Software People Stories

This is part 1 of a 2 episode conversation. In this episode, Ramesh Rajagopal, a Coach at PM Power Consulting, shares his experience related toGrowing up in Madurai, a major temple town Learning Tamil, though his grandparents were from KarnatakaHis temple visits, on the way to school as well as on specific occasionsMoving to Bangalore and seeing the changes over the decadesPassing out as topper in his school for the SSLC gradeChoosing to switch colleges to study with his cousinDeveloping a talent - in his own words  -of sleeping in moving buses, whether sitting or standingLearning the importance of extra curricular activitiesApplying to TELCO, based on a newspaper adAsking for a role in R&D, though TELCO was a predominantly manufacturing organization and getting itNot being able to join as planned, due to his father’s health, but being able to make it a little later, when things got betterUnderstanding that work culture varies from context to context and his interesting experience on the shop floor with his managerImportance of practical experience on the shop floorTaking interest in and learning computersLeveraging his engineering and manufacturing experience to help the software development teams in L&TJoining GE and diving deeper into software engineeringWith a focus on systems, getting an opportunity to lead the quality functionFour stages in career development: learning, doing, guide others, shape people by laying the pathGetting into Agile approachesHe started my career as an R&D engineer at the Engineering Research Centre at Tata Motors (TELCO) in 1981, then he joined L& T during 1984, initially as a Design Engineer for Earthmoving machines. Later, he moved into Manufacturing Planning. He joined GE India Technology Center during end 2000, as a Project Manager-Delivery and stayed with the organization as it later changed hands to become GXS and OpenText. He also worked as a consultant for the Agile Transformation group for 4 years at Standard Chartered Bank, Kuala Lumpur helping teams and teams of teams to adopt to the new ways of working – from Technology teams, Retail Teams to Data and Privacy teams.With over four decades of experience which includes over 20+ years in software Product development, Delivery, Quality and several years in manufacturing domains of Automobile and Earth moving equipment, mow a Principal consultant at PM Power, part of Agile Transformation and DevOps Service lines.

In this episode, K Ramkumar, known as Ram or Kram - Director Product Mangement, Salesforce, in conversation with Gayatri shares Starting his passion in software in the way of coding Fortran in his alma matter BITS Pilani. Ram talks about starting in the software development working in small organisation in their ecommerce portals before moving into collaboration softwareWithin the span of 25 years Ramkumar has travessed the depths of collaboration, communication and security using cloud and data analytics technologiesRamkumar describes his journey as continuing to expand in complex areas due to his deep problem solving skillsRam talks about taking a plunge in the product management after nearly spending a decade in engineering. He also shared some of his vulnerable moments when he moved from being a team leader of 20 individuals to an individual contributor.Product management certification in IIM and ISB has helped but his innate curiosity is what has catapulted to being a product leader todayRamkumar advises professionals to try different areas within software from business analysis, program management, scrum mastery, automation, data analytics and product management before assessing the area of specialisationRamkumar shares of the his keen sense of understanding where the customers needs and marry that with technology potential and continuous experimentRamkumar’s key advise to software professionals is to stay curious and continuous learn technologies with a beginners mindsetRamkumar is an engineering graduate of BITS Pilani, with management education from IIM B, certification from ISB. Ramkumar is the Director of Product Management for Salesforce. He specializes in the field of security. Ramkumar started his career in India in Novell, Siemens before moving to the US to join startup boom in ecommerce. He leveraged his email/collaboration experience in Cisco and released several notable products for Cisco Systems. His products have won several awards. Ramkumar joined the product management in Cisco systems as an experiment. Ramkumar is a recipient of Presidents’ award for Salesforce along with several coveted awards.Ramkumar can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramkumarkaleeswaran/

