(00:00) hello welcome and Namaste to Career Journey podcast where we Deep dive into the lives of tech professional and bring their stories to inspire you I’m your host VOD charma and I’m excited to kick off the second season with an episode that’s packed with Insight experience and invaluable advices in this episode we sit down with VJ and engineering manager at Google with an impressive background in Tech PJ KY involved various rol is Bloomberg Amazon and Google BJ also have a solid education background with master in
(00:37) computer science and an MBA in this episode we will explore BJ’s approach to Career Development Goal setting and managing work with the life he has shared a lot of tip for early career development and highlighted the importance of growth mindset both professionally and personally whether you are a season Tech developer or just a starting off this episode is filled with lesson and stories that resonate with everyone thriving for road so settle in and get started with this insightful Journey welcome let’s dive in
(01:19) and it doesn’t matter how you started it doesn’t matter how many bumps you get ultimately you reach to the point where you want it as long as you have the clarity and as long as you have the consistency and desire to work so with that wej sir welcome to my podcast you are the first guest for this second season I want to hand over Mike to you tell us about yourself what you do for your full-time job and also what you do to help the developers you’ve been very active there as well first of all thank
(01:49) you very much VOD I’m very happy and honored to be here and I see you also provide a lot of value on Twitter and that’s how we got connected right and I usually try to stay away from controversy or click B stuff and and you are one of the few who who does not get into that and add actual value so definitely happy to connect with you happy to be here uh little bit about of myself uh my name my real name is vit I’m known on Twitter as DJ for my initials and I’m an enging manager at Google uh before I I’ve been in Google
(02:19) for about two years now and before joining Google I spent about six and a half years in Amazon and before that 10 years in Bloomberg I started my career as a developer so when I joined Bloomberg joined as a software developer and I think after about 8 years I transitioned into management so I have about six plus two about 10 years of management experience and 10 years as a developer and I started getting active on social media late 20121 so December 2021 is when I started my YouTube channel I wasn’t getting much traction
(02:51) over there I also like talking to people and YouTube is one-way communication so that kind of took a backseat and I started getting more active on Twitter because over there you actually interact with people either while exchanging tweets or also on Spaces where you actually talk to people I’ve been quite active on Twitter for last year hopefully added some value made some great connections like yourself and I continue to do and I enjoy that so mostly on weekend mornings I hold spaces and I tweet maybe like once or twice a
(03:20) day not super duper active of posting three or five tweets because again I don’t like to tweet nonsensical stuff but like this is great I wanted to ask from your Google experience that’s dream job for many Americans as well as all over the world like entry to Google so how is that different what’s your typical day or a week look like at your work yeah at a high level it isn’t that different from being an engineering manager at Amazon right like I look at responsibility of enging managers as like three-fold one is strategic
(03:52) responsibilities tactical responsibilities and people related responsibilities right so under strategic you have like road map planning you think about how do you want to grow the team depending on your vision architectural road map those kind of things also relationship building you could look at it either as strategic or or tactical from the Tactical perspective it is like day-to-day project planning project management stakeholder management these like how do you handle income request in terms of either bugs or features all those things
(04:20) and then people management is also a very important aspect right I do not like to look at manager as bosses who order people what to do right as enging manager it is our respons posibility to help the team grow and grow meaning that’s not the grow sizewise but actually help people with their careers and also provide timely and actionable feedback so in either direction help them get to the next level or help them improve their performance if they’re not meeting their their bar or if there any conflicts within the team if there are
(04:48) conflicts out with the outside Team all that stuff you need to handle long story short like a typical date does not look like I do this on this day but any of these factors depending on the need uh of that day you will spend uh disproportionate amount of time on one thing sometimes more than the others so it’s mix up on all these things so for example year in evaluations obviously a lot more time will go in writing the reviews talking to people Etc early phases of projects will go lot more in like project planning before that it or
(05:19) throughout the year it’ll be about some strategic thing that where are we going whatever we have prioritized is that in line with our vision for the team Etc so both these things are common my experience has been across Bloomberg Amazon and and Google how you do those things is like that differs and varies from company to company but overall responsibilities are similar it’s amazing how you divided your responsibility in three different areas tactical and people and my experience with most of the new manager
