Software People Stories

In this episode, Janakiraman Srinivasan, known as Jani - an IT industry veteran, in conversation with Shiv shares  His childhood days in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu His Bachelors from REC Trichy and Masters from IIT Madras and getting into Wipro as a campus recruitee as Employee # 3  His father’s role in getting him good education The experience of being among the first employees in a newly launched co...

In this episode, Victor Jayakaran- shares his story and experiences related to: His graduation from the Madras Institute of Technology and post graduation from the Indian Institute of Science Getting a campus placement at ITI and applying for a job with ISRO On his guide NJ Rao’s suggestion, choosing to join a small and growing company, Wipro Joining Wipro in August 1979 and starting work at an II...

In this episode, Sai Krishna, a serial entrepreneur, who calls himself a metaverse plumber, loves creating interesting applications based on emerging and maturing technologies. In this conversation, he shares How a decentralized squad model, working with local partners and having an engineering focus for differentiation would help scale and localize, as needed How to build an organization to reali...

In this episode, Sai Krishna, a serial entrepreneur, who calls himself a metaverse plumber, loves creating interesting applications based on emerging and maturing technologies. In this conversation, he shares His adventures and misadventures in IT Hailing from a south Indian family that emphasized education Moving to Bangalore to continue his education in RV College His attraction to build product...

In this episode, Usha from PM Power Consulting is in conversation with Chitra and shares her 3 plus decades of experience in software and technology around - Working at Raman institute for 10 years, her first exposure to computing  A research institute expects you to do your own learning, but of course Writing programs for 'astronomical' data analysis and structures of crystals in pascal & Fortran...

In this episode, Abhay Havaldar shares his story and experiences related to: Starting his IT career with a role in  testing software and going on to play other roles of marketing support and sales Product management and support with a dealing room package Always willing to experiment and joining a venture capital firm - Draper International Early stage investing, General Atlantic, India - and a bo...

In this episode, K Nageswara Rao - known as KNR - shares his story and experiences related to: Four threads related to his career Individual contributor, team leader Connecting digital switches in the telecom industry; each switch being a digital exchange Traveling to locations that he is not supposed to talk about, due to security reasons Joining Tata Unisys and learning a lot in terms of working...

In this episode, Karl Hughes, founder and CEO of Draft.dev, shares Starting his career, working with startups as a software engineer Taking on engineering management and CTO roles Covid triggering a shift to get into technical writing for developers How to think of documentation for developers, as an intentional activity His views on Agile approaches and documentation and the need to right size th...

In this second  part of the conversation with an IT industry veteran, Satyendra Kumar, he shares His perspective on Agile approaches Agile approaches are good for certain contexts such as: products, supported by DevOps and other techniques May still be reluctant for systems such as critical, real-time systems [nuclear, aircraft etc] For services work, need to be careful; unless there is a strong r...

In this first part of the conversation with an IT industry veteran, Satyendra Kumar, he shares Coming from a humble background and doing his initial education in a village Getting into Delhi University based on his good academic performance Having to take up a job, to meet some family needs How he chose a job in a defence agency and rising to a senior level Leaving his job and getting into consult...

In this episode, Harish Achappa KM shares Choosing mechanical engineering as a subject of study and getting into TCS engineering services Working on valves and compressors Getting into programming as part if his work The experience of having a paid vacation in Italy! How his interest in programming developed after starting to use C, C++ as a hobby Noticing differences in projects done at client lo...

In this episode, Brij Sethi, a Principal Consultant at PM Power, shares His growing up days in Pantnagar, near NainiTal His passion for reading books His liking for mathematics and wanting to be an engineer Being bitten by the electronics bug and electronics engineering in college Joining a masters in management in systems in IIM Ahmedabad Learning Transactional Analysis  Getting into a project to...

In this episode, Thyagarajan, known as Raja - a Senior Management Executive and Chief Operating Officer with nearly 4 decades of experience in the IT industry involving International and multi-cultural environments, shares his story including points related to: How his uncle and brother were influential in getting into software after doing an MS in management Being part of a team that started a co...

