales has made Joseph to become a likeable person and goes with a mindset of understanding the customer’s problem and solve a bit even if a sale doesn’t happen. Joseph shares that he consciously doesn't over promise and that has helped in forging great relationshipWorld is changing from descriptive to predictive to prescriptive in nature. Technology is going to change to a point people will have a lot of time in their hands and work on what they like and are passionate aboutIts important to move out of our comfort zone even if change is hard. If you are not growing, you are falling behindJoseph has over 20 years of global management, sales and consulting experience, his main career objective to play a pivotal role at the C-Suite while driving hyper-growth for organizations with ambition in Asia. Entrepreneurial at heart, Joseph has a track record of thrice orchestrating the hockey stick growth trajectory of companies in Asia Pacific. The rare combination of logic, creativity and empathy renders Joseph an ideal leader in attracting and motivating top talent to surpass corporate objectives. Joseph loves working in smaller companies compared to large firms and that As a thought leader in IT middleware, cloud computing and human capital realms, Joseph is an active public speaker, executive advisor and author of various publications.When not in the office, he enjoys scuba diving and snowboarding. Mathematical teasers, poker games and reading are his other favorite pastimes. Joseph can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephwong/

In this episode Shiv continues the conversation with Jacob Kurian, an Indian IT industry veteran and presently Hon. Secretary, The Association of People with Disability, Bangalore.In the previous episode, Jacob talked about a cold-relationship with a senior executive at Unisys and how that changed. He mentioned a call received from GE to explore the possibility of getting software developed in India.Jacob shares:What happened to the GE opportunity and how that was a significant event for the Indian IT services industryHis personal decision to return to India in 1993Joining Titan Industries as CMO and CIOLearning how difficult it is to get users to converge on IT requirementsFrom a software services company to in house IT services, where production issues can be seen to impact core businessHis answer to the question: What does it take a techie to become an entrepreneurNeed for short release, validate cycles and not making good the enemy of perfectJacob Kurian was an unintentional entrant into the fledgling Indian IT sector in 1984 and had a front row seat, as it transformed from a largely augmented staffing model to the global powerhouse it is today. Tata Burroughs, later Tata Unisys as the largest MNC in the sector, played a pioneering role in establishing offshore development, turnkey end-to-end software projects and even India’s first financial sector products, decades ahead of Finacle and others. After great success in leading the largest business group for software services in Tata Unisys, he returned to India in 1993 with the intention of leaving the IT sector and looking for new career challenges. He made the radical shift to watches and jewelry at Titan Company. While he rose to CMO and later COO at Titan, he was also tasked with revamping the information systems at Titan. In four years as CIO of Titan, he gained some invaluable insights into the challenges that large end users face in a rapidly changing technology environment. Post retirement, as the Hon Secretary of an NGO, he is wrestling with the challenges of bringing technology to the development sector where tech talent and budgets are non-existent.

In this episode, Shiv is in conversation with Jacob Kurian, an Indian IT industry veteran and presently Hon. Secretary, The Association of People with Disability, Bangalore.Jacob has so many stories to share, that we decided to publish this in 2 parts.In the first part, Jacob sharesHis early childhood and how his father was a great influence in his wanting to be an engineerWhat his life lessons were, staying in a hostel for further schoolingHis first role related to project management in the construction industry and how he did not like that muchBut, a couple of times later in the career, how this experience created opportunities for new rolesTaking the role of a product manager in one of the earliest, successful products in the forex and money market space in the international marketThe opportunity he had to wear a sales and marketing cap, even though he calls himself an introvert and set up and streamline the sales activities in the US regionHow he was ignored by a new person who had taken over professional services, who should have been his customerAnd how a large opportunity from GE changed this person’s equation with JacobJust as things got more interesting, and Jacob started to share the story of GE’s entry into India for outsourcing, we ran out of time for an episode.Please listen to the first part of his story in this episode and do not forget to listen to the next episode, that will feature the second part of our conversation - where he shared what happened with the GE opportunity and his transition to a manufacturing company as CIO and Marketing head.Of course, if you subscribe to the Software People Stories on your favorite podcast client, you will be notified when the next episode is published in a week.Listen on!Jacob Kurian was an unintentional entrant into the fledgling Indian IT sector in 1984 and had a front row seat, as it transformed from a largely augmented staffing model to the global powerhouse it is today. Tata Burroughs, later Tata Unisys as the largest MNC in the sector, played a pioneering role in establishing offshore development, turnkey end-to-end software projects and even India’s first financial sector products, decades ahead of Finacle and others. After great success in leading the largest business group for software services in Tata Unisys, he returned to India in 1993 with the intention of leaving the IT sector and looking for new career challenges. He made the radical shift to watches and jewelry at Titan Company. While he rose to CMO and later COO at Titan, he was also tasked with revamping the information systems at Titan. In four years as CIO of Titan, he gained some invaluable insights into the challenges that large end users face in a rapidly changing technology environment. Post retirement, as the Hon Secretary of an NGO, he is wrestling with the challenges of bringing technology to the development sector where tech talent and budgets are non-existent.Can be reached @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-kurian-9881a510/

In this episode, Gayatri is in conversation with Kartic Vaidyanathan, Founder of Play 2 Learn and visiting faculty at IIT Madras shared his journey Talks about accidentally becoming part of the technology journey due to the sheer popularity of studying in a premier institute Kartic shares the story of becoming a visiting faculty teaching life and coping skills in IIT MadrasKartic shares the need for EQ and life skills are needed to build better adults and he also credits for the visionaries in the college to encourage non-engineering coursesKartic also talks about the need for one to be having directional awareness of oneselfKartic talks about the evolution of quality engineering through his journey in the product and services sectorKartic narrates his start up journey being highly energetic and ‘Being an average of the people around you’ Decisions around why he shifted from a product org to a services sector and staying out of your comfort zone and being in the learning zoneNeutral way of looking at the code was the need that exploded testing and validation services Spent about 15 years in software delivery before chancing upon gamified learning, which he has been practicing for the last 12 years. ( last 4 years full time ). Learning has shifted just like the evolution of testingGames provide a fail safe environment and makes a smaller area of learning from each other and creating games to the level of the learner within the same batchLearning in a classroom also moving from a command control to a democratic view of the worldKartic advocates, everyone to identify their passions and cultivate curiosity and quotes Thomas Friedmans' advice passion Quotient(PQ) + Curiosity Quotient (CQ) > Intelligence Quotient( IQ)Kartic also talks about the 4 pillars one should always focus on lifelong and cherish - fitness, relationships, learning+Skill and spiritual growth Kartic as Consultant: As a part of LetsPlayToLearn, we help clients from corporates and educational institutions enable joyful learning through the power of play/games. This provides a fail-safe environment, encourages a growth mindset, and provides motivational elements especially when topics are monotonous or difficult. Depending on the problem, situation, and domain, we have help with a variety of solutions that include simulation games, game platforms, board/card games, activity games, and many more. We also have tie-ups with a lot of industry-leading channel partners in this space.Kartic in Teaching: Co-facilitates sessions on LifeSkills, HHS (Habits, Happiness, and Success) at IIT Madras students. These are much-needed skills that most individuals of our generation learnt the hard way navigating life but are now made available (at least some exposure) to UG students at the start of their careers.The conversation with Dr. Ramya that is referred in this podcast can be accessed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDwrzD-sux4 Refernce to Tom Friedman’s advice https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/deloitte-review/issue-21/tom-friedman-interview-jobs-learning-future-of-work.htmlKartic can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/karticv/ 