We continue our conversation with Sowmya Gopalan and Ramya Gopalan, the first software twins to be featured on this podcast.In the first part they shared their origin story and also experiences of working in cutting edge technologies.We paused with a question on how they pay it forward to nurture young professionals.In this episode, Sowmya and Ramya continue to shareHow one might feel hesitant to approach colleagues or seniors, when starting on a careerNurturing the quality of giving space to others in their seniors, particularly to the junior members in the teamBeing open to solutions and valuing inputs from all; about sharing tasks to be done equally among the team membersTheir experience of being women in techBeing in a team with more womenNow the ratios are more skewedFeeling more comfortable when there are more women colleaguesMoving into teams where being the only woman in the teamThough bonding well with colleagues irrespective of gender, having women colleagues being more supportingHaving a lady mentor when starting one’s career being of great helpTheir thoughts on metaverse and spaces removed further from reality and need for better regulation and ethicsTheir thoughts on the importance of data in machine learning and how to address situations where there may not be sufficient dataAbout using non verbal cues in video processingAbout extracting intelligence from any kind of audio signalsTheir career advice for persons starting in ITTheir approach to balancing work and life.. Work life harmony!Sowmya Gopalan has 12+ years experience in researching and developing computer vision technologies for consumer electronics. With a formal background in signal processing, I specialize in researching, prototyping and developing robust software solutions for image and video understanding. I tend to be most satisfied when I have the opportunity of seeing a product through its entire lifecycle - from concept, to PoC, to production software. I thrive in collaborative, kind and multi-disciplinary settings where interest and drive matter more than qualification. Outside work, you will find me trying out new recipes in the kitchen with Ramya, or reading a book in the historical fiction genre - I am curious about the world wars and modern history in general, so if you have a good book to recommend, feel free to drop in a line athttps://www.linkedin.com/in/sowmya-gopalan-1840719/ Ramya Goplan is a software engineer who has worked on various consumer electronic products during her 12 year tenure in Amazon. Her interests and expertise include working on applications that are rooted in traditional signal processing and machine learning science. Having worked on the speech enhancement pipeline for the first gen and next gen Echo and Alexa products, she is slightly partial to speech and audio tech. She finds taking an idea from prototype to optimized embedded C/C++ implementation extremely enjoyable and satisfying. Outside work, Ramya loves to cook, sketch and listen to podcasts about health and wellness; Huberman Lab being her current favorite.You can reach Ramya at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramya-gopalan-b3bb506/

First, our heartfelt thanks to all you listeners for the love you have shown and for permitting the Software People Stories to be part of your listening time over the last 200 weeks!Your wishes and encouragement is what has kept us going and will continue to do so.Thank youThis is a very special episode for the Software People Stories. This is the 200th episode.So, for this occasion, we have 2 guests - Sowmya Gopalan and Ramya Goplan - twin sisters, now working at two of the IT giants, doing leading edge work. They have very interesting stories of their careers and perspectives.This episode is also special, as we have all the three hosts present!We will be publishing this conversation in 2 parts.This is part 1 , where Sowmya and Ramya shareHow they got into IT and chose engineering for studies: Sowmya:electronics and communicationMasters in signal processingInternship in interdigital : cognitive radio applicationsInterest in images and videosJoining Amazon for a startup like project working on cutting edge technologies Computer vision features of Amazon EchoThen joining Apple, continuing to work on camera and photos appRamyaBeing clear about not doing biology, and preferring match and computer scienceTelecom as specialization in undergraduateGetting in to same university and having the same advisorInterning in the same companyAudio signal processingAfter 8 years, getting into health org, applying AI/ML etcTheir experiences and thoughts on developing embedded solutionsUsing the customer satisfaction parameters as primary indicators of readiness of a releaseAbout the dependency management and change control practices at AppleThe thrill of knowing that the first code written getting into productionHow aware the developers are of customer issues and usage experience, being emphasized by the customer obsession culture at AmazonOne disappointing experience when the market acceptance of a child safety feature was somewhat underwhelmingTheir experience of having 21 patents between the two of them and tips for others to think of developing patentable