(05:48) even people who are manager and director for 5 10 years they only focus on technical things like for them is this these are the five things that I have to get done and they that’s all they focus is no people and no strategical things yeah you’re right of course I can’t pinpoint at somebody or not but and my observation has been like similar like people take things for granted sometimes they will look at strategic thing also but they tend to ignore the people part like I was very surprised when some of
(06:18) my directs were uh telling me that their previous managers were so bad that they they used to have one-on on in like once in three months or something I like why un Mo in that case right not have it or not give actionable feedback directly provide surprises at the end of the your interview a time and whatnot which to me sounds like common sense that one one should avoid right but apparently it is not a standard practice but that’s that I look at it as a as my advantage right if I’m doing this that what I think is
(06:49) very minimum and if that is keeping people happy then that’s a good for everybody so how did you develop that sense uh of that you have to holistically cover the people part the strategic part and also deliver things ontime yeah I think it it’s been a process I don’t think there was like one turning point or one thing that kind of say okay this contributed a lot I’ve been always a fan of non-fictional reading so I used to read a lot specifically about management productivity personal finance but that
(07:18) is out of scope that’s unrelated to this thing but just in terms of productivity and and the management think like the more you read because this is not something that you cover in your education right unless you’re going for NBA I by the way I also did part-time MBA from muu and something definitely must have helped from there as well like I I took a couple of General management classes but it wasn’t like focused specifically on Engineering Management so I don’t think any of those classes were directly tailored for that but all
(07:46) this kind of experience helps so all of these things also observing other good managers that I looked up to observing other managers that I felt B are not doing the things right so you should be learning from every Everybody right like things that you should do and things that you should avoid and and I love to seek feedback right in both what I ask my team members directly tell me what I’m doing well that I should continue doing and tell me what I’m supposed to do little differently or that will help
(08:11) you better it could be like from Team processes perspective or even like working with them and that feedback also helps so you failor your approaches because one of the challenges in enging management is that there is no one size fitall solution right there is there are like different people have different personalities Ambitions and then you have to tailor your approach to them so seeking this feedback doing little extra kind of homework or research on the side of like reading books and understanding what motivates people how do you handle
(08:37) certain situation all of these kind of help me in becoming a better manager over the time awesome which also give you a lot of creditability to be able to mentor and Coach developers who are in their early career like two years experience or four year five year of experience right they all have different kind of aspiration and I always say that find what is your drive before you start shooting for a big company or big technology or big project or whatnot right once you have that understanding then it’s easier and
(09:13) effective to go in that direction so my question for you as you have all these experience you have been writing and you’ve been coaching different people if somebody is in their early Journey like between 2 to 5 year of experience what would be your advice for them so that they can grow their career obviously whatever their aspiration is what would be your advice for that yeah that’s it could be a long discussion so I’ll touch on few important things that I feel are must have and then on top of that you
(09:47) could build more things right so I think the first thing I would suggest is like being intentional like exactly to your point about finding what drives you but also in addition to that what are your strengths right because it is easier to build up on strengths than try to rectify all the growth areas right like you can probably become mediocre or little more than mediocre if something is not your strength at all right but you could magnify amplify your strength a lot if you focus a lot more on that so having a good balance in looking into
(10:16) both things what drives you what motivates you what you can do sustainably and what do you want to achieve down five years 10 years down the life right like people look at that as interview question and say okay who knows which is true but at least having some kind of guide line that okay I want to try this and I want to be here in 5 years or 10 years and then take the your next actions or steps accordingly it is totally okay to Pivot right like by doing whatever you thought that you is needed to get to that level while doing
(10:43) that you may realize that no this is actually not what I want and then you pivot rather than just doing something aimlessly right if you’re just doing your job if you’re just just executing task after task project after project that is not going to take you far right you need to understand where you want to be and work backwards from that and see okay if I need to get there these are the things that I need to do and then work on those things and then as you work as you get more experience in that area decide whether that is the right
(11:10) path for you or do you need to pivt so being intentional and taking intentional actions and steps is is very critical second thing is as you grow in your career soft skills become really important right like having good technical skill is like a base life your soft skills is not going to overcome being a complete incompetent programmer right but you don’t have to like the topnotch programmer you don’t have to be the best coder or the coding Competition winner to be successful right you can have good technical skills but then as
