Software People Stories

Rajiv Puranik, VP platform engineering and cloud operations at Vocera Communications & Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting are in conversation as Rajiv shares His professional experience with Twillio, Apigee, Yahoo before Vocera covering corporate, engineering roles as well as startups What developers should know, when building products, the ‘-ities’, beyond the algorithms A personal devops horror story  How developers can have empathy of what happens after code is written Devops is the first line of defence, and engineers are the second line About differences in the safetynet, depending on company size or areas of operation His tips for techies taking on leadership / managerial roles to be effective His mantra for scaling as a leader What the forced work from home implies for individuals and leaders in their approaches to work How one should move to a nurturing style, even if starting with a directive approach, to develop others Why quality is a business metric What is acceptable quality Making decisions when there is ambiguity The impact of AI in decision making and leadership responsibilities What he enjoys most about his career When it comes to career decisions, the one question everyone should ask themselves Rajiv can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajivpuranik/

Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting is speaking with Badri Narayanan, Vice President of HCL Technologies Ltd Geography and culture aspects of IT delivery plays a critical role in not just UX/UD Communication/ project mgmt and various inter dependencies Roll mapping of local talent in critical roles and having close business relationship are key things to put in play for long term success Bridging cultural differences in Japan was around having additional business analysts with bi lingual capability to understand specs and pair program with the developers to ensure gaps are reduced German teams needed accuracy in functionality as much as the accompanying documentation Change in expectations in IT landscape with integrated business & IT Several changes have happened from owning small functions in y2k to smaller SDLC parts to owning entire app stack we have grown quite a bit Digital tsunami needs dual crossing with owning IT and making IT more valuable IT Decision are continuous and not be outsourced to only a nuanced role Conscious relearning is required to re-equip ourselves in the new digital world in terms of technology and soft skills Business outcomes would need to be innovation led and internal teams/systems need to be delivery/engineering led - Dual engine  Learnings from failure and crystalize them to the next level seems to be the way forward to accelerate the art and marry the engineering discipline

In this episode, Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting is in conversation with Jayantha <> who shares his life as an engineer and working in Europe amongst other things such as - - Telecom engineering to data engineering - Getting help and guidance in a new place and new company - From his lens of how software has evolved over generations - designing products for different customer segments - How data engineering folks work with other people like product managers and business folks - The importance of understanding users of the product even for data engineers - Understanding GDPR while working on personal data - What different views of data down a funnel can reveal and recognizing anomalies - Transitions from telecom engineering to a services company and then a product company - How agile practices need to chosen to suit ones needs - shares thoughts on people considering an IT career and moving to Europe for work Telecommunications Engineer turned Software Professional turned Data Engineer working at Omio in Berlin as a Senior Data Engineer and Lead of the Business Intelligence platform team.  Formerly worked at Thoughtworks in Bangalore.  (Hobbies are guitar, sports and art) LinkedIn | jayantak | linkedin.com/in/jayantak/ Instagram | mellowcolour | https://www.instagram.com/mellowcolour/ Twitter | mellowcolour | https://twitter.com/mellowcolour

In this conversation Shravan, a Doctoral student, shares his thoughts and experiences with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting, related to How a comic strip triggered curiosity to explore software development How writing software is like solving puzzles His interest in security aspects while programming His initial personal projects Where one can get problems or ideas to take up research in the realm of security Vulnerabilities related to the software supply chain How verified programming as a technique is still nascent The evolving concept of software sandboxing Power demands of complex computing, such as bitcoin mining and IoT devices Some research into saving power on android phones The possibilities of 5G The eroom’s law and increasingly complex algorithms How quantum computing can help in compute intensive areas such as drug discovery Applications of AI for social or societal problems Technology fighting technology for good [such as anti-virus] On offensive security His thoughts on taking up IT as a career or field of study / research Shravan Narayan is 4th year PhD student in the fields of computer security and programming languages at the University of California San Diego. He spends his time working on how to safely include untrusted buggy code in large applications through the use of memory isolation, colloquially called sandboxing. Before this, he worked at Microsoft for three years in Redmond, Washington as a software engineer in the windows update team. His non computer science hobbies include playing the tabla and speed solving Rubik's cubes.

