Software People Stories

In conversation with Coach Extraordinaire and Technology Executive, Arun Swamy where his software experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on his journey Multi touch point start in software - as a research assistant, contract job after doing MS and finally landing US Army related work Returned to India to seek stability and part of the growth wave of product companies HP taught the value of Org values and profit being a side effect Proud to be part of two generations of agile way of working - initially in 1990s for small project development and later as EVO in a more formal way HP also saw challenges in org upheavals and learnt to stay in the web portal specialization Proud of being part of a product sunset which was executed in a least risky way Moved to be a leadership coach based on his experience of being a coach  Coaching Stories based on his strengths on communication, empathy and staying impartial Understand what hat you are wearing a mentor, coach or a friend Fall in love with your work but do not romanticise it by staying realistic Staying truer to process and design and continue to adapt with technology Arun can be contacted at  https://www.linkedin.com/in/arun-swamy-843410/ Gayatri can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaya3k/

In conversation with career Project Manager, Sankar V S, Regional Digital Services & Products leader in Arup he shares his journey starting from a part time trainer to IoT and analytics experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on His start of journey with software as a trainer in C++ Considers himself as a self starter and staying a continuous learner Difference in communication and unsaid patterns in HK China and that made him move to Project management/Business Analysis Fearless in taking high risk immigration project and learnt lawsuits, coding, quick thinking and sensors Leap towards IoT even before it got the name. Narrates a story of pattern recognition of cows vs human using lasers As a creative director in Arup, he’s enabling construction projects use data in the center exploiting IoT and analytics His view of technology has changed from using to increase commercial purposes (behavior analytics) to improve environment (plastics and landslide deduction) in the construction industry He shares his experience of being a fulcrum of IoT innovations across the globe by creating an alliance and connecting various players Collaboration is one skill he highly recommends to have as the team needs to sound like a symphony and not a single instrument solo  Sankar can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sankarvs/ Gayatri can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaya3k/

In conversation with an Infrastructure Automation Expert, Ram Iyer, where he shares experiences with Chitra From PM Power Consulting on How he became an automation engineer Early career in Infrastructure guided, mentored and learned with the help of great managers and lead engineers What it takes to understand an enterprise solution, from building reports to writing automation code How the operations view is missing when applications and products are built. Thoughts on design for scale and scale-out v/s scale Infrastructure as code, collaboration and the philosophy of “no silos” A DayIntheLifeOf an infrastructure automation engineer Cross-Cultural learning Lessons learned as a service help desk engineer very early on in his career Why he believes in volunteering  A millennials’ message for building a career in tech and software Ram is an automation expert by profession who has spent about a decade in IT, an author of Powershell Core for Linux Administrators Cookbook (https://www.amazon.com/PowerShell-6-0-Linux-Administration-Cookbook/dp/1789137233#:~:text=Book%20Description&text=PowerShell%20Core%20enables%20automation%20on,to%20effectively%20administer%20your%20environment.) , a blogger, a typography enthusiast, a volunteer and an amateur podcaster. He likes to pick up issues that seem complex and break them down to digestible pieces—something he does at work, and tries to do on his blog. He can be reached via RamIyer (https://www.linkedin.com/in/theramiyer/)

In this conversation with Mritunjay Singh (Munjay), SVP, Infosys and Gayatri from PM Power Consulting explore Munjay’s journey Started the journey with Tata Steel in their computing arena Moved to software looking at the uptake in technology growth Changed his perspective on scaling technology sourcing after a large deal Belief in people can walk on water and having a cross functional skills has been a constant endeavor  Speaking about modular sourcing, he shared how clients have contacted his team, as an advisory long after the ink had dried on the deal Scaling an organization (Pune DC for Infosys) came in the back of community building and creating infrastructure outside the campus to ensure that entire ecosystem thrives and doesn’t suffer. That experience taught me that purpose beyond daily work moves mountains  Creating a future knowledge org with physical location agnostic, self managed and gig economy based delivery Turning point came in my initial days when I delivered a payment software in 2 weeks what was expected in 3 months with last minute change in specs Created a safety net of mentors who can be consulted and used their learnings As a CEO of Axicades, Munjay speaks about creating a playbook for the company in the form of culture. What are the parameters for decision making, customer relationships and acceptable behaviors. Culture of the leader is like a large shadow and first being aware of oneself and making small changes to the thinking that aligns to the vision All decisions are contextual and needs to be taken in the microcosm of that point in time and learn from the outcomes using feedback loops  Munjay can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mritunjay-singh-68a7b23/