In this episode, Gayatri is in conversation with Prakash Bulusu, Vice President Customer Behavior Analytics at Amazon Inc. Prakash works with Peta bytes of data on a regular basis to identify and predict what consumers would like to useHis early memory of computers started with using AC while playing Nintendo games and amazed at the computer networks in his alumni NIT TrichyShares an interesting story on why he took up his MS after 3.5 years of undergrad. His fascination in e-commerce and US education system that grounded towards curiosityUnderstanding that the future is in e-commerce and large data processing was a big step from his internship in ISRODecision to shift from sunny Florida to a green Seattle knowing Amazon and the possibilities of e-commerce Drivers for moving into search and data based modeling for Microsoft and looking at early DevOps modelTalks about moving away from compile satisfaction[code named as compile sook] to Release satisfactionBeing a first time manager encouraging the team and mentoring in a subtle wayInterdisciplinary thinking together processes aided by the three page narrative - stepping away from command-control ppt to a democratic narrative Strengthening one’s communication skills using the clarity of thought was the biggest leap that Prakash took the longestUnderstanding the changes in the data sciences is like knowing the sinusoidal wave - sometimes its asynchronous and sometimes its in sync. Prakash talks about decision making in the customer behavior analytics - machines taking more decisions objectively and humans weighing in where ambiguity plays a partPrakash shares how future would be in the convergence of Quantum computing, Data sciences and 5G with ethics being the foundationOne wisdom Prakash wants to share is that Technology is rapidly changing and each of us have to adapt quickly with thatPrakash Bulusu, Senior leader with a proven track record across Software, Analytics and Consumer Business in E-Commerce, Search, Marketing and Online applications.Specialties: Large scale distributed and data intensive Software Engineering, Data Analytics, Machine Learning Applications, Data Platform, Computational Marketing, Understanding Customer behavior, Data Science, Email Marketing automation, Product Search relevance and Data quality, e-commerce, Experimentation (A/B testing) and Experimentation Platform, Software test design and automation.Prakash Bulusu can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/prakashb/

In this episode, Gayatri is in conversation with Pallav Prakash Indian Navy veteran and program manager at ZumTalks about starting in technology in early 1980s by way of merit and got passionate about computersHe talks about implementing high critical projects in submarines and speaks about them as ‘point of no return’ Talks about the pride of careering a Indian passport stemming from the Indian software people across the globe with special mention towards womenTalks about the pride moment of digitisation of files and decision making system across multiple years in NavyShares about the stories of maintenance of the hardware and the missile guidance was architected and built self reliantlyHe shares with pride that Inventory management is one of the largest across the globe with first being Air force and second as Indian navy Talks about the software that has been indigenously developed and given confidence at the heart of every frontline person that warfare is top notchHis journey to move to US to understand different culture and taking an internship program with schoolHe has been an india head for AnitaB and his views on equitable data and the level of impact software could makeNow Pallav is working for zum to solve the school bus transportation in a carbon neutral model and how one has to be inside the problem to solve it and not on top of itHow can software communities come together to improve society as a whole is a question Pallav leaves with all listenersShares the story of the girl who pursued computers to get the comfort of AC to changing the landscape and provide an environment for othersPallav brings over 20 years of leadership experience in diverse business and technology. He has successfully managed large cross-functional, multi-national teams deploying strategies to take operations, programs and products on a high growth path. Pallav is a career program manager implementing high stake programs for the Indian Navy. He has done full time MBA from The Johns Hopkins University and a Management program alumnus (with specialization in Marketing) from Indian Institute of Management Lucknow. He has worked in Indian navy in executing several high tech projects as well as being chief of staff in Indian Navy in executing some of their HR programs.Pallav is a proven leader in managing offshore multisite programs and projects with client interface with passion towards furthering the mission of Women in Technology Pallav can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/pallav-prakash/

In this episode, Shiv is in conversation with Nani Narayanan Srinivasan, who is the leader, Data Sciences at HomeUnion and has been in the IT industry for over four decades.In this conversation, Nani talks about:Studying metallurgy and getting exposed to programming to design a blast furnace.Wanting to be in the systems software, Telecom and R&D side of computing.Opportunity to work on a project which was more of R&D, to implement a hot standby and takeover algorithm for mainframes.Realizing the need to understand a client’s business side, learning banking as a domain.How the thinking process is similar across solving business problems or systems software solutions.The need to understand why something needs to be done to be able to think strategically and understand the business.Handling time constraints for a consultant, who is expected to solve problems in a short time.Prioritize what is to be done, before jumping into how it is to be done.A ‘horror story’ when a design worked in principle and in the test environment, but resulted in a ‘race’ condition that led to the system being unusable in a production environment, and how this problem was resolved.Considerations of teams to be scalable: how this may be different based on the size of the company.How to bring efficiency with remote teams, or even when the team members are not of a homogeneous background.The need to understand various members, backgrounds and the business context to build high performance teams.The Prostyle model explained in the book Producing results with others.Career tips: for new entrants to the field : a combination of data science, bio-studies, to get into analytics or data science careers; or security for those looking at software application solutions.Data science as a technique will get embedded in everything we do, like internet has now become a basic component in most solutions.Learning Python, Kotlin, R etc for those interested in programming.For the mid-career professionals, understand the business side and go with the flow of business; in whatever you do, contribute to the revenue side of business, for an assured career.Many technologies are coming back - like old wine in new bottles.Entrepreneur and seasoned technology professional with senior leadership roles in Financial Services (Real Estate Investment, Banking/ Mortgage), High Tech R&D, Telecommunications and SI Consulting. Led successful delivery of large and complex engagements in product development, data sciences and modeling, CRM, online banking, web applications, and mortgage servicing – many with original contributions to Intellectual Property. Guided teams implementing over 200+ industrial strength websites. A strategic thinker, designer and architect of key products with hands on practical delivery approach.You can reach him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/nanin/

Wishing you all a very happy new year 2022!!In this episode, Gayatri is in conversation with Sriram Rangarajan, Accomplished Data Analytics Leader at IBM shared his data journey His role as an enterprise data architect and what lenses he has to wearWays to get started collecting, analysing and gaining insights from dataHow can young engineers joining the data ecosystem look at dataData to be viewed through the business process and lifecycle Ways of managing complexities across organization and system boundaries Onboarding application teams right at the start instead of making it an after thoughtHow can you manage data errors and keep the sanctity of data cleanChallenges that are encountered while handling master data, data definition and gaps in data setupWorking with regulatory bodies and keeping the right level of data without infringing into compliancePerspective of work has changed across three decades from task centric, business centric and what-if possibilitiesEnsuring that foundations are clearly understood on data prior to diving deeper into technologySriram started his career with TCS after his graduation from JNU. Sriram has worked in IBM, NetApp Inc, and Informatica, demonstrating in-depth knowledge of Data Governance, Data Integration, Master Data Management, Data protection, privacy, and data lifecycle management. Sriram is a data analytics and strategist at heart with robust experience acquired over the years in delivering optimal results in high-growth environments. He excels at cultivating collaborative professional relationships and delivering data-driven and business-centric solutions; Result-driven with extensive expertise across scalable enterprise architecture, value-driven data science, and full-stack engineering. Sriram can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsriram/

Continuing our special series for the year end, Shiv asks colleague PM Powerian Sivakumar (Shiv) how he has developed a curiosity mindset and how he weaves them into stories and more.This series of conversations will help you reflect on the year that was and identify some actions you may want to take in the new year.You can reach him @https://pm-powerconsulting.com/experts/sivakumar/https://www.linkedin.com/in/sivakumar-subramanyan-1a78101/

Continuing our special series for the year end, Shiv asks colleague PM Powerian Vasu how he is so observant and able to take copious notes during meetings and moreThis series of conversations will help you reflect on the year that was and identify some actions you may want to take in the new yearYou can reach him at Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/svasudev/https://pm-powerconsulting.com/experts/vasu/

