Dynamic perception

Hi! I am Kshithij Iyer. And here are my views uncensored, unfilterd, untroubled, uncontrolled. Come have a look at things with a dynamic perception! :p

[kshithijiyer]

And after all those years of staying away. Chai and coffee finally got their happy forever together.

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Having some tea with Chai.

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Chai and Coffee got engaged. 💍

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A stroll through corporate minefield

As the world moves towards an uncertain path where most don't know where it'll end up. I found myself in the middle of an interesting situation where things were working out for me. All of a sudden we see that top tier companies except a few where mass layoffs are happening and all these high risk high payment jobs feel like landmines and ticking time bombs.

So like most people I also aspired to be apart of these MANG companies and was lucky enough to have interviewed at Microsoft(I know this is not the M here :P), Google and Amazon(aws){yes these are the G and A} but never got through the interview process. Okay this is not just about MANG, there were quite a few dozen companies where I lost. And like everyone even I used to feel that I was not good enough but what I always forget is sometimes it's not you it could be the other guy sitting across the table. Even after interviewing around hundreds of candidates in my career so far and giving a whole bunch of interviews it always felt like each interview is something which can go either ways either you hire the best fit or end up hiring the worst of the lot. And this is what most employees and candidates feel and this is something which is natural.

A different perspective on this is something which I saw at my company which is a small startup where I started to figuring out what happens behind the scenes "The why?" of hiring, which is most of the times unknown. Now like all processes hiring is also a process which is driven by the leadership of a company. If your leaders are stupid your people strategy is also stupid. What happens at small startups like us was that either the leadership decides to carefully hire like us or go on a hiring spree where they try to hire everyone who they find smart. Now both these approaches have their own risks and benefits. Now the second one is what is seen in most startups, pretend startups and sometimes even some hyper scalers where they go and hire everyone they want thereby having enough resources to run any project they find valuable enough. But now the risk of this is you end up becoming a person who has just stepped on a landmine where you don't know if you would be needed in the company tomorrow or not. The reason why this becomes a landmine is because you, me, the company and the leadership can never predict if these projects can be funded for the longterm. And when you see disruption in the markets around the globe it blasts, and you end up seeing huge number of companies laying off people because they can't sustain these business. Now the first case where the leadership decides to cautiously hire, the teams are quite small and sometimes even understaff to do what they are asked to but even in disrupting markets such companies survive without even a speed bump in their growth. And such companies tend to do well in any situation and layoffs is next to null or minimal in such cases.

The problem here was people that even included me always get carried away by high paying salaries and growth driven mindset and tend to overlook the risks and we see the ifs of what if you would be able to achieve the high growth you expected. This is the sad but true reality of career progressions. So what do we conclude to? It's difficult to find a job which can keep you engaged and motived but it's even more difficult to hold on to it in difficult times. While planning your or even my next career progression we would want to see if how the company makes money? and if you want to take the landmine or stroll around the mine fields. The idea is not to say that some companies are good and some are shitty it's just a way to figure out where we would want to invest our time energy and some part of our short but packed life.

[kshithijiyer]

Just some momos. #momos #sundaynight (at Bangalore, India) https://www.instagram.com/p/Ck55LQBSOIz5kO-T2t7mllAGgqy96xUdoAjN5g0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Pita bread sandwiches. #pitabread #humus (at Bangalore, India) https://www.instagram.com/p/ChAS3BsvvY3PDO1DN-Hb-CxOelL6dGbZ1SxZRE0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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First professional award. #PureStorage #award (at Church Street) https://www.instagram.com/p/CgmiZD5vz1YlI4JEPrym-My0kUm760OscZ9i9k0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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There is nothing like limited edition swag. #Swag #Patent #PureStorage #IP (at Vadodara, Gujarat, India) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cb2BuctOWQmZMXBIWJfrUi_LQX2Wfyy4vxjX1o0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Off campus - Adventures of finding a job for yourself

You study for 18 years of your life just to get a job. A job is like a milestone where you start becoming a man from a boy. But it's not easy to get a good job. I did a masters degree in computer application from a renowned university so that I could get a cushy job at a big firm and make a lot of money and then eventually retire. But life had other plans for me. 

So let’s go back to 2017, 4 years back from now. I was just entering the final year of my two-year master's degree. I was one of the top three students in my batch as I used to get -2 marks for bad handwriting. Anyway, it didn’t matter to me as I was the guy who knew what I wanted from life. The first company and one of the only 2 good companies which came to my campus for placement was Dell EMC. I was super excited about my life’s first interview. I had revised everything I knew and was ready to score a good job. My first ever interview was a blow to my face after interviewing for 5 hours, I got a rejected by Dell EMC. This was the first hit and my first taste of life outside of college. These were the first shots that were fired that started a war which lasted for almost a year since that day. Then most of the companies which came to my college were small startups which had okayish down I knew I didn’t work this hard to work in a company where I couldn’t even apply my knowledge. After being pressurized by my professor(I so badly want to drag her name through the mud but anyway let's just call him the professor.), forced me to sit in an interview with a company which sounded more like a tin-can. And what I got a job which I never wanted to join. While I tried to stop it, I had to listen to a lot of unpleasant words in the middle of cyclic tests. And in the end, I decided to vote out from my college’s stupid placement program.

Later with the help of my relative who worked with C-DAC, I ended up joining C-DAC as an intern to get my degree and complete this master’s degree which had become a stone in my leg. As soon as I started my internship the second good company came to college to interview us. It was Vmware, I gave the interview and was badly trashed in it by my interviewer(Now when I look back I realize what a piece of shit he was). Later I got to know from the folks who had got selected in it that the company was only called to hire one student from our class. Anyway best of luck to that silencer of my class. So I was now all alone and started to look for a job which I liked. I started applying and got rejected by most of the renowned companies. I applied and got through a job as a research scholar at an institute called NIPFP, but the government institute never came back to me with an offer letter. And as time passed my masters and my time at C-DAC came to an end. C-DAC was a great place to learn new things and my mentor was really good. But it was just a slow-paced lifestyle which I didn’t want. So with a masters degree, I left Pune and went back home to lick my wounds and regroup and rearm for the second round.