In this conversation with Rajaram Venkataraman, Convenor Technology panel FICCI and CEO of VelTech TBI, Founder of Navya Insights, President SPIN Chennai and Gayatri from PM Power Consulting explore Rajaram’s journey Rajaram talks about his passion in computers started with his peers in the family He reminisces the Initial days of working in TCS with Lakshmi Narayanan(Vice Chairman of Cognizant) and Chandrashekar (Exec Director of TCS) in the same office in TCS Being a liaison between Government and industry bodies. Creating networking opportunities for thousands of people and hundreds of companies through FICCI Digital transformation has been accelerated during covid-19 with very specific examples and how technology has laid the foundation for working remotely Thriving start-up community with a number of grants from the large corporates innovative Innovation has spurred in different ways - an example with RoboChef firm providing delicious and safe food for corona warriors Witness to the transformation from order takers to agenda setters Potential to become Intellectual capital of the world with new services, ML, RPA Using COVID as an opportunity generator in different industries, Indian software gurus can make a shift Looking at possibilities in the changing world with a positive attitude and a learning mindset over doomsday attitude You may contact Rajaram Venkaraman at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajaramv/

In this conversation, Nimisha Mukherjee, Engineering Manager at RedHat, shares her stories and experiences with Chitra Gurjar from PM Power Consulting about - How she fell in love with computers in class 3 First lessons in user interaction design  Tips on how to get users to change a habit or become familiar with a new design Supporting the new age developer & development environments The evolving role of a developer and developers as first customers Blue sky opportunities for designing experiences  Lessons for aspiring techies and designers Nimisha Mukherjee is an Engineering Manager with Red Hat. Her team works on delivering a simplified developer experience for building cloud native application on Red Hat OpenShift. She has 18+ years of experience in delivering cutting edge web applications. She always enjoyed building user interfaces that provides a differential user experience. She was one of the design track chairs for GHCI (https://ghcindia.anitab.org/), 2016-2018. She was curated the Devtools track for DevConf.IN 2019. She loves to explore new places and new cuisines.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/nimishamukherjee/

In this conversation, Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting talks to Smita BS, Delivery Head at Torry Harris Integration Solutions. Smita shares her perspectives on: The various roles she has played over the 17 years of her career across multiple industry verticals Starting as a developer and creating frameworks for testing How her mentors trusted her to take on new responsibilities and provided guidance The advice she got from one of her mentors about not drawing self imposed boundaries How getting a broader view would be very useful in future career roles How she got an opportunity to experience a production issue related to code developed by her team earlier How she consciously pays it forward to mentor her team members Her transition to a leadership role, when, possibly overnight, some peers became members in her team How she learnt the importance and art of delegation when one takes up increasing responsibilities How she was able to not be stressed when taking on more responsibility and delegating How she enabled learning from each other in her team Finding the personal balance with work and two kids About her spouse also being an IT professional in terms of conversations at home Her advice for new entrants to the IT profession Smita has been in the IT Industry for close to 17 years now with experience in various domains like telecom, healthcare, energy management, retail, banking. She started her journey as a developer and has had a fair share of varied roles throughout her career, as she moved onto testing, operational support, configuration management then onto technical team leadership and management roles as release management, migration projects and project & program management. Currently she is a delivery head in Torry Harris Integration Solutions for Integration and Digital projects for certain customer accounts. On the personal front, she is an alumni of BMS College of Engineering, the batch of 2003. She is passionate about art, and a doting mother of two boys and loves baking. https://www.linkedin.com/in/smita-bs-70a79717