In this episode, Muktesh Murthy, a practice head in the information security space, shares his story and touches upon Doing his schooling in many places, as his father was in the Army  His interest in accounts, commerce and economics and hospitality management Starting his career in hotel management and then getting into a computer course, as he wanted to get into roles where he can directly influ...

In this episode Cynthia Swarnalatha Vice President – Engineering, SW CoE, Compute Business Group & HPE India Site R&D leader, is in conversation with Chitra Gurjar on a variety of stories and matters that that span 3 decades and include  Choosing to study computer science with her love of math, being the 2nd batch of CompSc graduates from her college Having a “give-it-my-best” ap...

In this episode, Scott Schober, the president and CEO of Berkeley Varitronics Systems shares his experiences related to: Getting into the family business years ago, in niche areas solutions in wireless and security / cyber security Starting in 6th grade to learn about electronics Pivoted from wireless test equipment, shifted more towards security Being surrounded by electronics, computer etc in th...

In this conversation with Shiv, Tarush Aggarwal, CEO at 5X, shares his experience and views on: Starting as a software engineer and realizing that his interest lay in the bigger picture Working on a benchmarking application that later became an analytics theme Discovering the big picture from a lot of detailed data How zooming in and out of data lets one discover insights Data engineering being th...

In this episode, Chitra is in conversation with Baiju Joseph, Product Operations leader where he shares events from his career Starting out at AIR (All India Radio) as a broadcasting engineer & self-learning programming , developing a few apps for his workplace Work break after joining Novell, getting the latest and best system test training, and leadership training, acknowledging the influenc...

In this conversation - as part of the Women’s month in 2022 - Shiv is in conversation with Poornima Shenoy, CEO - Hummingbird Advisors. Poornima shares her thoughts and experiences related to: Wanting to be in advertising when she started to work 30 years ago Starting her own company - Nexus - into recruitment and getting Wipro and Infosys as their first customers How the IT industry grew by attra...

In this episode, Gayatri is in conversation with Jaya Vaidhyanathan, CEO BCT DIgital . She shared her story, experiences and thoughts related to: How she started her career as an investment banker in wall street and moved to Accenture and HCL to head their large deal space in the financial sector With her technology background and her financial acumen, she found her footing in several leaders...

In this episode, Shiv is in conversation with Anjali, a 11 year old girl, who has been into coding since she was 7. Anjali shares: Her interest in horses and dogs, and other interests How she got into coding Calling herself an introvert, but enjoying competition Using logic to interact with animals What she likes and doesn't like about coding Creating a tic-tac-toe to play with an AI opponent Abou...

In this conversation, Krupa, a senior HR professional, shared her story, experiences and thoughts related to: Her first job, by chance, to get into IT training Moving to software firms later Having a natural inclination to be in HR Her family [of HR people] How the relationship between HR and technical persons has evolved over the years Increasing use of analytics by HR Data alone cannot be the ba...

In this episode, Gayatri is in conversation with Joseph Wong, General Manager, Asia Pacific & Japan, OpenLegacy and Board Member of AppSolute Ltd talks about his career journey, Joseph shares Born in Hong Kong, moved to Canada to complete his studies and worked in the US, Australia and now working in Hong Kong Joseph understood early on that he enjoyed working in smaller companies and scaling it H...

In this episode Shiv continues the conversation with Jacob Kurian, an Indian IT industry veteran and presently Hon. Secretary, The Association of People with Disability, Bangalore. In the previous episode, Jacob talked about a cold-relationship with a senior executive at Unisys and how that changed. He mentioned a call received from GE to explore the possibility of getting software developed in In...

In this episode, Shiv is in conversation with Jacob Kurian, an Indian IT industry veteran and presently Hon. Secretary, The Association of People with Disability, Bangalore. Jacob has so many stories to share, that we decided to publish this in 2 parts. In the first part, Jacob shares His early childhood and how his father was a great influence in his wanting to be an engineer What his life lesson...