I had proper guidance in choosing who I wanted to become, which is the primary reason I have been enjoying my career so much. Becoming the same guidance in someone else’s life is what I am aiming at right now. Giving back even a quarter of what the community has given me will accomplish the goal I have seen with Scaler, and it has been nothing but incredible so far.
I am currently working at a company called Freshworks in the capacity of a Lead Software Engineer. Before this, I have had the fortune of being associated with many other big names such as Amazon, Snapdeal, and Infosys. Overall, my working career spans over ten years of hard work and commitment in the engineering sector. I have gained most of my education from Chennai, which is also the place I was born and brought up in.
This will sound like I am trying to make a joke here, but I am as serious as it can get when I say that I got into the realm of programming only because it offered me exactly what I wanted: A white collared job which gave me the benefit of working from my preferred location. I knew that I wanted to be a programmer in high school, so I did whatever it took to realize that dream. My skills in mathematics helped me get the B.Tech (IT) course that I wanted, and it is safe to say that I haven’t looked back ever since.
To be completely honest, the education and the path that came along haven’t been the easiest for me. After my father’s death, my prospects of exploring my way in different directions started minimizing themselves, and I had to make peace with whatever I could get then.
My college, for me, has been one of the most incredible memories of my life. Even though I was a big-time nerd who loved cooping up in the libraries and using the internet for hours, I have to say that my exploration in the eCommerce dimension and my consequent interest in the same has been a result of this nerdiness only. My friends have been the biggest of my support systems for most of my life. I have had them through thick and thin. Most of my professional success is a consequence of my personal equations, be it with my mentors or with my peer group.
I have been a part of this field of work for about ten years now, with my current work leading me to be a software engineer responsible for testing and quality check mechanisms at Freshworks. My best contribution in terms of value addition has been successfully managing a team of engineers under me and working with them to create a global chain of networks in a never seen before fashion.
From my very childhood itself, teaching has been something that excited me. Being the first bencher throughout my life made me realize the importance of a good teacher in a student’s life. Quite frankly, I loved the validation that I got from my friends whenever I explained some difficult concept to them, and I don’t know when exactly, but I started looking for that validation in everything I did from thereon. Scaler gave a definite route to this search of mine. Having faced a difficult time in most of the crucial situations of my career, I wanted to make sure that no one else suffered a loss because of inadequate mentorship.
There were some moments in my mentorship journey where I could feel the impact that I was creating in my learner’s life, believe it or not, but I felt like this was what I was made for. I track all my mentees closely and develop a microcosmic community for them to work through. This way, they not only learn from their syllabi or mentor but also from their peers who might be facing the same problems as they do. I aim to become their professional brother so that they can rely on me in their times of need.
My main advice to every person looking to make a mark in this field is to maintain the consistency with which they start. Getting distracted in the middle of a course can do you no good, so start with the aim of finishing high, no matter how long it takes. My motivation for being a mentor is the passion that I have for teaching. Even when I am not at Scaler, I am teaching or advising my juniors or other students in one way or the other. Where there is a will, there will always be a way. Scaler happened to be that way for me.
My only advice to our new learners would be to not give up in the face of adversity. Just remember that nothing is impossible. All you need to do is to try hard enough to get where you want to be.