Continuing our special series for the year end, Shiv asks colleague PM Powerian Gopalan how he stays calm even under pressure and moreThis series of conversations will help you reflect on the year that was and identify some actions you may want to take in the new year.More about Gopal at https://pm-powerconsulting.com/experts/gopalan/Can reach Gopal @https://www.linkedin.com/in/gopalgopalan/

In this episode, Paramu Kurumathur, Consultant at PM Power consulting talks about various situations in his career. When he had the opportunity to latch on to an idea, develop it to concrete action.He talks about how there are many ways to do that and that age is no bar, based on his own experience.Specifically, he talks about the following approaches that have helped him-Explore, expand an ideaCollaborateResearch, learn, internalize, let it simmer : one day, it will come outLook for metaphors, analogiesDefine some boundaries.. scope.. 108 facts..Look for gaps in models / Getting a coach / teacher; being self awareKnow more about him herehttps://pm-powerconsulting.com/experts/parameswaran/You can reach him athttps://www.linkedin.com/in/paramu-kurumathur-01489a6/

In this episode, Raghu Viswanathan, knows as Raghu, shares his story with details ofBeing an alumnus of the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, which got the first computer in IndiaHis initial ‘hate’ for computer science, mainly due to the use of punched cards!Joining TCS [Tata Consultancy Services] as a management consultantHaving to play the role of an IBM expert on his first overseas project, as an individual contributor with no other colleagues with himBeing asked to teach IBM to the client and seeking support from his manager Gaining confidence after that successful assignmentWriting code the traditional way - in Australia - from creating pseudo code and getting it reviewed before writing a single line of codeIf you want to work on a good project, think through, write pseudocode, consult with peopleHow the rigour at ISI prepared him for increased confidence in the futureThe importance of understanding the domain for a developerHow, understanding the business [and implications] help in one situation to not only avoid a penalty, but also help the bank make moneyThe evolution of the concept of offshoring or distributed working in his organizationFinding major lifestyle changes in young Indian professionals when he came back to IndiaFeeling happy about India’s progress over the yearsTrekking and volunteering and pacing his activitiesThe joys of retirementHow he discovered the interest in trekkingHis career tipsHis perspective in Decentralized Finance [DeFi]Viswanathan Raghu, Started his career as consultant in TCS. Later working with Various firms like UBS(Formerly Swiss Bank) ,Bank of New York, Societe Generale, Deutsche Bank and Russel Investments.Was head of change for Finance in Deutsche bank's service center in Mumbai before relocating back to US. Responsible for implementing Process efficiencies in the offshored processes. Implemented Finance’s strategic transformational program for Financials and Regulatory reporting. Program enabled offshoring of globally consistent re-engineered processes to the service center.Also Managed -Vendor delivery management, Departmental management, IT Program / Project management, Globally managed large and diverse teams for the full project life cycle.His Specialties: International delivery experience in US, European and Asian work cultures. Vendor business application product implementation. Wide Investment banking domain knowledge & management experience across functions. Cross functional IT program management. Full life cycle experience in managed services implementation. Global manager of large and diverse teams for the full project life cycle. Prepared budgets and managed financials for an entire department.You can reach him @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/vraghu/

In this episode Raksha Rao, CEO and Co-Founder of Parjanya Creative Solutions using interactive media technologies in the space of health, fitness and arts, is in conversation with Chitra GurjarA trained classical vocalist, starting at age 4 and working with music via interactive mediaMelding technology and health & fitnessLearning and pushing herself with challenges and problem solving, always interested in the "Why", beginning of entrepreneurshipA desire to see the larger picture and the timing being right Trigger to move back to India, technology, family, supportStarting a company in just before the pandemic brokeInspiration from remote music concerts, influence on building interactive apps, spatial audioBody movement tracking app and teaching yoga remotely, help people visualize where they need helpHer experiences around building the company from hiring, building a culture of adaptability and changeWork, passion and hobby being oneLessons a woman entrepreneur - Learning from others, value yourself, be your own championLife lessons - Building the right thing & build it the right way; have a learning mindset; be open to change"Raksha is the CEO and Co-founder of Parjanya Creative Solutions. Born in Bangalore, India, Raksha worked as a software engineer for a few years and then moved to the US in 2012. She pursued her MBA in Information Science at California State University and worked as a backend engineer at several different firms small and big including Zillow, one of America’s largest real estate tech firms. Being a professional musician with over 20 years of practice and performing experience, along with setting up and getting the bootstrapped company off the ground, Raksha also pursued and completed her Masters in Music while being the mother of an active 3 year old. At Parjanya, Raksha is passionately focused on building user centric, cutting edge products that push boundaries of technology. As the CEO and a woman entrepreneur, Raksha is determined to grow Parjanya as a company that can offer the most incredible and innovative solutions while helping and mentoring other young and determined female developers and designers “Social media handles:LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/raksharaoTwitter: https://twitter.com/raksha_raoCompany website: www.parjanya.org

In this conversation, Nash Narasimhan, GM of Ecommerce business of HP India, shares his experience and perspectives related to His academic qualifications include being an engineer and MBAStarting his career with Eicher and then moving to Muscat and becoming a product manager for a Ford dealershipReturning to India for a role, actually two - with HCL and then moving to DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) Getting an intrapreneurial opportunity to set up the online store for Compaq, when internet and ecommerce were just beginning in IndiaBecoming the largest ecommerce company in India in a very short periodMoving to Singapore for a Channel partner development roleReturning to India to head the technical services divisionPlaying the CMO roles for large business units in APACComing back to India to play a leadership role with the ecommerce and PC business and also hold the responsibility for the digital GTMHaving witnessed 4 major and many small mergersCars to computers to cloud to commerce- 4CsHis approach to manage and perform in these transitions across domains and businessesRisk appetite, being a Biker, taking calculated risks, Transition 1: leveraging the marketing experience [4Ps being the same across industries], product management was the sameTransition 2: company was the sameTransition 3: leveraging the BCP experience in the services business, to make ecommerce available 24x7Anchoring on onen common factor to leverage and one uncomfortable or new factor to spur learningLetting results speak for oneselfBeing a good manager helps in thriving in a mergerThe strength of empathy for people needed for a leader to bring about a smooth mergerThe shift in thinking and approach needed when moving from selling hardware [boxes] to selling software, services and solutions that may be less tangibleThe idea of products being consumed as servicesApart from product, price, place and promotion, one has to add process, people and proofHis experience of working with software delivery teamsCareer advice: courage to go after your passion and keep reinventing yourselfLook for satisfaction over successDo your job as an act of serviceNash Narasimhan Tupil is Digital Business leader with over 3 decades experience in the IT industry. He is currently country GM of Ecommerce business of HP India. Prior to this CMO of multi billion dollar HP Asia Pacific and Japan enterprise business. He is a motorbiker, blogger, photographer and digital enthusiast.Can be reached @ https://in.linkedin.com/in/nashtupil

