Software People Stories

In this conversation, colleagues Srinivasan Sundararajan (Srini) and Chitra from PM Power Consulting are talking about Srini’s experiences and stories around - - A product of circumstances - Education at IIT Madras in Mechanical engineer, introduction to computing and problem solving by working across departments at IIT - Developing backup software in a manufacturing company and early lessons  - Examining data above and beyond - Risk taking, evaluating and owning your decisions - Transition from corporate (helping with solving a problem) to being an agile coach (helping people discover the solution) - Being a coach, facilitator & enabler & managing deliverables - Owning one's decisions

In this conversation with Thiagarajan (Thiagu) Ramakrishnan and Gayatri from PM Power Consulting explore Thiagu’s experiences around ML journey Worked as software engineer in IBM,  ML Engineer in TeraData and Principal in Dell now Started the ML fascination with coursera course by Andrew Ng Research papers and meet-ups are a way of working in emerging technology on the multiplicative curve Benefited from the power of meetups to get clarity in way forward and continues to contribute in conferences, meetups and the likes Now working on creating ML platform and creating an abstraction layer for the users He learns ability to see big picture from seniors and takes one-step-at-a-time as a clear difference in mindset with millennials EQ 2.0 as an inspiration and Deep Work to improve high performance ML implementation in check clearance and how a Phone image and an API has solved the manual verification Looking forward toward appropriate product fitment and timing of the need while launching products More Information about Thiagu can be found here https://www.linkedin.com/in/thiagarajan-ramakrishnan/

In this conversation PM Power colleagues Ramki (Ramakrishnan Sethuraman) and Chitra explore Ramki’s experiences around How he got into software and IT Early programming days in C on mainframes and becoming a DB2 expert Change in mindset towards the what and why v/s how first Building performance into a system for a solid foundation Experience in the financial sector; at the forefront of adopting technology Essence of client interactions, empathy, value and understanding Playing several roles in his career and the importance of each of those roles Entrepreneurial lessons Being serious, passionate and having gratitude for his career

In this conversation with Karthi (Karthikeyan) Swaminathan (https://www.linkedin.com/in/karthiswaminathan/) , Vice President and GM of Tact.ai and Gayatri from PM Power Consulting explore Karthi’s experiences around Collaborations with doctors started in college Started working with products to customize and working closely with users Part of the open source movement and solve fellow developers problems Lost opportunities around cloud investments in the tool space Medical professionals creating an empathy for the end user by the developers in a big area of focus Staying focused with road warriors problem in Tact.ai with edge computing, AI and data Last decade has seen a tremendous shift in the designer/XD / Product talent Talks about rural students empowerment as a movement Embrace your journey with an open mindset Create space for the team to flourish their skills and mindset He can be reached via https://www.linkedin.com/in/karthiswaminathan/  (https://www.linkedin.com/in/karthiswaminathan/)

This episode is an accompaniment and  a broad spectrum exploration of experiences and narratives as collated by Sivaguru from PM Power consulting, during conversations with people across IT/Software and Non-IT businesses on how they responded to the needs of business with covid-19 changing the environment. The complete report is available here (https://bit.ly/7lockdownlessons) This episode, a conversation between Sivaguru & Chitra, delves into and across the findings shared in the report. The exploration includes - - Backstories in preparations for changes caused by the pandemic  - What really happened even when a few large companies had a BCP in place - What was the thinking behind the unravelling of responses of companies in a series of phases comprising sensing, focus and response - How did leaders ensure that rallying around a purpose was achieved, remotely and how were employees engaged and how their work rose to another level inspired by a greater purpose - Creative approaches to sustaining or managing business  - The sense that a collective approach to discovering easier, safer things to share & increased empathy alongside the survival instinct - Though we all appear to be alone, we are certainly not alone; a contrast and take on how we associate ourselves with a mission and purpose and how the system in turn supports people and organizations. We would love to hear from you and your experiences. Please reach out to us at podcasts@pm-powerconsulting.com Please also see this blog http://pm-powerconsulting.com/blog/7-lockdown-lessons-on-agility/ for an overview of the report

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.