(11:38) you build on your soft skills that will help you more and more in progressing your career so focusing on soft skills and this is also to my earlier point is not covered in colleges right so you have to take extra effort to learn that so read books listen to other people network with other people I think networking is very underrated thing like people know but people just look at networking guys okay send LinkedIn request like which which is not right so focusing on these aspects is really important in my opinion and then the
(12:04) last thing is being open to feedback right yes you may have certain ideas about yourself but unless you get feedback from many people like from your manager from your friends from your co-workers you won’t really know that what you are what you’re doing is actually what is needed to get to the next level and also you cannot be defensive right like perception matters like whether you think that’s what you want to do or say but if other person is perceiving it differently then it doesn’t matter what you what you feel
(12:32) about yourself right so being aware of those things being open to feedback and continuously learning right I think especially in Tech is really important not to just learn about Technologies which is absolutely important I’m not saying don’t do that but don’t do just that right keep on improving your soft skills keep on improving anything that helps you take to your timate goal yeah for sure in your post yesterday in one of the Twitter post response was an amazing like it it has a consolidate advice or I say holistic advice to how
(13:03) somebody can I think the response was how to be number one one person in the software Community which is but your response was very realistic covers many different areas I will add that in somewhere in the comment so that people can read that thank you so you started your journey and I personally know your journey from the college to Cafe work as a waiter and then growing from there I want to ask in a manner that with all those situation that you grew from to up to this point you have you’ve been in Bloomberg you’ve
(13:46) been in Amazon you’ve been in Google how did you set these goals like how did you set these big Target and then how did you achieve it that’s an interesting question because not all these targets were predetermined or well thought through and some of it I start from the beginning okay and you can tell me either you want to take a specific example or even stop right so Bloomberg was more out of laziness you can say that right for example or that what I mean by that is before joining Bloomberg like during my college like I was pretty
(14:17) decent at like C programming language and and okay in in C++ and this was the end ofcom burst right and at that time like Java was also picking up and uh lot of people like there were many openings for Java and few other things which I was not that comfortable with so my Approach was okay and in my college Bloomberg was one of the well recognized companies that used to come on campus and I was lazy enough to say that okay I don’t want to try too hard everywhere I know Bloomberg comes here I know Bloomberg requires good skills in CC
(14:48) plus which I have so let me go all in on that so out of laziness in the sense that okay I didn’t want to try for 100 different companies like people give 100 or 500 interviews and uh then they end up this thing but my Approach was okay this is my target this is the thing that I could potentially get with I I I don’t want to say least effort because I I put in a lot of effort but I didn’t have to go too wide right I put Zone in into I okay I new see programming pretty well I went into DET like details of systems
(15:18) programming colel level programming and whatnot and that’s how I prepared for Bloomberg and I got that switching to Amazon was completely FL on that so you knew they will be asking or what they were looking for yes so Bloomberg used to come to bingan University or on gabas interviews almost every single year so I knew some people who had done internship over there who had received full-time offers and also they used to hold info sessions so they themselves used to say that okay this is what we work on this is our
(15:49) texti this is expertise that we require so obviously interview questions were not known but the area was known that okay cc++ related questions and more on systems programming more focus on programming is one they looking for so that’s what I okay did my target targeted preparation on so even though you’re saying out of the laziness but you did your homework you did find out like you did your Outreach you did gather the information and then you thoroughly worked on that whatever they need right yes I so yeah so that’s why I
(16:20) I I kind of chuckled when I say laziness so I put in a lot of effort right because I also audited a course called systems programming like by that time I think I had already registered for other courses so I I couldn’t register for that course uh but I audited that meaning that I attended the kind of not lectures but the topics that they covered I studied them offline and I did all the assignments myself I didn’t get them graded whether it works or not so I I did that kind of preparation as well so whatever I could for like that was
(16:49) required from Bloomberg I did so definitely didn’t take any shortcuts over there but I didn’t go wide basically I was like zoned in okay this is what I want to try and that’s it and how many months we talking for this preparation or week this was like 22 years ago so not 20 years ago so I don’t exactly remember but so that course was like a semester long so obviously my preparation was continuous it was on and off I I don’t think I gave 10 hours every day single every single day for a semester or anything like that a few