In this episode, Raghu Srinivas, Change and Transformation Lead in HSBC, is in conversation with Gayatri Kalyanaraman sharing his career journey and decisions that led him to where he isRaghu started as a developer in TCS after completing his education in BangaloreHe was inspired by him mentor to broaden his horizon and desire to move to BusinessMade an internal transition to business and now leads the strategic transformations in HSBCRaghu believes that having a good business sense is like a spine that has to be strong and flexible based on conditionsHe talks about the business disruptions that have happened and compares consciousness and understanding of the ecosystemRaghu shares the experiences of working in business starting with the business case and seeing the change through the lifecycleRaghu shares his stories on being a technocrat of bridging the business and technology seamlessly and sharing his wisdom in a wise mannerCommon sense of vision, purpose, commitment that’s built over trust brings large teams together to work, communicate and collaborate betterRaghu shares the constraints that his generation has put on self and how that needs to go off as we usher in the millennialsRaghu shares a vision of banking that would lead to normalised set of offerings prior to taking offRaghu Srinivas is a VP, Strategic Business Change Manager in HSBC. He has 2 decades of years of experience in shaping, managing, delivering and embedding strategic organizational change and delivering cutting edge technology solutions. His vast experience covers a range of activities in project/program lifecycle involving hiring, budgeting and forecasting, contracts management and Request for proposals(RFP), project initiation project planning/execution, leading to benefits realization tracking and project/program closure.His expertise in Business Analysis has enabled to apply the right tools and techniques for enterprise business analysis, assess capabilities, perform the required gap analysis, assess “Where to play”/”How to Win” strategies, identify strategic choices and make the right recommendations. Raghu has more than 10 years of experience in playing people management roles, capability building, motivating individuals to achieve team objectives and at the same time enabling them to achieve their individual career goals.His vision is to be actively involved in driving department/organization strategy, enabling business units, people, teams and be the driving force for business change management overallRaghu can be contacted @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/raghu-s-51b07a11/

In this episode, Krishna Prasad, known as KP - Coach at PM Power shares his experience related toBeing a coachWhy middle management is usually underserved in terms of coaching helpHow he had handled his own personal transition from an individual contributor to a middle managerHis expertise Areas – New Product Development, Product Management, Lean-Agile Transformation, Digital Transformation, LeadershipHis education background includes, Ph. D from Indian Institute of Science, Masters in Software Engineering from BITS, Pilani and Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from NIE, Mysore, India.

In this episode, Naresh Jain, Developer, Consultant, Conference Producer and Startup Founder of Xnsio shares his insights and experiences related to - Starting his career 20 years back building Neural networks for ISRO, and how he got into corporate life- His experience reading the paper “Test infected” by Kent. How it helped him see the value behind extreme programming- How he and his friends put together the first Agile India conference from 2004- Challenges that comes across while organising different community- based conferences- How to build communities using conferences- His approach to put a good program/conference together- How to balance the aspiring and the experienced speakers, which gives equal opportunities to both- How he landed up as a coach/mentor and influence people while working in Thoughtworks- Differences between roles of coach, mentor, trainer and a captain- His love for coding and difference between code room (one step at a time) and board room (quantum leap)- How he handles a board room coming with expectations and big transformations- How to unlearn what you think is the best practice and how it helped him. Re-evaluate yourself- What you can expect in the upcoming “Agile India conference” - How Ward inspires him as a great speaker - His view on full stack - His advice for aspiring coaches/Mentors- Agile India conference to be held : Nov 18th-20th a 3 day conference More details at: https://2021.agileindia.org/ Naresh Jain is an award-winning, internationally recognized Technology & Product Development Expert. Over the last 15 years, he has helped many Unicorns and fortune 500 companies like Jio, Google, Amazon, JP Morgan, Hike, Directi, HP, Siemens Medical, GE Energy, Schlumberger, Shell, Dell, EMC, CA Technologies, etc. to streamline their product development. His hands-on approach of coaching teams by focusing on product discovery and engineering excellence is a key differentiator. In 2004, Naresh started the Agile movement in India by creating the Agile Software community of India, a registered non-profit society to evangelize Agile, Lean and other Leading-Edge Software Development methods. He is responsible for creating and organizing 100+ international conferences. In recognition of his accomplishments, in 2007 the Agile Alliance awarded Naresh with the Gordon Pask Award for contributions to the Agile Community.You can find more about him here: https://confengine.com/user/naresh-jain Contact handles:Twitter: https://twitter.com/nashjainLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nareshjain/Website: https://nareshjain.com/

In this conversation, Dr Asoke Talukder shares his experience and perspectives related to His aspiration to be in performing arts, when he was youngWinning in a detective story writing competition, getting into puppetry and becoming a leading shadow puppeteer in Kolkata Wanting to get into a teaching role, attracted by the vacation periods, to pursue his other performing arts interestsStarting his programming as a research scholar at Jadavpur universityThen joining the National Informatics Centre (NIC) before moving on to ICL India (ICIM)Taking on challenges when others had given up and this beginning the inception of his interest in multiple areasThe regulations, restrictions and other technical constraints as well a customer expectations required him to design and implement solutions that were somewhat unprecedented in the Indian contextA tricky issue caused by unstable connectivity over low speed lines in reverse emulation of terminals in India Delays caused by satellite link latency that had to be overcome through an innovative setup, in a matter of a couple of days, to make things work for an important customer eventGetting new customers by taking on problems that have been lying on their plates for a long time and solving themHis getting into genomics and startupsHis passion for teaching, to ignite young minds to get into academics and researchWriting a syllabus making book based on his entrepreneurial experience with mobile computingThe importance of security aspects to be treated as functional requirementsConverting a mis-use case into a functional requirement when it comes to securityHis current interest areas of AI, machine learning and deep learningBeing still hands on and writing code in R, Python, C/C++ or javascript, node.js, to create proofs of concept that can be enhanced by othersHow his width of knowledge and experience helps him solve or relate a problem to something he might have seen elsewhereSynthetic systems and the challenges in understanding and solving healthcare related problems and there is no one-size-fits allThe need for horizontal knowledge, to be a successful solutioning architectHis approach and process for quickly leveraging existing knowledge and experience to build more complex solutionsHis career advice, in particular about being a lifelong learner and possibly getting into academics / researchAsoke Talukder is a creative individual with expertise from Compilers to Cancer and Puppetry to Precision Medicine. He worked in India, USA, UK, and Singapore in technology domains for companies like ICL, Fujitsu-ICIM, Microsoft, Oracle, Informix, Digital, Hewlett Packard, Sequoia, Northern Telecom, NEC, KredietBank, iGate, SRIT etc. He cofounded companies like Cellnext and InterpretOmics. He Internet enabled Microsoft PowerPoint. He engineered the first 64-bit database (Informix) in the world for Digital DEC Alpha. He engineered Oracle Parallel Server for Fault Tolerant computer Sequoia, and developed many killer technologies and products. He engineered the first secured international communication network for Hong and Shanghai Bank Bombay and British Bank of Middle East, Dubai. He setup the first X.25 network in India for Department of Telecommunications (currently BSNL & MTNL), and the first Java Competency Centre in India.He engineered the Network Management System for Queen’s Award winning PDMX. He is recipient of many international awards for innovation and professional excellence including ICIM Professional Excellence Award, ICL Excellence Award, IBM Solutions Excellence Award, Simagine GSMWorld Award, All India Radio/Doordarshan Award etcetera. Asoke has been listed in “Who’s Who in the World”, “Who’s Who in Science and Engineering”, and “Outstanding Scientists of 21st Century”. He authored many research articles, book chapters, and textbooks. Two of his books have been translated in Chinese language. Asoke did M.Sc (Physics) with Bio-physics major and Ph.D (Computer Engineering). He was the DaimlerChrysler Chair Professor at IIIT-Bangalore, Visiting Professor at VIT University Vellore, Adjunct Faculty at ABV Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management, Gwalior and Adjunct Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, NIT Warangal. Currently he is an Adjunct Faculty Department of Computer Science & Engineering, NITK Surathkal teaching Machine Learning, and Chief Science & Technology Officer at SRIT India.

