Software People Stories

Continuing on our theme of conversations with women in IT, in this episode, Vandana Malaiya, whose career has seen roles in hardware, embedded systems, setting up team and organization level processes and setting up a venture and to a social venture and some senior leadership roles in the corporate environment,in conversation with Sivaguru,shares her perspectives on -The need to and opportunities to keep on learning -Adopting standards and consistent adherence for outcomes -How economic and governmental ecosystems can help or hinder startup aspirations -Balancing career and family aspirations with support from her husband -Physical and emotional challenges for women after 50 -Supporting girls and women become successful -Some typical challenges faced by all startups -Need for men also to develop empathy Vandana Malaiya is an IT professional with over 30 years of experience in the industry. She has worked with companies IBM, Verifone, DCM Data Systems and her own start-up EximSoft. She now works with the social sector primarily in the area of education of girl child and women empowerment. She is passionate about advancement of women at the work place and has worked extensively on programs for women leadership. She continues to keep her connect with the IT industry through consulting and mentoring. She is a BE(Hons) in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani and an Executive MBA from IIM Bangalore. She has worked in India and US. She loves travel and all forms of art. She can be reached via - [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/vandanamalaiya); [Twitter](http://@vandanamalaiya) and her [Blog Page](http://vandanamalaiya.com/)

In this episode, a freewheeling panel discussion among four accomplished women from Global Automation Inc., Bengaluru covers, among other things: - their own individual experiences in IT, in creating or consuming solutions  - balancing demands at work and outside  - support systems for women at work and home - empathy for customers and how that helps in evolving products - the importance of continual learning - creating and nurturing a healthy work environment - peer support and recognition

In this conversation, Chitra from PM Power & Swetha Sivaram, Sr. Manager at IBM, talk about her journey in the world of technology as Swetha shares her experiences on - * Choice of computer science engineering * Perceptions at work * Transitions from a telecom engineer to app developer to systems engineering * Humanistic insights from work experience * Sharing experiences by and for women in technology Swetha Sivaram is a Senior Engineering Manager at IBM India. She has over 17 years of experience in the software industry spanning the domains of telecom, application development and most recently, systems engineering. She has led various engineering teams and with her expertise in transformation management, agile development and goal-oriented execution skills, has helped teams challenge status quo and achieve their potential. Swetha is passionate about helping women in tech careers achieve their full potential and is actively involved in several efforts both within IBM as well as externally. Swetha has a Bachelors degree in Computer Engineering from BITS Pilani and among other things, enjoys solving large puzzles (read 5ft*4ft).

In this conversation with Sivaguru, Gayatri from PM Power Consulting - also known as G3 - shares her experiences and experiments on a wide range of topics including -Cultural aspects of managing large application portfolio transitions -Personal transition from maker to a coach, to help teams transform to agility -The concept of work-life balance -Her personal experiments with an appraisal system at home

In this conversation with Sivaguru, Anupama shares her experience related to:  -Efficient algorithms  -Skills an architect needs  -Differences in architecting small and large applications  -Tips for women who need to or want to take a break This episode covers 2 broad aspects of software architecture - 1\. Evolution of architecting a software system, from over 15 years ago to today, and the evolution of a software architect's role.  Starts at 5:13 2\. Differences in architecture for small v/s large organizations & dilemmas architects face when things are ambiguous.  Starts at 28:45 Anupama, has been developing software, for the last 25 years and has built applications across different domains - manufacturing, customer service, storage, e-commerce, health tech. She has dabbled with multiple technologies and languages, starting from C/C++, Microsoft MFC and MS SQL Server and then moving on to Java / JEE, MySQL and Postgres and AWS platforms. Most recently she was responsible for the architecture and delivery of Hospital Management System, a part of the health tech product suite. In this role, she has scaled the product architecture from the small hospitals segment to a medium-large hospitals. She has played a key role in seamlessly evolving the architecture from a predominantly on-premise deployments to cloud-hosted / SaaS and hybrid deployments. She had designed and built data server / tape server products which helped enterprises backup terabytes of data, most efficiently, on a regular basis. She has led teams delivering custom and add-on services around these products, and also built medium to large scale e-commerce and web applications on Microsoft and JEE platforms. For a brief period in between, to be able to devote more time for her kids and family, she was freelancing as consultant architect with very early stage startups, setting up their product architecture and development frameworks. She actively engaged with a group of women all working out of home, to build and deliver end-to-end custom software for small startups.

In this conversation Chitra shares her experience with Sivaguru related to * What she learnt developing mission critical systems * How playing basketball helped her appreciate goal focused teamwork * Helping other women to make their voices heard

In this conversation with Sivaguru, Diwakar Menon talks about * The focus for testing effectiveness would be to address risks * Some stories of testing in projects adopting agile approaches * High functioning development organizations * What made him launch a startup And some more.. Diwakar Menon has over 30 years of work experience ranging from test consulting to delivery to pre-sales. He has been the head of service delivery for key customer contracts that encompass a variety of services from Software QA, Testing, Application Development, Application Management, Infrastructure Management and Business Support Services across a multiplicity of pillars like Telecom, Banking & Financial Industry, Government, and Health. He is the co-founder of Last Mile Consultants , a boutique test consulting organisation, that works with IT Service providers, product organisations, captives and startups and helps set up or improve their software testing function, focusing on test strategies, capabilities, test automation, or process transformations.   Diwakar possesses a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Mumbai University. Prior to founding Last Mile, Diwakar has worked in global organisations like Tech Mahindra, Perot Systems (now Dell), Deutsche Software, Tata Unisys (now TCS) and CMC Ltd.

Join a new host from PM Power Consulting Chitra, in conversation with Sivaguru to learn more about how he unravels his pursuit of - * Excellence in business around results through all-pervasive leadership  * Managing knowledge gained by doing, learning and adapting  * Disciplines to deliver software  * Sport and coaching for breakthrough performance  * Uncovering intuition, spontaneity, awakening senses and connecting with people using podcasting.

L Ravichandran, known to most as L Ravi, is the President and COO of Tech Mahindra. In his career of over 4 decades, he has seen and been part of the growth of the IT industry in India.  In this episode, Ravi talks of his experiences, views and what customers expect from IT in conversation with Sivaguru from PM Power Connsulting.  Listen on..  * The relevance of statistics and the evolution of data science * What we can learn from war thinking to plan software projects * How to get maximum benefits from agile approaches * Customer expectations of business outcomes

In this conversation, J Veeraraaghavan shares his experience and perspectives with Sivaguru on - * The mindset needed for developers and testers to play as a single team  * How use of right words can bring in significant changes  * What approaches are needed to build great products  * Leveraging personal values and beliefs for career success  * Future of software development and software factories