(17:17) hours here a few hours there and as the course was the whole semester probably a semester long but the number of hours I put in varied a lot perfect I I just wanted to dig deeper into this to give an idea from the stage and we will talk more if time permit that what was your situation at that time to is spending like six months targeting something and intentionally working on and off and many hours for 6 month and then going for that interview right and then you getting selected that so it it happens all go ahead go ahead there so there is
(17:53) a twist out there so if the time permits I’d like to elaborate on that too even after this long preparation I failed my interview for the first time it was devastating right or going back to your earlier question on on why this thing it because for me it was almost like if not this I don’t know what else right so I almost like I didn’t had not applied anywhere and I was an international student here so I had to get a job so that kind of drove me towards that but even after this preparation I failed in
(18:20) my first attempt what helped me and the reason I’m bringing it up is because I think it’s very important for people to understand the value of networking right and what do you mean by value driven networking people look at networking as only connections outside but over here so I had registered for a course called distributed systems and I had a project partner over there and so again semester long we both worked on projects together I was a very sincere student I I didn’t say that oh my partners will take care
(18:47) of it I’m only there for name sake right I actually contributed a lot so he knew that I was a good developer I was a sincere student and he had got select gotten selected to Bloomberg a year before me so because he knew that I am a good student and I actually deserve another chance he knew the hiring manager so he requested hiring manager to consider my application again in six months otherwise my next chance could have been only after a year and who knows that probably could have been too late by but because of that because I
(19:16) had good relationship with him not just in terms of being friends but also showing that I was a good programmer I was a good uh person to be on a team he could vouch for me and I got my second chance and that’s when I cleared the interviews so and that time I had to give five or six interviews which was pretty rigorous in my opinion but I made it at that time and this is one of the ways that you could add value right just by being a good student by doing the work that you’re supposed to do by going about and Beyond I also remember
(19:42) spending like two nights in one of the labs for one of the final projects and it does count right all of these things will help you in one way or the other later sometime later down the line This is the recipy of how to get into Tech number one you’re doing Masters you’re doing lot of of other things but you targeted one company and then you started researching about it then you you identify all the gaps or Preparation that is needed you worked on it and then you when you was grabbing the information when you was finding all the
(20:17) information you made the connection when you were preparing you made the connection and then when it did not work out you reach out to the contexts that you have made and then you even though it was 6 months later you prepared and you gave that interview and you got selected right this is a journey of almost a year of thinking attempting and consistency was this it was not a sudden thing that has happened right so thank you for sharing this is what people need right when they switch between different technology different courses and
(20:57) different targets and but a systematic approach like this will work out and on top of that I believe that the desperation that you had of that ESS of if not this then I don’t have too many options right the desperation work for me as well and I will quickly share that story VJ that when I was trying when I got into Tech One thing that I think was significant for me is that I did not have a future without getting selected in that that campus interview if I had an option my only option was to go back to that marketing
(21:43) job that I hated so that desperation worked for me I think that desperation worked for you as well AB wow okay all right thank you so when I interrupted you you started talking about Amazon so let’s go back to that so you started working in Bloomberg as in your first job and then what happened and then how did you set your goal for Amazon yes I was not intentional as I was talking earlier right like people should be intentional I was just happy that after so this much station I got into Bloomberg and that’s it right so I just
(22:15) used to do my job and not think too much about where do I want to be a few years down the line and then as I started seeing people growing in that like a lot of my batchmates who joined with me had already become like team leads which is an equivalent of entry-level managers at that time I started asking what do I want do I just want to be here or do I want to do something different and this was one of the ways to measure your growth Bloomberg does not have levels as you will see in Google or Amazon like IC
(22:43) L3 L4 L5 kind of thing they have developed software developer and Senior software developer and that’s about it right so this was one of the ways of measuring your growth that you’re actually growing in your career other ways also but this was one of the ways and I was also enjoying like working with people and helping other Junior developers right like I specifically had two interns to mentor and they both received full-time offers so that was like I felt really nice after doing that that I actually helped them get a job of