ideasIf they have tried pair programming between the two of themHow they bounce off ideas and support each otherTheir mantra: start simple, keep improving, keep fundamentals strong, how textbooks and theory always helpIf they had any thoughts of creating something togetherWhether they lean in on each other and how they support each otherAnd, the difference having or not having such support makes on an individualHaving a safe space when the other person is non-judgemental and trustworthyWe conclude this episode with the question of how they nurture or develop younger professionals.The answer to that question and a lot more insights, some technical and many on the softer aspects such as work life harmony will be in part 2 of this conversation. Do not miss the next episode, coming up in a week.Sowmya Gopalan has 12+ years experience in researching and developing computer vision technologies for consumer electronics. With a formal background in signal processing, I specialize in researching, prototyping and developing robust software solutions for image and video understanding. I tend to be most satisfied when I have the opportunity of seeing a product through its entire lifecycle - from concept, to PoC, to production software. I thrive in collaborative, kind and multi-disciplinary settings where interest and drive matter more than qualification. Outside work, you will find me trying out new recipes in the kitchen with Ramya, or reading a book in the historical fiction genre - I am curious about the world wars and modern history in general, so if you have a good book to recommend, feel free to drop in a line athttps://www.linkedin.com/in/sowmya-gopalan-1840719/ Ramya Goplan is a software engineer who has worked on various consumer electronic products during her 12 year tenure in Amazon. Her interests and expertise include working on applications that are rooted in traditional signal processing and machine learning science. Having worked on the speech enhancement pipeline for the first gen and next gen Echo and Alexa products, she is slightly partial to speech and audio tech. She finds taking an idea from prototype to optimized embedded C/C++ implementation extremely enjoyable and satisfying. Outside work, Ramya loves to cook, sketch and listen to podcasts about health and wellness; Huberman Lab being her current favorite.You can reach Ramya at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramya-gopalan-b3bb506/

This is the second part of the conversation with Janakiraman Srinivasan, known as Jani.In the first part, Jani spoke of his initial years in IT and the long career he had with Wipro. We ended that episode when it was a segue into his entrepreneurial roles.In this episode,Jani continues to share more stories related to The startup bug that led him to be a co-founder of MindtreeGetting an international experience, and the tech boom and startup culture in the silicon valley creating a strong impression The emotional connect he had with Mr. Ashok SootaChanges in his experience between two startup contexts 19 years apartHow these changes influenced some of the policies and strategies in the second startupThe benefit of complementary strengths among the co-foundersThe experience of incubating startups within mindtreeHow he moved on to set up NuveproHow he keeps himself updated on emerging and futuristic technologiesAnd how he finds time for all thisHis emotionally stressful phases, when thinking of or making transitions across organizationsThe importance of people in the success of a companyHis career advice for people considering a career in IT and for those already in ITJanakiraman Srinivasan is currently the Chairman of Nuvepro Technologies, a startup in Cloud Technologies and also President of Indo Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (IJCCI) - Karnataka. Prior to above, Janakiraman was the President & CTO of Mindtree Ltd, and was one of the Co-Founder and Board Member too. He served Mindtree from 1999 to 2014. Prior to Mindtree, Janakiraman served as the Chief Executive of Global R&D Unit of Wipro where he started his career as one among first five employees in 1980. Janakiraman was one of the Co-Founder of India Semiconductor Association (ISA) in 2002 and served for six years in its executive council, and later as its Chairman and Advisor too. Janakiraman did his BE at Regional Engineering College - Trichi (1973-78) and MTech from IIT-Chennai (1978-80). He is a Distinguished Alumni of REC for his Entrepreneurial Excellence. Janakiraman has served the board of Yokogawa India Ltd till March 2019 for four years. Currently a Board Member in startups Nuvepro Technologies, Innohub Technologies, Sanohub Technologies and Netra Accelerator Foundation. He is actively involved in promoting startups and entrepreneurial environment in Karnataka.Jani may be contacted at janiuma @ gmail.com