In this episode, Seema Joshi, global product leader at NICE is in conversation with Chitra Gurjar sharing her insights and experiences throughQualifying as a Civil Engineer, and doing site work, to pursuing an MBA and her first job in techMoving into tech and landing different jobs, finding what she wanted to doWorking on the frontlines of technologyHer life as a technical account manager and helping close sales dealsLearning about personas, how customers buy, who influences, who usesWearing different hats each time every dayDeal or no deal, a zero or a oneContrast in experiences based on what she felt was a good deal and how things turned outUsing various approaches to prioritization of backlogs like3 P approach - Persona, problem and pervasiveness of the problemThinking in line with a top down business strategycreating delighters for the customer, the KANO modelBuilding a great product team, starting with product managers themselves feeling comfortable with ambiguity, taking decisions with little data and being under the spotlight in a room full of stakeholdersBuilding partnerships of trust and collaborationStaying in the problem space, wearing different thinking hats, assumptions, solutions and discoveryHaving a sports mindset in your work - her volleyball analogy Working with engineering teams, incumbent on the PM to find the rhythm of the team and keeping a good tension across different teams by having all ideas on the table and open discussionHer suggestions for people wanting to pursue a product management career or a career in technologySeema is a Product Leader by profession, Engineering & Management graduate by education, voracious volunteer by belonging, sportsperson at heart, and poet by hobby. With 20 years of experience across Product Management, Innovation & Entrepreneurial roles, she is passionate of building products that delight customers and create business impact. Currently a Global Product Leader at NICE, she heads CXone India Product Management and UX teams.Passionate about community building & diversity Seema actively contributes to various industry initiatives, is Secretary at SEAP (Software Exporters Association of Pune), ex-founding Board Member of Product Leaders Forum, and is a TedX and keynote speaker.LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/seemajoshis/

In this conversation, Tom Henriksen talks aboutStarting a career in sales and then getting into techGetting into Agile, as part of a team adopting Agile practices, under a manager’s guidanceHis experience of transitioning from an individual contributor to a managerUnderstanding the importance of human skills in agile teamsSome interesting learnings from patterns of behavior in teams, particularly those based on misconceptionsThe fact that humans are hard, code is easyLearning to ‘talk their terms’ when connecting with executives, from the Dale Carnegie’s bookThe importance of empathy, to be able to understand the other person’s perspective and context and use appropriate language and create solutions that would meet their needsHow a visit to observe users for a day gave insights into the what their solution needs to doHaving an experimental mindsetThe importance of managing up, when it comes to adoption of agile practices in a teamWhy rinse-and-repeat would not work when applying what worked in one context identically in a different contextContext matters - and, like many agile coaches say, it depends.Stop selling agile, start aligningBeing aware of the dangers of gaming the system, when there is too much stress only on quantitative measurements and metricsThe trigger for Tom to launch the Agile and DevOps online summits, long before the pandemic hit and all conferences moved onlineHow he is able to bring in multiple perspectives by having track chairsSome experiments being tried in this year’s summit, such as live sessions, gamification and the structure of the three days along the Shu Ha Ri themesSome changes or shifts in themes he has seen over the last 5 yearsHis thoughts on curating the content from the summit over the yearsHis suggestions for early stage and mid-career professionalsFor more details on the Agile Online Summit happening this year between October 25 and 27, you can visit https://agileonlinesummit.com/Tom Henricksen is a problem-solving technology professional. He has worked in various roles in technology for over twenty years. Tom has learned how to solve challenging issues in technology and lead technical teamsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhenricksen/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TomHenricksen

In this episode Ramesh shares his experience and perspectives related toHis interest in software and programming that was fueled by an IIT professor teaching programmingOne of the very few who did a software project as part of his degree and then joining Tata Burroughs from campus, as the first batchGetting back to academics to get his Master’s degreeHow his extra learning at IISc and the work experience in the first couple of years helped him skip a few courses and jump into more advanced topics during the Masters’Joining HCL in their Singapore venture, Far East Computers LimitedHow his experience with facing customers helped in the assignment of setting up a QA environment at Oracle headquartersMoving to management roles in engineering managementJumping at the opportunity to start a development center in India from scratchThinking that he could do that for a year and then get back to the USAHow he had to take on various responsibilities of not just delivering, but also establishing processes, building networks for recruitment etcRealizing the need to take innovative approaches to attract the right talent, when competing with other companies that would hire in large numbersTaking up a teaching role at Anna University How that gave him an opportunity to observe the students over a semester, and not having to learn by interacting for 20 minutes in an interviewExtending this learning through internships Starting to love teachingThe trigger for his getting into writing [and authoring books], some of which are standard curriculum recommendations in about 50 universities across the world“Transferring knowledge to others will have a bigger impact on Society as a whole”Enjoying the role of a teacher at various institutionsHow some interests popped up by necessity, Slicing time every day for work, education and family - to make time for all Taking risks knowing that all options may not progress as desiredSome tips that would help selecting the right candidatesHow everyone should feel comfortable to disagree, but not be disagreeablehow , as a technical guy, you can have all the answers, but as a leader, you should have all the questionsHis career advice:Being passionate about what one doesDo not undervalue the importance of keeping your skills up to dateWhy you should become useless for your jobPlease bear with some audio distractions in the background in patches. You will love this story..Gopalaswamy Ramesh is an independent consultant, eminent author and has served as visiting / adjunct professor in several reputed universities and an acknowledged thought leader in the areas of global software project management, software testing and related areas as well as on soft skills. He has over three decades of experience in industry, consulting and teaching. He played a key role in establishing Oracle’s India Development Center and grew it from zero to close to 500 people. His contributions to this phenomenal growth were acknowledged in Oracle International magazine  When he left Oracle in 2002, he was their Senior Director, heading the engineering team at Bangalore.Before returning to India in 1994 to set up Oracle IDC, Ramesh worked in Oracle Headquarters in Redwood Shores, California, holding several technical and management positions. He also headed pre-sales and post-sales support of Oracle products in the ASEAN countries while working at Far East Computers, Singapore from 1982 till 1988. During this stint, he actively participated in launching and supporting Oracle in several countries in the region.Since 2002, Ramesh has been an independent consultant, offering consultancy services in the areas of global software project management, software testing and soft skills in India and abroad. His passion for teaching and sharing his vast knowledge and rich experience have resulted in his writing eight books have become best sellers and two of them being also translated to Chinese language. His books have been widely read and used as prescribed or reference books in a number of universities in India and abroad. The book Managing Global Software Projects won the National Award for the Best Book.As a thought leader, Ramesh has been an active invited participant in several well known conferences and workshops. He has played the roles of Program Chair, Technical Review Committee Head as well as an invited keynote presenter in several international conferences.Passionate about interacting with students and imparting relevant practical knowledge and training to students, Ramesh has been an Adjunct Professor in several leading universities and has taught in a number of very reputed institutions like IIIT-Bangalore, IIT Madras, Anna University, Chennai and Amrita School of Business. He was part of the Academic Advisory Board of Project Management Institute, India from 2009 to 2014, during which time he was the Technical Committee Chair for first two Research and Academic Conferences (RAC) on Project M

In this conversation, Jayashree Rajagopalan, Engineering Lead in Amazon shares her experience and perspectives related to Started technology journey by being inspired by peers and deeply passionate to improveShares her humble beginnings from the temple town of Trichy and joined Robert BoschHigher education after a marriage break gave way to structured thinkingJayashree shares her passion in music and how her current work in Amazon music has brought her two world togetherShe shares how to make one attuned to always on streaming industry by creating availability and resilience in the hardware as well as one’s decision making processesShe talks about times of immense pressure on her time to balance work and childcare and tapping on all the options at her disposal to keep continuing her careerProgressively pushing the work area made her not only a reliable go-to person but also ensured that she keeps doing something additional to what the work asked forCreating that unique value prop that you bring to the table has been her mantra to not only continually learn and add value to her firm but also push her career goals Jayashree shares some of the scaling mantras that she employs at home that has worked well @ covid timesJayashree shares of creating an environment of safety as well as continuous improvement in the fast paced tech environment. She has some of the basic audits that she does to ensure that goals are reachedShe shares how people and entertainment industry changing to a hub moving inside our homes Jayashree shares that one should have a never quit attitude and continuously strive to move one notch better than the previous day for oneselfJayashree is the engineering lead for the Amazon Music and based out of Bangalore. In her current role, she leads the latest disruptions within the streaming industry for the global outreach of Amazon Music. In her words ‘Leading platform teams on content and data to drive success, innovation and customer delight’ is what brings zing to her step.Jayashree started her career in Robert Bosch India as a software engineer working in the telecom industry. She moved to the silicon valley to pursue her higher education. She has been part of the telecom industry in the first 16 years of her career and moved to the streaming industry as part of Amazon. Her initial career includes marquee companies such as Oracle, EMC, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia where she worked in several roles as an individual contributor to Tech Lead to Design lead prior to taking up leadership roles. Jayashree is passionate about music and is classically trained. Her daughters are also classically trained in music. Jayashree is a graduate of NIT Trichy and San Jose UniversityShe can be reached @ Linkedin/Jayashree