(23:10) course it was most of their work but I also I hope I played a role in guiding them in in in getting that right and that was very satisfactory and just that and working with stakeholders I I like those kind of aspects which was kind of hinting at okay I think you can do the management job as well and I was not the best developer right like it’s not that oh I I I could solve any problem or or anything like that I I was good I was I don’t want to take that away from me but I wasn’t like one of the best developers
(23:36) on planet or even in the company but going back to my earlier point like I knew what my strengths were right and working with people was one of it which was I think or not was even is a requirement to be a good manager right because you have to manage down you have to manage sideways you have to manage up for that you have to be good with people nice is different good is different right so you have to understand the difference and and have appropriate strategies for for different situations so that’s when I realized that okay this
(24:04) is probably something worth trying and then I made intentional efforts in that direction and got to be a manager in in Bloomberg going to Amazon was not at all free plan it it just happened and again I would like to highlight like networking played a huge role over there as well so by that time like I had almost completed 10 years at Bloomberg and one of the colleagues that I used to work with had transferred to Amazon and he reached out to me asking whether I’m interested in joining Amazon and at that time actually my responsibility was
(24:34) growing within Bloomberg like I could have gotten managers to manage as well but that he said that when was the last time you interviewed outside and what else do you know outside with the Bloomberg thing and and at 10 year mark like you feel that okay like if not now then when as you spend more and more time in one company it becomes difficult to have more different perspectives from outside so I thought that okay might as well just try like he said what’s the harm in just giving the interview and see what works so over there I did not
(25:02) have to prepare a lot or other because it was all of a sudden right I didn’t spend months of preparation I did prepare I Tred to understand what the Amazon leadership principles were what kind of questions may come up especially on the behavioral side they did not have coding round so I didn’t have to prepare for coding but system design was there so I did brush up a little bit on that and it worked out and because it worked out so suddenly and I don’t know whether I should say easy or not but easier
(25:27) compared to so many other folks who like do months of preparation and then end up getting that’s when I felt that maybe I should maybe this is meant to be right if it is happening this and if it gives me an opportunity to explore something different that I have not before compensation wise at that time it wasn’t more than what I was making at Bloomberg right but the domain was different Bloomberg was B2B this was Toc the technology was different it was all on Amazon AWS Cloud related thing which was
(25:52) not there at least in the team that I was working on at Bloomberg and Amazon was a good name right so I did not look only at the money I thought okay if I’m getting all these other things without taking a pay cut like why not so that’s how I ended up transitioning into Amazon and it was a subsidary of Amazon it called shopo but it still like the brand was different but internally everything was Amazon including technology processes stocks and like performance evaluation all those things so it was a little less like predetermined or
(26:21) premeditated but again like networking played a huge role if I did not have good impression on that person he probably wouldn’t have reached out to me asking whether I want to give it a shot so how what was the duration between the point that he suggested you applied and you got a job was it are we talking like a month two month or six months probably two months I don’t think it was as as long as six months yeah probably two months yeah this was back in 2015 all right from there you went to Google yeah
(26:48) I spent about six and a half years in Amazon so I spent out of those six and a half five and a half years were we in shopo and then I transition internally to Amazon live and and then to Google getting to Google was very focused effort again and similar to my Bloomberg story I prepared for six months and I failed again in my first attempt so it was that was a huge shock it was also covid time yeah overall it was very difficult but I didn’t give up right I kept those things in mind on what what could have gone wrong where I need to
(27:21) improve and I tried again after a year and a half and at that time so I didn’t succeed in my first attempt I had applied for three companies and I got rejected in all of them and but this next time I in December I had given a few interviews earlier also more of the practice one part but like late November and December i g six interviews and I received five hours so that was like a huge turnaround and huge moral boosting thing as well so now out of that Google was again it wasn’t the the highest paying offer but I considered many other
(27:53) aspects and decided to join Google and definitely not regretting a bit so what do you think the difference was in getting this offer versus before you know one thing that worked for me that after three interviews my voice is like ruent compared to my first interview so that has worked for me give more interviews and you get more practice and then you have the command on what you’re delivering yeah especially for manager interviews I think Behavior interviews play a huge role right so having good data points good meaning not just good
(28:24) projects but level appropriate thing like what doing more investigation or research about what are they expecting for that level and what points to highlight right so what points to highlight how you highlight storytelling those kind of things are are really important and I think even in system design I think I did well but I practice more I think I had struggled with one of the rounds in my first attempt but I tried to cover those gaps as well so overall like basically understanding where you need to improve on and Al