In this episode, Janakiraman Srinivasan, known as Jani - an IT industry veteran, in conversation with Shiv shares His childhood days in Kumbakonam, Tamil NaduHis Bachelors from REC Trichy and Masters from IIT Madras and getting into Wipro as a campus recruitee as Employee # 3 His father’s role in getting him good educationThe experience of being among the first employees in a newly launched company in a truly entrepreneurial environmentSetting up an R&D team and activity in Bangalore and then setting up a factory in MysoreHow they needed to dismantle the door, to get the first computer outThe significance of bonds with colleaguesThe early culture at Wipro that stressed on many core valuesHis experience in transitioning across various roles - from technical to business responsibilitiesSetting up a system integration or engineering groupWanting to move base to Chennai for personal reasons, taking up a role of a field specialist for the southern regionTaking up the role of a regional field engineering manager, as the person playing that role moved onThe transition to an individual contributor to leading a 50 member team and manage the business operationsBecoming the product manager for the micro systems [PCs], that was a volume, low margin business that still needed superlative customer support experienceAround 1991, being ‘elected’ to become the R&D head, when the then head took up a role to set up Wipro Systems Launching the Product Engineering Services business to take the R&D expertise to customersAround 94-95, when quality standards were becoming more popular and mandatory, becoming CEO of Global R&D Growing the R&D team from about 350 to 2200 personsIn part 2, we hear Jani’s story with mindtree and beyond.Janakiraman Srinivasan is currently the Chairman of Nuvepro Technologies, a startup in Cloud Technologies and also President of Indo Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (IJCCI) - Karnataka. Prior to above, Janakiraman was the President & CTO of Mindtree Ltd, and was one of the Co-Founder and Board Member too. He served Mindtree from 1999 to 2014. Prior to Mindtree, Janakiraman served as the Chief Executive of Global R&D Unit of Wipro where he started his career as one among first five employees in 1980. Janakiraman was one of the Co-Founder of India Semiconductor Association (ISA) in 2002 and served for six years in its executive council, and later as its Chairman and Advisor too. Janakiraman did his BE at Regional Engineering College - Trichi (1973-78) and MTech from IIT-Chennai (1978-80). He is a Distinguished Alumni of REC for his Entrepreneurial Excellence. Janakiraman has served the board of Yokogawa India Ltd till March 2019 for four years. Currently a Board Member in startups Nuvepro Technologies, Innohub Technologies, Sanohub Technologies and Netra Accelerator Foundation. He is actively involved in promoting startups and entrepreneurial environment in Karnataka.Jani may be contacted at janiuma @ gmail.com

In this episode, Victor Jayakaran- shares his story and experiences related to:His graduation from the Madras Institute of Technology and post graduation from the Indian Institute of ScienceGetting a campus placement at ITI and applying for a job with ISROOn his guide NJ Rao’s suggestion, choosing to join a small and growing company, WiproJoining Wipro in August 1979 and starting work at an IISc labBeing part of the team that decided what systems to go forWorking on technology transfer, with a view to make it as ready to use as possible for their customersMoving on to a hardware specific role, doing everything from system design, testing, purchasing the BOMInterfacing with the Govt. of Karnataka for setting up the Mysore factoryMoving to Mysore as part of the team that set up the facilityReturning to bangalore in 1983 - 88 MG RoadBeing into hardware, subsystems design etcWhen Wipro Systems Limited was set up, moving a part of that teamGetting back to Wipro InfotechHardware, software [OS port], to VLSI technologiesExploring opportunities in VLSI designRecalling that he had the best bosses in all his rolesGL, purchasing, sales processing etc apps as part of delivering computers that can be readily usedOn taking up and playing different roles across organizational functionsExperience of working with other organizations that operate at different pacesWorking in an open culture, where everyone’s ideas and experience are welcomeWorking 18 hour days - in a charged up atmosphere, as part of a very small teamGetting opportunities to meet customers, when they had issues!Making problems into an advantageTechie customers like to buy from techies, rather than sales rolesHis experience of working with Japanese customers, who were very detail orientedGrowing to be a leader of others who were peers till the previous dayLearning to be objective in assessments and sharing reinforcing feedbackOn the emphasis on processes in Wipro, that helped doing things systematically and consistentlyThe friendship bonds that kept him in the organization over timeThe courage a leader needs