Please vote for the Software People Stories podcast under the Business and Entrepreneurship category for the Hubhopper Awards at https://www.community.hubhopper.com/hubhopper-awardsThank youIn this conversation, Anantha Natarajan - known as Anand - a colleague and coach at PM Power Consulting, he shares his experience and perspectives related to coaching senior leaders and mid level managersHow he had to rediscover himself and his approach while working with experienced managers and leadersDemonstrating your competence without giving solutionsWhat he had to change about himself.. And knowing one’s placeAbout the approach of earning the trust of one’s bossHelping leaders look great by helping them achieve their goalsWhen you are quiet, you have to listenThe impact of working in a dispersed mode in earning trust and establishing working relationshipsHis thoughts on the continuous flow of valueWhat is value - in value flow - and three dimensions to consider when discussing flow of valueHis views on flow of value and playing bridgeThe need for process and partnerships among managersThe importance of experimentation and retrospectionsReach him @https://www.linkedin.com/in/anantha-natarajan-pm-power/Know more about himhttps://pm-powerconsulting.com/experts/ananth/

In this conversation, S Srinivasa Raghavan better known as SS or Raghavan, shares his experience and perspectives onHow we mutually influenced each other in choosing our careers in hardware and softwareBeing strong in English grammar, that helped him though the came from a tamil medium educationGetting to know the power of programmability in a calculator and being inducted into FORTRANDeveloping an interest in software as a way to solve problems more than writing programsAbout campus selection, tests and interviews - and how he got into a hardware role for his first jobLeading a team developing a disk controller and wanting to start something on his own with a friendWanting to do hardware, but put more software into itHelping one of Infosys clients solve a very difficult problem with their mainframe, in the area of connectivity using a hardware solution for data transferBased on the success of that assignment, getting an offer to form and lead a group working on hardware projectsHaving control over his timeAn expectation from the younger generation to get deeper understanding of the core and related technologies they work onWhere he gets ideas for innovationHis answer to the question: Can a software professional switch to hardware?Some stories of challenges in making rain gaugesHis views on the level of discipline comparing hardware and software engineersHis views and tips on aspirants to the hardware discipline as a career and whether software engineers should dabble in hardwareS.S. Raghavan, Founder & Managing Director Spatika Information Technologies, is a successful entrepreneur with a career spanning 40+ years. Spatika, under his able guidance, has developed products like Telemetric Rain Gauges and Telemetric Weather Stations which are currently installed in over 5000 Gram panchayat across various States in India. The team at Spatika also developed a VoIP phone as early as 1997 for Satyam Computers. As Vice President at Infosys, he made significant contributions by developing many indigenous telecommunication products that were first in India. During his stint at Infosys, he was the main architect in developing the Bilingual Electronic Keyboard. He was also responsible for automating Rural Telegraphy in 7 states through the development of store and forward message switching system. Prior to Infosys, he worked with HCL where he was responsible for designing and developing the entire Disk Sub System for the indigenous 16-bit computer.He holds a BE degree from the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore

In this conversation, Jayaraman Raghuraman - known as Raghu - SVP – Digital Engineering and Tech.Debt, Schneider Electric shares his experience and perspectives onHow he became a software developer.. And likes to all himself a software developerAbout his aptitude to solve problems in math or trivia etc.How he was lucky to be at the right time for this industryThough interested in computers, he had to choose an elective in electronics and instrumentationTaking a gap year, joining a part time post graduate management programGetting an opportunity to be formally trained in BASIC after clearing a tough testHis experience with his first boss, as task master and expecting high standards of performance from his teamThe ‘perks’ or working late or overnight!Focusing his first decade of profession to learn languages, technology etcWhy he considers himself as a second generation IT professional in IndiaThe motivators for him to change roles and jobsCrediting his managers for the learning and growth opportunities and guidance in his careerThe importance of being open with your weaknesses with your teamAbout his style of getting things doneThe power of 1-on-1sVirtual coffee hourThat the emotional needs of global teams vary with the locationHow he interacts with other ‘Raghus’ in his teamThe four key questions to ask oneselfWhat am I good atWhat am i not good atWhat do i like doingWhat do i not like to doThe future of careers in IT, requiring the understanding of applications of IT Raghu, short for Jayaraman Raghuraman is a Software professional, with a passion for software, IT and Technology. Raghu has spent his 30+ year of his career in the technology industry, mainly focus on strong execution and operational leadership in software product development and working closely with global customers. He spent the first 16 years of his career in India and the last 20 years in the USA, but lived in several countries, as well as led teams across China, Mexico, Brazil, France, USA and India. Established track record of leadership in providing vision, direction, organization and execution of technical strategy to achieve organization and business objectives, on time and with high quality. Achievements include years of delivering on IT and Technology transformation goals while managing budgets between $100 - 500 MM in Fortune 500 organizationsRaghu’s passions include working with people globally and developing young talent, as well as spending time watching a lot of movies, cricket and any sport. Currently, a new passion for Raghu has been to listen to murder mystery and police novels by the author, Michael Connelly.Social handles :Twitter: @jraghuLinkedin: linkedin.com/in/jraghuramanCan be contacted at : [email protected]

In this conversation, Raminder Rathore, a senior DevOps specialist, shares her experience and perspectives onHow her getting into IT was destined, based on her father’s foresightIf you learn something, it is always good to share it with others [and teaching is a good option]Her first career transition from a teacher to a developerTaking on other roles such as a tester and business analystGetting a break to be a consultant - a problem solver and liking itBecoming a tools consultant and discovering the importance of processes that go with the toolsThe significance of parents sharing their vision for their kids, with the childrenAbout the many options that kids of today have ahead of themHer exposure and experience with different locations / regions / countriesHer personal philosophy of empathy and emphasis on listeningThe art of saying NoThe importance of training in personal developmentCertifications, sharing and learning, using case studies as an approach for learningThe importance of communication - particularly when the teams are mostly remote and distributedHer concept of one team that she promotes, particularly with organizations on a DevOps adoption journeyDevOps is more than automated CI/CDThe answer to one questions that was waiting for fourteen years to be askedHer advice to people considering a career in IT as well as those who would like to switch to DevOps roles after some years of experienceRaminder Rathore is a DevOps practitioner; currently employed with HCL Technologies for 14 + years and in the IT industry for about 20 years. She started her career as a trainer then progressed to become a developer and then gradually moved across different product lifecycle phases; first becoming a tools consultant and then graduated to become a DevOps practitioner. She leads the DevOps COE at HCL that works with different customers across the globe on people, process and tools areas.