(28:55) fortunately the recruiters gave me some feedback also later and that was about like the data points were good but they were not level appropriate like it was more to your I think very first point about tactical right I was whatever examples I were giving they’re more from the tacnical Tactical perspective not So Much from the Strategic angle so I had covered tactical and people well but they were not getting the data points they were looking for from the Strategic angle so I made sure that I I worked on
(29:20) those and I included those stories as well and don’t answer if there is some sensitivity around it but I’m curious why suddenly you was into the market spent six years Amazon and then suddenly you giving so many interviews so what was going on in your head at that point I don’t have a good answer I don’t mind disclosing that also but it was curely out of foro I saw many of my friends again joining Fang and it was a little bit of and already one of the f I was I yes I was but as I said before like
(29:55) getting to this point like especially getting into Amazon like I didn’t really know whether I had spent a lot of effort and actually gotten that it happened right so that was I was questioning my own this thing am I capable of getting into something and also this I remember like long time back like I did not even think that I could ever get it to Google right and we can discuss that later but there there were some other things on the side like in my personal life that contributed to challenging these limiting beliefs right so that was that
(30:25) also contributed to say that okay like why did you think you cannot get it right try it like without trying obviously you’re not going to get so why not why not just try that in addition to seeing other friends getting into Google and meta hearing about their packages all of them contributed to saying okay let’s give it a shot okay thank you for sharing so before we change direction I wanted to ask as we we started from your college time to O to this point where VJ is going in next two to five years is there I guess my motto
(30:59) behind asking this question how VJ set his goal long-term goals and short-term execution yeah so for next two to five years no plans of leaving the job unless of course they let me go that’s a different story but intentionally I I don’t I’m not looking forward to leaving the job I definitely enjoy what what I do yes I it’s I I’m very fortunate and I I acknowledge the privilege and luck that I had as you said in the beginning like for so many people it’s a dream company people try so hard and it’ll be
(31:28) foolish of me to say that okay now I don’t care about it anymore so that’s going to stay I’m going to try a little harder on the social media side I’m still struggling in that finding that Clarity in my head right like how do I go about it in terms of I one thing I know I what I don’t want is like getting into controversies or doing click Bady stuff or misguiding people I hate that I don’t want to grow like that but then do I continue on Twitter do I start my YouTube or do I start I already post on LinkedIn but do I do
(31:59) that more regularly now I’m everywhere without having a particular focus and a strategy so I want to improve on that if possible again it’s thankfully my bread and butter is not dependent on that so it’s not that I have to do that in what next six months or a year I I’ll keep providing value and I’ll I’ll keep trying but yeah at some point I hope that I find a direction and I execute on that better than what I’m doing right now I think it’s similar for me as well that um along love my time job but I
(32:29) started something on my side including a b I’ve run a web agency where three developer working for me in India off sure and then getting more and more serious about writing and coaching and everything for me the biggest thing is having the clarity for myself like why I’m doing this right and will I enjoy doing whatever I’m creating for next 5 10 15 years right for me this is I just don’t want to follow XYZ person and start doing things that they are doing I want to figure out out of 100 thing that I can help somebody what
(33:09) is that one thing that actually will enjoy doing for many years and then what you just said before we do incredible job for our employers where we have this a long-term vision for that company or for our team or for the project or the product and then execution excellent execution but when it comes to our own thing we are not that thorough and but all we sometime I feel like we just need to apply what we do for our employee to our own things and things will be different yeah that’s definitely true but and I’m glad that you have that
(33:46) Clarity or you have that framework that that will help you understand and take next steps accordingly it’s almost more people will spend time in finding how the this too list app work versus trying to find why do I have to manage my 24 hours right and you would spend all your time to compare five different to-do app and then by the time you pick one you forget why you started like why do what was the problem that you was trying to solve and that’s exactly what happened with many of the people who are trying to be
(34:22) active in social media that they go after reach tweet reach tweet and then the how to type tweet and then by the time they follow five people they forget what actually I’m trying to do here so that Clarity is I think most important cool all right so let’s shift gear I wanted to talk are you a workolic or a balanced person or what you are and how do you balance your work professional growth I feel like those are two different things right work is where you are loyal to your employer and then professional growth where you loyal to
