Software People Stories

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 - hello@5x.co

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 : baijuglad@yahoo.com 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: poornimashenoy0@gmail.com

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/