Now the second round had begun and I was going to fight more furiously now. After 10 days of break, I started the fight again. And this time I knew what had to be done. I spent about 3 months at home where I interviewed and gave tests for many job positions. It was a rough road and I had to walk alone but three people were always there to cheer me up whenever I fell flat on my face. And in those 3 months, I figured out how the companies think and how to get them on their knees.

The first company was Syntel and I was called to Pune to give the interview and these guys had sent me the interview call letter just a day before the interview where I had to literally run to Pune to go for it. The interview was okay and by the end of the day I figured out that they just wanted cheap labor. Certainly, no go for me. So while traveling to the hotel from Syntel’s huge office outside Pune I decide not to join them. And a few weeks later they came up with a shitty offer and I refused to join. I still remember the HR had called me asked me to give a verbal confirmation on the phone even before tell me on what I’ll work and how much I’ll make. Then came an all remote company called flux7. This was a good company and was offering good money but I just couldn’t pull through and eventually got rejected. By this time I had applied for an Associate Software Engineer position at Red Hat through a college senior who recommended me for the job and had interviewed with them for the first time. I also traced avenues of IT in Gujarat and had interviewed with a company which sounded more like a photon, but it just didn’t work out for me as the team lead didn’t even know the basic concepts of python. This was another company where I went and decided not to join at any cost.  By this time I was in the second month of my job search and it was almost coming to an end when I got the rejection mail from Red Hat. Yes! I was rejected for a python development job at the very same company where I spent most of my time writing python scripts to test Red Hat’s Storage solutions. This was the last time I feel down flat on my face.

As this hit was hard I lost hope and started applying for small and shitty startups. Here also it was not easy as these startups expected me to either work for really less money when I say really less they wanted me to do digital marketing in Bangalore for 10k. There was one another startup know as Packet.ai for which I interviewed. The worst part of this interview was that I was given a day and asked to code a  bot using some shitty JSON rules. And the next day these guys just rejected me. The manager with whom I interviewed was an IITB graduate another guy who thought of himself as the next Steve Wozniak. Relatives tried referring me as well but that didn’t go anywhere as well and the applications ended up in either hold or ended up in interviews where the guy wasn't even interested to talk to me. By now I was sad and depressed. But here came a catch when I was interviewing with Packet.ai, I got a message on LinkedIn from the same HR who had sent me a rejection mail. They wanted me to interview for an intern position, the ball started rolling and within 8 days Red Hat came back to me with an internship offer with the Gluster QE team. But the sword was still hanging on my head, as internship didn’t mean a job. So I started from nothing and started to work my way up to everything. In my 2 years at Red Hat, I worked my way up to Associate Quality Engineer and later on got promoted to Quality Engineer. And later on decided to join a small but pretty well playing startup known as Portworx. By this time I had already become a asset which Vmware and Dell EMC now wanted badly. Dell EMC tried a couple of times but then eventually gave up as they knew they could never afford a resource like me. But the mighty Vmware kept trying and even today I see recruiters for Vmware pinging me on LinkedIn just trying to talk to me. And well now is my time to say a No but I rather try to do in politely then being a asshole like them :P 

Well in the last 4 years the circle of life came a full circle and those who once rejected come to me to ask if I am interested to join them. And here the journey ended and with it ended the adventures of finding my own job. 

[kshithijiyer]

at Vadodara, Gujarat, India https://www.instagram.com/p/CVxIWLkNwVurXy0T4MYcM8ZkZ1pNA6bYkUEkGc0/?utm_medium=tumblr

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New work buddy. #cactus🌵 (at Vadodara, Gujarat, India) https://www.instagram.com/p/CUvGjB2Nr9kytCi5M7p5XoMwQUM-UKkEXN8Qfc0/?utm_medium=tumblr

[kshithijiyer]

It's really painful when you learn that you can't alter acl of a filesystem after running into issues for a few hours now. How stupid of me!

Kshithij Iyer

[kshithijiyer]

When you are finally done assembling your cool award. #PureStorage #imperialviperprobedroid #starwars #legostarwars (at Vadodara, Gujarat, India) https://www.instagram.com/p/CTwuN9UqeQblPML8qRtyDCSn8FLZ19IjEwWP740/?utm_medium=tumblr

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Legends get their Fedora after leaving the company. Well it's true, you don't get a Fedora you earn one. 🎩 #exredhatters #fedorahat #redhat (at Vadodara, Gujarat, India) https://www.instagram.com/p/CTZCTCNKRHMlU-bzTeN_k7PPRhsRxEReW3x4zM0/?utm_medium=tumblr

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Tacos 🌮 (at Vadodara, Gujarat, India) https://www.instagram.com/p/CQ6Rqf8toxuB35ZZ4qGY287f_gIQv8tB5s_Akg0/?utm_medium=tumblr

[kshithijiyer]

Well not really a fan of work from home, but when companies fund it why not have a work from home desk. #wfhsetup (at Vadodara, Gujarat, India) https://www.instagram.com/p/CQczBcelkwQPdT5ZhKWoyypy2BWgNx4PXb08Es0/?utm_medium=tumblr

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#blackdrongo🐦 (at Vadodara, Gujarat, India) https://www.instagram.com/p/CPbOC9HFm9s4Jn1M-ke1eUHnTncUr032RvH1UI0/?utm_medium=tumblr