(35:00) yourself and then your family and personal life and whatnot yeah I I don’t know what kind of person I am because as I said like at many times I would feel that I’m super lazy I don’t want to do anything I just want to continue what I’m doing not put in extra efforts but then I find something then I feel that no I want to go after that and I I put in a lot of effort in doing that so it’s I think if you plot it as a graph is all over the place there will be times when I’m not doing anything there time I’m
(35:26) I’m doing something like doing a lot and then again probably some dull period then I go after something else I don’t know whether I have a clear and concrete answer but I’ll just tell you about like my thought process or how I’ve approached things so far and so yeah I think getting promoted is not something that I’m super interested in at this moment I was at some point like when I joined Amazon I joined as an L5 manager and that at that time I felt like no I need to be at least L six so then I again I kept that
(35:56) as a goal and I basically didn’t do anything else and say okay to achieve that what do I need to do like what all things I need to achieve in the like do I need to do upscale myself with something else or just at work how do I build relationships how do I get the data points that I needed and then basically went all in over there so at that time I probably wasn’t doing lot many other things I did AWS certification I don’t know whether that was actually needed or not but I thought that that will help me so this is was
(36:23) part of upscaling myself in order to achieve that one particular goal right now at work I don’t have that goal that I need to get to at7 I’m not saying that oh I don’t want that at all but I don’t think I need to do an intentional effort in get getting the next level at work right now I’m probably better off doing the work in a good way helping my team and then probably Focus something on my personal side which is the social media things that we’re talking about in terms of balancing time like I try to be
(36:51) realistic with goals not try too many things at the same time if you are looking at one thing then okay pick that one thing go after that and Achieve that and then move on to something else like for example last April or something like another personal goal which is also timec consuming was running my first full Marathon right so if I was focusing on that obviously I couldn’t do anything else or I I would be doing Injustice to either my family or whatever I was trying to do too many things at the same time so I I picked that and I didn’t do
(37:20) anything else so at that time I wasn’t too much into social media also like just Twitter a little bit here and there but of course like family is really important right like at least to me it is unfair to say that okay let my wife take care of everything and I’ll only focus on this so like sharing responsibilities spending time with kids as you probably know kids grow up so fast right and if I don’t spend some time with them right now I don’t want to regret that later so I I don’t think I
(37:43) spend too much time with them or even like enough time with them but I do try to make sure that I spend at least some time with them I’m not like unavailable for the kind of thing I think time boxing helps like that’s why if you see like my spaces or whatever I usually am more active like Saturday morning Sunday morning when everybody else is sleeping so I’m not mixing my responsibilities and yeah I think being more realistic about that like not trying too many things at the same time and thinking
(38:09) through okay how this kind of alliance with my long-term goal and prioritizing those things is what has helped me so far great answer thanks I will share one thing about kids growing to far my son is in college and he was here yesterday for the worship that we was we did yesterday so I sleep early but yesterday was like 11:30 and I said all right let’s watch in episode together he just recommended by me one of the Star Trek and man he said you’re G to fall asleep immediately and let’s do it and we
(38:45) started watching like I was my eyes was closed like in next 10 minutes and I still tried just to be with him he’s very busy with college and everything but I remember the time when he want wanted my time and I was busy fixing things for office and I wish if I can go back and change that but fortunately I use that learning my daughter is 13y old and I if she need anything I just jump on it you have all my time since the time she was born even before and as an example she was asking can you drop me here to
(39:24) Monday and then pick me again so drop her at a school at 700 and then pick her again at 9: to drop so she will go to elementary school some for some volunteer work and then she want me to pick her from elementary and drop at middle so by the time I will come back I think it will be 10 that’s sure I will move around my things just to be able to support her and whatever she want to do yeah that’s a great point and anybody whoever is work colag like me I was at some point it’s learn from us it will
(40:02) grow really fast and then when they get busier that’s when you will realize that now they don’t have time for you and you want to spend more time with them yeah absolutely I think there was some quote right I’m not phrasing it correctly but something on the lines of the only people who will remember that you worked hard to have that meeting at 8:00 will be your kids nobody in your office or or anybody else right right it’s I think yeah priorities you need to be clear about your priorities and along the similar line
(40:37) one of my one of my colleague helped me get over this fact that your project you won’t even remember a project or a meeting after a year or two and then you will get into the next thing or next thing but when that is happening you feel like everything is around that awesome I want to take few moments talking about work life balance and the different activities that you probably do to take short breaks during the day or a week or some longer break or vacation to make a balance to re-energize yourself and I’ve seen many