In this conversation Nalini Krishnan, Head of Competency Management at TCS for the Salesforce business shares her views on her career with Chitra from PM Power consulting on - - How much of our making is our own thinking and doing - How much of the past we carry as baggage or bias - Picking up all kinds of challenges and getting out of one's comfort zone -Various ways of looking at problems - her 3-dimensional approach to addressing technical debt - experience managing customers & clients relationships. - Having different personas at work and at home - What the Grace Hopper Platform has meant to her personal growth - a message for women wishing to take up a career in IT Nalini currently heads Competency Management for the Salesforce.com practice in TCS, within Enterprise Application Systems group. Strategic focus on growth initiatives, Center growth & sourcing strategy, talent transformation initiatives etc. are some of her many focus areas Nalini has held many senior positons in IT Delivery, Transformational program managemet and Client Engagement, across various verticals in TCS. Prior to TCS she been a part of companies like Thomson Reuters, Symphony Services & Zensar Technologies, and has held positions of responsibilities across development, QA, release management and business strategy. A technologist, and a customer & business focused leader with more than 20 years of experience in the Industry, she is self driven, optimistic & result oriented professional with experience in building and sustaining a motivated & skilled team, and driving performance in a complex, global environment. Nalini is passionate about technology and business transformation, that helps organizations translate strategy into action with solid planning and execution. She is active in external forums such as GHC India (https://ghcindia.anitab.org/) (Part of advisory committee in 2016, committee chair, member and speaker in previous years, chair for TechTalk track in 2018) and IEEE –WIE Internalional Leadership conference (http://wie.ieee.org/ieeewieilsgoa2017/) (speaker 2015 & 2017).

In this conversation with Santhana Krishnan (SK), coach from PM Power Consulting and Gayatri from PM Power Consulting explore SK’s journey Fascinated by computers through the eyes of the Tamil writer Sujatha  Started as a tech entrepreneur setting up ERP for a spinning mill   Worked closely with different persona of users and ensuring usability  for tech agnostic members. Learnt true sense of agility by continuous integration, deployment and feedback While building India market for ThoughtWorks creating a trusted relationships as an important construct and that starts with genuine understanding of the risks and sharing with the customer to gain trust on the capabilities  Key metrics for agility - concept to cash, ability to recover from failure Agility in the Education field is a passion - look at adaptable syllabus and emerging models to use during crisis such as lockdown, floods Using concept maps, knowledge graphs to trace the learning curves of students and create a personalized learning experience Learning and Keeping beginners mindset to see convergence of AI/ML with concept maps and knowledge graphs SK can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/santhana-krishnan-ganapthy-01815b4/

In this conversation with Meera Chari from IEEE and Gayatri from PM Power Consulting explore Meera’s journey Started as a computer engineer with curiosity and need to learn  Meera spoke about entering the electronic commerce world as a product engineer  Learnt from a mistake made during prod deployment made her acutely aware of software development need to be supported by disciplined infra management Layers of software along with security, latency, firewalls’ importance in problem solving Understanding big picture moved Meera from software engineer to an application architect and enterprise architect Disaster aware and fail tolerant application architecture based on a disaster that struck in the US East coach Sharing her experience in creating company’s IT roadmap and decisions and parameters behind them Cloud migration experience on critical business process that are deep rooted in enterprise applications Entire Economy moving towards API dynamics powered by SaaS solutions Cloud maturity is constantly changing by way of continual progression. This is leading to creation of new roles that are enabling cloud maturity and migration Key takeaways for listeners - Listen to your customer, keep an eye on big picture and being curious about technology user or an innovator