In this episode, part of our series on Women in IT for the Month of March 2020, Chitra Gurjar from PM Power Consulting is in conversation with Shobha CS, Founder Director of Tent Cinema School where Shobha takes us through her journey of  - - Start of a multifaceted career in software development and management to skill development and cinema - Using her creative bent of mind to find motivation & strength at work and manage life better - Having an open mind to handle changes, welcome anything new - Learning from the networks of BSPIN (Bangalore Software Process Improvement Network) and knowledge management special interest group - How a group of companies came together to share experiences in software development and gain trust to share data for purposes of benchmarking - A proper approach to get people to rally around a purpose - Using knowledge management practices to share and successfully roll out organization wide initiatives - Some insights from her experience in the field of KM - Learnings from having spent a lot of time in quality engineering - Transition to skill development and later to cinema - Her thoughts on the future of education - Living a life full of colour Shobha CS is the Founder Director of the Tent Cinema Film School. She started her career in software development at Kirloskar Computers and later at PSI Data systems. She worked at Perot systems in the role of SEPG Head and Sr. Director of Quality and Operational Excellence that included Knowledge Management. She has over 30 years of experience in focusing on software delivery and internal operations. She ran her own venture Artis Academy a training institute offering vocational training in broadcast journalism in collaboration with NDTV, along with courses in hardware and networking, spoken English and ethical hacking. Shobha now runs a film school offering workshops and courses in film making, acting, scripting, cinematography, Editing, and lyrics writing.  Shobha holds an MSc in Physics from Mysore University. She has received awards from BSPIN, given guest lectures at various institutes on Knowledge Management and has been an active participant in the CII Innovation forum. Her interests are in the area of connect between Quality & Knowledge Management, Training young minds, Leadership and Spirituality, Culture and Learning.

This is a special series of episodes, called Dispersal, in view of the ongoing pandemic, that has caused what we believe is a widespread dispersed working from home. Whats working and whats not, how are people feeling and other insights. We share perspectives of PM Power coaches and from some of our clients as well. In this episode, Malavika Garimella, marketing consultant for PM Power Consulting, shares her views and tips as an experienced worker from home and how she is handling her work at this time with the following - Sharing my workspace with more people, making space Keeping kids engaged, handling interruptions, regulating screen time, accessing free books and audio resources Grandparents help, rope them in Dedicating playtime, respecting kids time like they do yours Keeping a schedule, flexible Managing work with identifying communication modes, pro-active outreach  What to do when you are stuck

This is a special series of episodes, called Dispersal, in view of the ongoing pandemic, that has caused what we believe is a widespread dispersed working from home. Whats working and whats not, how are people feeling and other insights. We share perspectives of PM Power coaches and from some of our clients as well. Listen to this quick monologue from Gayathri Kalyanaraman from PM Power Consulting on Be organized, get things moving, as a home care taker Allocate rooms for house members and give space to each other, better still time box it Taking care of your health, with early morning and late evening walks as a scheduled activity Continuing with online events as a facilitator, creating virtual break out rooms and facilitating collaboration with proper tool handling

This is a special series of episodes, called Dispersal, in view of the ongoing pandemic, that has caused what we believe is a widespread dispersed working from home. Whats working and whats not, how are people feeling and other insights. We share perspectives of PM Power coaches and from some of our clients as well. Listen to Sethuraman, Delivery Manager at Metric Stream share his perspectives with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting on - Managing a support team Customers understand BCP communication Experience with him as an individual working from home to an entire team working in a dispersed mode How to start and end the day Handling range of team maturity from face-to-face discussions to now getting onto skype or teams [or webex with customers] We will know our productivity better in a few days 3 things that help Trust the team Give them guidance: week plan, daily goals Have SPOCs for smaller teams Send everyone: team + management: what is the EOD achievement

This is a special series, Dispersal, focusing on the aspects related to forced, dispersed working from home.This captures perspectives from PM Power coaches. In this episode, listen to Paramu Kurumathur talking about - Dealing with lonliness - Worries and anxieties about the future and no one to talk to - On what leaders can do - How teams can continue daily practices of scrum and keep with agile values - what the future of remote working can look like - Remembering to have fun through this current situation

In the third episode for the women’s special in the month of March, Gayatri from PM Power Consulting talks to Shalini Chaudhary, Head of Technology Caspian Systems about her journey and challenges and learnings across - Understanding algorithms for making tea Social conditioning and wearing specs to create a geeky self Moved by the full page ad from Infosys to join the software industry Creating a lightening resume  Moved from developer mindset to testing and customer mindset Feeling powerful as a quality gateway Story of importance of integrity in one's role Keeping lights on when apps were down, technology leader experiences Location strategy of moving 9 cities across 3 continents Understanding your priority and believe that you are adding value to the org and speak your mind Be able to accept consequences  Creating working agreements with spouse makes relationship stronger!  Soul searching and what emerged from there Pay it forward model in all three dimensions