to bring in the right people as well as be ready to let go of people who don't fitAbout the experience of a spin-in, that could not meet the initial set business goalsOne important ingredient for startup success: fire in the bellyHow technologically deep should a leader be? The team should be confident of your visionGenuineness of the leader is critical to build a successful teamHis experience and views on work-life balance, particularly after getting marriedGetting an advice from one of his bosses about working Smart v/s working hardHis career tips for entry level and mid career IT professionalsEnjoy the workbuild camaraderieVictor Jayakaran, did his B.Sc (Physics), at A.M. Jain College, Madras. He then did his graduation in Electronics From the Madras Institute of Technology. He then did his M.E. from  the School of Automation,  at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 1979.  He then started with Wipro as their first employee, to be part of Wipro’s Information Technology Business. He was with Wipro for more than 20 years, from 1979 starting off as their first employee (R&D Engineer),  till 2000, when he was the Vice President of Engg at EnThink, Wipro’s startup venture.   He then left them in May 2000, to join SCM India as President of its India operations, which was one of the  two core development centers, worldwide,  in the domain of Digital Media and   Smart Card readers and terminals. Then in 2006 he stepped out of SCM to create SCOLIS Technologies which later was acquired by the Identiv Group and merged with his former company SCM. He   headed  the new  Identiv Tech Center in India, located in Chennai till 2016, when he retired from hands-on operations.Victor is married to Sunithy,  and they have two grown up children, both of whom are married and are blessed with four grand children.   Victor and Sunithy  as  part of the  team of trustees, started and are  running  Amazing Love Home, a home for the elderly  near Chennai, since 2009.Victor may be contacted at: vjayakaran@gmail.com

In this episode, Sai Krishna, a serial entrepreneur, who calls himself a metaverse plumber, loves creating interesting applications based on emerging and maturing technologies. In this conversation, he sharesHow a decentralized squad model, working with local partners and having an engineering focus for differentiation would help scale and localize, as neededHow to build an organization to realize the vision of the foundersCadence of 2 weeks or 12 weeks, multi-skilled squadsWillingness to learn and time to feedbackA founder’s feelings related to exit decisionsFounder’s formula: have fun, optimize for joyA founder’s job is to make everyone in the team to reflect back and feel the impact of their workMetaverse: hype or old wine or something substantial?Why 3D printing technology underdelivered on its promiseHow finances (and capital)  are critical to help new technologies become practical and increase wide adoptionHow commoditized solutions can trigger a race to the bottom affecting the survivability of a companyImpact of new technologies on the carbon footprintOblivious, brash and corrective : the three stages of companies operating to exploit new and emerging technologiesTips for anyone looking to get deeper into the metaverse ecosystemStep1: understand what variables you want to optimize forFinancial gains, Wealth: building a company is probably the hardestJoy of learning being part of an emerging spaceSolving a problem that itches youFind a reason to resonate with the causeThe market also needs to be readyWould you see it as a decades long journey, 15 hour days.. Yes, not just as an option to make quick moneyCobbling a team of like minded lunatics..If he chose to be in AI because AI is in his name!Sai has spent more than 9 years in building deep tech startups. He was an early believer and pioneer in the Metaverse, and built & backed startups in the domain. Notably:- His Virtual & Augmented Reality venture, Scapic was acquired by Walmart/Flipkart- He backed a venture studio for the Metaverse, Cope. Studio, which was acquired by Polygon/Matic- His marketplace for Metaverse assets, Reality Tools, was acquired by MotionPageSai currently leads Flipkart Labs, where he focuses on new deep tech initiatives such as Camera (Augmented Reality) & Firedrops (NFTs & Web3) in the Walmart Group. He is currently an advisor at Polygon & Polygon Studios. He is alum of Stanford University Graduate School of Business, recipient of the Indian National Startup Awards and a fellowship recipient from Ondeck. He's been awarded by organizations such as Facebook, the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards, Wharton and IIM. Sai has delivered 80+ keynotes at international conferences, IIT-Bombay, NSRCEL & more. When it's not about work, Sai is quintessentially south Indian, with an affinity to dosas and filter coffee. You can reach out to Sai at oho@5saitec.com on anything around building moonshots.