This conversation between Mohan Panchapikesan, CEO and Director at Medexpert Software Solutions, shares his stories about - Mohan started his career after completing his engineering in Anna University and IIT Kharagpur and talks about being a self made person but stays as a small town boy from Trichy Mohan shares being inherently curious and how his firm looks at not only the hospital management software but also the Ecosystem that drives it including insurance, pharma and the equipment sourcing and the entire supply chainMohan talks about the growth and fixed mindset and its application being the CEO. Being in a position of authority, having an understanding of people’s fears and ambiguity enables in bringing cohesion towards the goals of the firm by motivationMohan talks about Elon Musks’ motivation of moving to Mars due to the explosion of population and take that as an opportunity He refers Ford, Starbucks, McDonalds and Microsoft stories to talk about being bigger is better and democratising everything you doTalking about evolution and democratising the reach of services between the 1990s and 2020s has expanded the voice of individuals & takes the example of this podcast being in existence because of the forces that are in playStaying curious is the only way to sustain your learnings Perform or perish in corporate world has seeped into the personal world as Adopt or Die Discoverability is the key in the age of plethora of choices and technologists become the match makers of the world. Best match makers are those that have the horoscopes of all the open source software out thereFrom interoperability to intelligently make those inter connectionsIntelligence in integration and ecosystem is evolving. Unless we as mankind evolve with it, we will become artificial or redundant in the ecosystemOne has to be attuned with what is happening around us social or technology wise Mohan started his career in software in SA Software working as an RDBMS specialist. He later honed his data and software skills working in Walmart as a program manager. Mohan worked in Cognizant in various leadership roles by scaling people, technology and solutions to provide the right type of integration to the clients. Mohan became an entrepreneur serendipitously through a mutual friend. He’s now CEO of Medexpert software solutions that’s focused on reducing inefficiencies in the Medical ecosystem and driving innovations.Mohan can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mpjaya/

Sanjay Jayakumar CEO and Founder of Ignitarium shares his stories about - Facing uncertainties from very early on, being good in math and physicsJoining the WIPRO factory from campus in 1991, and being with WIPRO for 21 yearsPhases in WIPRO of roughly 3 years each across various functionsEarly career in engineering, as the interface between design and production of computersMoving to the hardware design team and then onto chip design as part of outsourced R&DSetting up an SOC for Texas InstrumentsGetting an opportunity to setup an engineering centre at Kochi and scaling it to a 2000 person operationThe lead into starting IgnitariumUnderlying common principles when working across cultures in Japan and the USLaying the foundation for scaling the engineering centre at Kochi with excellent support at WiproThe transition to becoming an entrepreneur, starting with making peace within himself with the decisionThe long road, 200 calls and the first 3 customers, getting the team through personal and professional networks, the genesis of IgnitariumAdding value to customers and being key enablers in a product development ecosystem through their expertise in system on chips & signal processing intensive design to create a software enabled platformA Future forward thinking approach to continuous evolution of products and solutionsCulture of Innovation, continuous learning and growth opportunities Creating partnerships and contributing to ecosystemsMessages for aspiring engineers in today's world of content at your fingertipsFounder and CEO of Ignitarium, Sanjay Jayakumar proudly leads a cross-functional team of close to 300 professionals and has been responsible for defining Ignitarium’s core values, which encompass the organisation’s approach towards clients, partners and internal stakeholders, and in establishing an innovation and value-driven organisational culture. Largely admired for his charisma and humility, he has gained a reputation for inspiring people through his strategic vision and team building capabilities.Prior to founding Ignitarium in 2012, Sanjay spent the initial 22 years of his career with the VLSI and Systems Business unit at Wipro Technologies. In his formative years, Sanjay worked in diverse engineering roles in Electronic hardware design, ASIC design and custom library development. Sanjay later handled a flagship – multi-million dollar, 600-engineer strong – Semiconductor & Embedded account owning complete Delivery and Business responsibility.Contact him @ Linkdin/Sanjay Jaykumar

 Bhuvan Anandakrishnan, Director of Engineering Caterpillar Inc talks about -His starting days in the training as a fresh graduate in Satyam when he realised the power of computing and seeing the results come inHe found the joy in software by creating something where nothing was there and could get a sense of accomplishmentEye for quality by way of working in embedded software and getting feedback from a career tester. He also understood what it means to get a quality product from the eyes of the customerBhuvan talks about complexities of embedded software and the limitations and considerations one has to give when one builds. It’s detrimental for organisations to recall due to faulty software. He shares about the quality considerations that Japanese give and ensure that the product is released in Japan prior to releasing in other countriesRealised that it’s not about the software but the entire product that the customer can touch and feel that value has been delivered He speaks about the journey of unlearning of being software developer and becoming a product engineer, leader and business leaderBhuvan talks about his life changing decision to move to India to lead Cat and how that satisfied his Star, Heart and Dollar. Similar to Ikigai thinking model.Bhuvan also shares how that he believed Brahma and Vishnu (creation and sustenance) way to make some of his critical decisions (this is based on Vijay Govindarajan’s three box solution)He also shares his passion towards creating large teams and seeing them flourish in his mentorship and coachingBhuvan’s view is that one should think of the daily life to be part of a large infinite model and take each day with the same deliberate attempt to win instead of resting on your past laurelsBhuvan Anandakrishnan, experienced Director with a demonstrated history of working in the machinery industry. Skilled in Embedded Software, Value Stream Mapping, Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS), Embedded Systems, and Agile Methodologies.He started his career in Satyam Computers working in Embedded systems and firmware products. Found the complexities of programming in product and embedded system interesting and impactful.Bhuvan made the jump to becoming a product engineer and product leader developing number fo products for Caterpillar. Bhuvan uses various product lifecycle methodologies to give the most value for the end customer and increases their delight.He has graduated in Great Lakes Institute with a PGXPM and MBA from Bradley UniversityBhuvan can be contacted @https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhuvan-anandakrishnan-a1518013/

In this conversation, Hendrik Esser, a senior leader at Ericsson, shares his thoughts related toHis love to construct stuff, even as a kid, to make stuff that others can useStarting to play games with his friend and then writing gamesPreferring electrical engineering, as the feeling was that computer science is just programming and he already knew that!Then, learning communication protocols and getting closer to softwareHis understanding of software work as art and the importance of craftsmanshipThe need to develop one’s talent into masteryAnd how with mastery you can be an engineerAnd one more level is to become an artist, when you transcend what you have learnt and move to express yourself creativelyHow he would like to use his artistry to make the world a better placeHow he got interested in the people aspects of software development, as work happens in teamsApplying for a group manager position, when had about 1.5 years of experience and the career advice he got, that he considers as one of the best he has receivedThe transition from game development to telecom softwareAbout programming by indirect observationHow understanding the purpose of a program gives him the motivation to solveFrom working on standalone machines where one has full visibility and control over everything that happens to working in teams and cloud based environments where most things are only indirectly feltFrom team sport, software development has become a societal sportHow, working in a multicultural team has helped understand that people are the same across the worldHow to treat a disturbance as an invitation for learningUsing curiosity to understand and explore other culturesHow a cross-national team worked on a very tricky technical problem and cracked it in 2 daysThe effectiveness of getting everyone into one room for richer interactions and the impact of the forced dispersal mode His interest in actively participating in communities and what he derives from such interactions and contributionsHow to reconcile the need for experimentation and progressive evolution approaches inspired by agile principles and the corporate expectations to be very predictable from the beginningHow to predict in an unpredictable worldUsing ranges, rather than precise dates, as leading indicators to track projectsHis career advice - develop social skills in addition to technical skillsHendrik Esser is a senior transformation expert, coach, driver and catalyst with more than 20 years of leadership experience at Ericsson. He is also internationally active in communities advancing business agility across industries.Hendrik is continuously exploring new ways to create better results and greater organizations.That journey started when he joined Ericsson in Germany in 1994 as a SW developer. Soon his passion brought him to a leadership career from being a Technical Coordinator through project management, project office management, portfolio- and technology management towards being the "COO" of one of Ericsson's large, internationally distributed development units with over 8000 people. In 2008 he was a key driver to the agile transition of a large organization. Through this engagement he became a recognized and sought expert not only in the Ericsson enterprise transformation, but also a strong contributor to the international agile community, exchanging and expanding knowledge and spreading agile mindset and ideas across industries. Part of his time he also works as a trainer for leadership programs within Ericsson.In parallel to his work at Ericsson, he is - as a volunteer - Program Director of the Agile Alliance's initiative "Supporting Agile Adoption". He has worked together with ICAgile on Learning Roadmaps for agile Finance. Also, he is an internationally active speaker at numerous conferences and company events on agile product development, HR and project management.LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/hendrik-esser

