A regular college student doing some “freelance” project. That was my life till I joined N42.
It was mid August and my mentor Mr. Satyakaam was in Delhi after his stay at Hyderbad. I met him and came to know that he was working at a start-up. I was not sure about the start-up itself or in what domain do they work. As usual Satya [Satyakaam] asked me to come over to his house to have a chat as it has been a while since we two had a hearty laugh and good time together. To be honest I am always excited about meeting with him mainly due to 2 reason(s) (though there are many) :
1- Guru Gyan, ranging from technology, science, general etc. etc.
2- Our Expedition : exploring food joints, cafes etc.
I reached at his place and just after 5 minutes he started with his usual question, “What are you upto?” I explained to him that I am doing some freelance project but certainly I was not TOO HAPPY about it. According to me though freelancing gives you money but then again the customer(s) you interact with aren’t good all the time. Some will suck out your brains just to have a minor iteration in their project and some will not pay you as you expect them to and the list goes on. Then he hit me with the second question “kya karna chahte ho?” [Meaning what do you want to do in future] And I honestly told him that I am quite skeptical about my future as I am not much of a “bright” student and most probably I won’t be allowed to sit in the college placements, pointer issues!! Then he started explaining me the work he is doing at a start-up called N42 and what it is all about. I was excited to see that they are really into something BIG! but I had no clue that where would I fit in if I will get a chance.
Now started the Q&A session, he started testing my skills though he was pretty much familiar with it but then again he wanted to make sure that I have not become rusty. This continues for next two three days and I was fairly exhausted that whether he’ll be giving me the opportunity or not to give my CV for “KIND PERUSAL” 😛
Later he told me that he thinks I can be of “some” use (probably he don’t want me to get excited or attitude) and also he gave a brief insight about the thing they were into. I got excited to see that N42 was working on some really cool stuff involving certain amount of Open Source frameworks, BIG DATA, ANALYTICS etc. Finally, the day arrived for which I was waiting for and he told me to submit my resume. I was in college that day and I saw his mail while I was in the class. I got so excited on seeing his mail that I hurriedly downloaded my mail from my FTP server and gave him a copy. Now the nervous time started!! I was hoping that I should get shortlisted and more than that I was in constant fear regarding the interview itself. A day later I got a call from Gopal Dommety [CEO N42] and he said that he really likes my CV and that was it! After a few minutes of Q&A session I was sure that I will get selected.
Well those who are working in start-ups or have a fair idea about it they might be knowing that in start-up iterations are done pretty frequently. My first task was to make an agent which will collect some data metrics and pushes it onto a TSDB database. It took me about a month to get that thing working!! I mean the kind of robust mechanism they have and a robust build and fix kind of approach is something I was witnessing for the very first time. I was actually doing the thing which most of my classmates were still studying ; Agile Development, Build and Fix, Testing, TDD etc.
After a month of hard’s work the big break through came, MY FIRST SALARY!! Though I was earning before this also but this felt something special. I was actually very happy because I was making a serious contribution to a product which will be used by many probably.
It’s been around 3 months since I have been working with N42 and the ride so far has been awesome. Sometimes even on Saturday I wake up with the expression “Oh Sh*t I forgot to attend the skype meeting today also” but then thanks to my room-mate who every time calm me down saying “it’s Saturday bro”. So far it has been a great learning experience working with mentors, listening to their guru gyan and philosophy of life[Yes, you’ll get a dose of that too]
Also I am thinking of contributing to Open TSDB which we extensively use to test our ‘test cases’. All in all I am having the time of my life! Hoping for many more such experience.