In this episode, Sai Krishna, a serial entrepreneur, who calls himself a metaverse plumber, loves creating interesting applications based on emerging and maturing technologies. In this conversation, he sharesHis adventures and misadventures in ITHailing from a south Indian family that emphasized educationMoving to Bangalore to continue his education in RV CollegeHis attraction to build products, more with an intention of having fun in doing itHis first product in the education spaceUnderstanding the need to think like an entrepreneurship and getting sponsored for an entrepreneurship program at StanfordStarting his company Scapic - with AR/VR as core technologies and being acquired by FlipkartHis approach to identifying problems to solveShiny toy syndrome: to pick something that looks cool; these may not be a venture worthy ideaChoosing a problem that matches your expertise: your and your team’s complementary skills; this helps accelerating to marketSelect entrepreneurs: going after massive market opportunityLousy team, great market, market winsGreat team , lousy market, market winsGreat team, great market - nonlinear outcomesHow to think scaleVisualizing the finish line: that is not a goal post; focus on the next milestoneThe importance of obsessing over the first cohort for a startupThe value of creating a playbook after validation and further experimentation with the second and third cohortsDifferences between B2B and B2C solutionsHow a decentralized squad model, working with local partners and having an engineering focus for differentiation would help scale and localize, as neededSai has spent more than 9 years in building deep tech startups. He was an early believer and pioneer in the Metaverse, and built & backed startups in the domain. Notably:- His Virtual & Augmented Reality venture, Scapic was acquired by Walmart/Flipkart- He backed a venture studio for the Metaverse, Cope.Studio, which was acquired by Polygon/Matic- His marketplace for Metaverse assets, Reality Tools, was acquired by MotionPageSai currently leads Flipkart Labs, where he focuses on new deep tech initiatives such as Camera (Augmented Reality) & Firedrops (NFTs & Web3) in the Walmart Group. He is currently an advisor at Polygon & Polygon Studios. He is alum of Stanford University Graduate School of Business, recipient of the Indian National Startup Awards and a fellowship recipient from Ondeck. He's been awarded by organisations such as Facebook, the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards, Wharton and IIM. Sai has delivered 80+ keynotes at international conferences, IIT-Bombay, NSRCEL & more. When it's not about work, Sai is quintessentially south Indian, with an affinity to dosas and filter coffee. You can reach out to Sai at oho@5saitec.com on anything around building moonshots.

In this episode, Usha from PM Power Consulting is in conversation with Chitra and shares her 3 plus decades of experience in software and technology around -Working at Raman institute for 10 years, her first exposure to computing A research institute expects you to do your own learning, but of courseWriting programs for 'astronomical' data analysis and structures of crystals in pascal & Fortran, Finding logic was easy, testing with missing data and reconstructing it was challengingBecoming self-reliant, so finding solutions is now naturalBuilding test harnesses from scratch, Joining i2 tech in supply chain planningSetup the first performance testing lab, getting things startedWorking with resource constraints while setting up the performance labLearned how software products were sold, understanding product ROILearning from Eliyahu Goldratt's book and seeing those principles applied in product developmentCustomer experiences & product deliveryA stint in Australia via Siemens in the telecom domain - testing & system integrationThe evolution towards collective responsiblity from specialized roles & functionsConcept of quality and embracing culture around it, getting people aligned around quality goalsViews on establishing test procedures, measuring effectiveness & ROICustomer experiences right under their nosesImportance of building the right teamsImportant to follow your heart & passionUsha is a Consultant with PM Power. She has worked for companies like Tech Mahindra, Siemens and Mindtree before founding LastMile Consulting Technology Solutions.She has been a practitioner of Agile for 15+ years. She trains and helps large teams adopt agile methods