In this episode Madhavi Nadig, a seasoned professional with experience solving challenging problems using technology shares her stories with Chitra on Choosing to do engineering as she couldn't become a vetGetting a bachelors and then a masters in computer scienceWorking in 3 different industries via companies like EMC, Jumptap (online advertising) and then Spotify (music)Being known as an 'optimizer' and learning how not to over-optimizeApplying data driven decisions at work and deciding on feature stickinessMeans of getting data and using it, instrumentation, user flows, user interviews and using proxies - some of the Spotify story in IndiaMaking a habit of talking to usersUser insights and developing algorithms for an audience of musicWorking across time zones and cultures, ensuring people have information at handAssimilating new joinees in a remote working environmentThe 100 stories projectA short simple message for aspirants who want to be developersMadhavi Nadig, earned her B.E. in Information Science from PESIT, Bengaluru and an M.S. in Computer Science from SUNY University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY.Madhavi firmly believes problem-solving requires the right mix of creative thinking, technology usage and organizational hacking. Driven by this philosophy, she has successfully led geographically distributed teams of technical and non-technical groups, delivered high quality software solutions and streamlined organizational processes. Her career spans across the entertainment, mobile advertising and computer storage industries. She worked in the US for 10 years with companies such as Spotify, Verizon and EMC as well as small startups. Currently she works with startups in Bengaluru as a freelancer.Reach her at : Linkdin/Madhavi Nadig

In this episode, Ramesh Shastri, software engineer to business head shares his long journey of 38 years in professional career with Shiv, In this conversation he talks about-Gravitated to IT like peers, as that was the well paying sectorStarting as an individual contributor growing to become a business unit leaderFrom systems programming to business applicationsHow his roles changed over the decades of the 80s, 90s and 2000+How he has enjoyed the roller coaster ride of 38 yearsBeing associated with some of the early product development initiatives in IndiaWorking with partner organizations to create full solutionsThe importance of listening to customersHis work with an NGO called MAYA on livelihood initiatives for the Channapatna toymakers over the last 5 yearsHow he finds the toy industry situation somewhat similar to the IT industry situation in the initial stages, before export revenues started to grow significantlyA quick overview of toy making in ChannapatnaHow they are going about bringing in structure, process and product quality in the industry, by setting up a producer companyWhether some of the approaches used to help the artisans can be relevant or applied to the software industrySome aspects that the IT sector [people] can learn from the artisan sector, particularly, pride of creation or ownership of what they createHis view on opportunities in the social sector for people in IT, looking for a changeRamesh Shastri’s professional career in Information Technology has been a long journey of 38 years; He has held positions from software engineer to business head. He has lived and worked in India and the United States while also covering a lot of ground in between.For the past 5 years he moved from the leading edge of the technology sector to the trailing edge of the social sector. He is now focused on creating sustainable livelihoods in the handicrafts sector.Reach him at : Linkdin/Ramesh Shastri

In this conversation, Madhurima Agarwal, Director of Engineering Programs and Leader at NetApp Accelerator shares are career journey with Chitra. She talks about -Her love for technology starting when she believed in grade 8 that she was the best programmer in the worldBeing an entrepreneur during her college days with her father as mentor and angel investor, building a product to automate member directory for the chambers of commerce and industry at RanchiLearning empathy, self-discipline and confidence through her ventureUnderstanding what entrepreneurs go through in early days from personal experience enabled her while mentoring entrepreneurs today and facing bias as a young entrepreneurTech world a fair space where your work speaks for itself and need for women to speak about what they have doneFinding the right product market fit, her rules of thumb - Knowing the domain or asking experts - Understanding pain points of customers Developing an experimental mindset, encouraging and accepting failure, having a mentorChanging tracks and feeling confident to do so Support and communities between investors and entrepreneurs to build great products and encourage entrepreneurshipHer 3 messages for technology and entrepreneurial aspirants - Be the best at what you do; -Don't be afraid of failing;  -Be OptimisticMadhurima Agarwal works as the Director for Engineering Program with global responsibility for leading NetApp’s startup program called NetApp Excellerator – startup.netapp.in. She also plays a key role in driving enhanced collaboration between engineering and market-facing functions across NetApp India and acts as the touch point for all external partnerships. She brings with her over 17yrs of experience spanning domains across the globe with leading financial firms. She’s been an entrepreneur and currently dons the hats of a mentor and advisor to startups. An alumna of IIM, Ahmedabad, Madhurima enjoys driving innovation and taming the power of technology to achieve organizational growth.She’s an avid reader and enjoys writing on topics around entrepreneurship. Madhurima is an advisor to the WIT (Women in Technology) group at NetApp and focuses on professional development of women in the workplace.Reach her at :linkedin.com/in/madhurimaagarwalTwitter : @MadhurimaAg

In this conversation Srilakshmi, Program Manager shares her 30+ year story with Chitra through her essence of being a person who naturally brings people together. Her story board contains Science as her forte and choosing to study engineeringGetting her first job in HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd) to build the Light Combat Aircraft or LCA, her first exposure to program managementLearning slowly and a project definition phase of 2-3 yearsWorking on mini computers and coding in machine languageMoving to the US for a PhD, choosing computer science over management & economics, multiple transitionsBeing the first batch of computer science graduates from portland state universityJoining Intel and staying there for 15 yearsWorking in bunny suits inside fab labs on software for p-n junctionsrealising that software engineering was a job and her passion lay in bringing people together and organizing thingsBeing part of various server teams at Intel and becoming a program manager in 2002Moving to India, discovering that leading by influence was her preferred way of working, working at NetApp, Cisco, VMWareSharing her Program Management principles of equal authority, responsibility and weightage to all functions of a groupCollaboration via a "map day" exercise and common understanding of the "why" of a project, examples from her experience at Intel and ADE (Aeronautical Development Establishment) & the importance of keeping the vision in mind at all times and to know how everything is connectedChanges across time around collaborationHow the pandemic has brought about awareness of different ecosystems Exploring influence without authority in the role of a program manager, knowing yourself when a job is well done and being approachableHer passion around voluntarismLooking long term, making technology an ally in your work and finding happiness in what you do.Srilakshmi Renganathan was a Software Developer and is now a Release Manager & Program Manager. She started her career at the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited HAL in Bangalore and moved to the US for her Masters in Computer Science. She  worked in various MNCs - Intel Corp, NetApp, Cisco & VMware. She is currently a Software Release & Deployment Program Management at Zebra Technologies ( for Reflexis Retail Task & Schedule Management Software products recently acquired by Zebra).She describes herself as a mother, daughter, wife, friend, ever longing to be a social worker.As a software Program Manager trying to stay connected to technology by doing hands-on tactical coordination work assisting in moving products from inception to entity. She’s touched various domains albeit from the periphery including aircraft communication systems, chip manufacturing, storage technology, cloud infrastructure to more recently SAAS - Software as a Service. Sri continues to engage & adapt  through changing tools & technologies through the past 3 decades!  Electronics & Computer Science Engineer by Education & Software Engineer by training. Multi-Tasker, organizer, blogger & constant social media updater :) who lives by the phrase “sharing is caring”.