(41:17) people posting that they have no work life balance or the work is too much so what you do to balance this out out and reenergize yourself yeah I think one of the habits that I’m proud of is regular exercise right and what I mean by that is I make sure that I spend at least 30 minutes every day but they don’t have to be continuous right and then that goes back to being realistic like sometimes I’m just not in the mood to spend 30 minutes in the gym or even on the treadmill so in that case like just do
(41:47) it for 10 minutes right like you really I will feel super guilty if I tell myself that I don’t have 10 minutes for exercise right and or there is an app like 7 Minute Workout right really I you telling me you don’t have seven seven minutes in your day right so even doing this in three or four segments right that still makes me happy that okay at least I did 30 minutes and it energizes you a lot and anybody who hasn’t tried that like I would definitely recommend it’s not that you need to do exercise
(42:12) meaning you have to go to the gym hours and lift super heavy weights and be like a bodybuilder kind of thing right but even moderate exercise but consist doing it consistently can energize you a lot and it’ll give you more time than probably what you’re spending in on the exercise so that is one very critical element of my life I also try to do meditation I am a little less consistent on the meditation front I probably do it like four or five days a week also for 20 minutes not more than that but whenever I do I I feel like it’s it was
(42:43) the time worth spent right it is really helpful for me sometimes I do it even in office and I’m not ashamed of saying that because I don’t think it is I’m stealing company’s time if it helps me become more productive right because especially in the afternoon if 2:30 or something if you feel super slump rather than wasting 3 hours later if you take quick 20 minutes break and then re-energize yourself then that is totally worth it in my opinion right so I think that is these two things help me
(43:06) manage my energy level in terms of work life balance I do feel exhausted to be honest right I don’t think I I manage it really well because work at home is also not an easy task especially for us who live in the US who do everything on your groceries and laundries and dishes and whatnot people make fun of it but it takes time and energy but that at least helps me disconnect and when you’re doing that I don’t think about work and when I’m doing work I don’t think about that so even if it becomes exhausting at
(43:36) least there are like two different exhausting activities so it helps me automatically have that separation as such in terms of uh break yeah I don’t also try to make every single minute productive in the day because I tried that once or twice and I I feel miserably at that I need me time so I wake up early for that I sleep early my my schedule is like when my son is not in his swimming class I usually sleep by 9ine right and then wake up at 5: so that and then I take my own sweet time in doing things like preparing whatever
(44:05) breakfast and other things in the morning and that feels like a break then right because then you’re not rushing if if you’re trying to be super productive and trying to count every single minute that adds pressure to me and I I totally acknowledge that this varies from person to person so I’m not saying that this is the right thing this is what works for me and this is how I’m I look at my schedule and I try to make time like by either waking up early or finding some time here and there I don’t watch too
(44:28) many movies or series like once in a while I I will do that but that doesn’t take too much of my time so I could spend that time on on something else so I think I wish I could say that I have good diet also but I don’t like to be honest like I think eating is my weak point but I think I’ve heard people saying that if you eat right like that gives you more energy I think I eat right but I also eat wrong so it’s it’s like a mix mix on both but this is what I try and as a family we go try to go on
(44:54) vacation like long vacations at least twice a year so that’s a good break from everything else I try to go to my parents are India so I go back to India every other year so again that leaves me some time to go somewhere else with my family over here yeah I don’t know whether this is the ideal breakdown or ideal situation or not but that’s what I’ve been trying and there are definitely areas of improvement but I think so far I’ve been managing it okay I think this is one of the most practical approach that you you sharing
(45:20) that during the day you’re taking some breaks during the week you’re taking some break you’re taking proper sleep and then are you taking some vacation what people are not intentional about doing things right they could take some break just like how you said it taking that 20 minute break make the three hour next 3 hours more effective but if you’re not intentional if you’re not kind of thinking ahead you would keep working and you may not find a solution and you spend a 5 hour which you could
(45:54) have done sooner if you have taken a break or something right so I would say that’s the Practical approach that people probably want to look at versus uh trying to find an ideal ideal work life balance I don’t believe that at least the software industry or it Industries work for that traditional 9 to5 Norm Norms where you were going to a factory and there was some time limit on how much you can work and when you leave you go right and then there are shift around so there was certain limitation that doesn’t exist in software you can work
(46:35) anytime for your work and you can also do your family things or your personal things right so I I believe in more work life mesh versus work life balance like 9 to5 type thing yeah that’s a great point like I also think and also tell people to look at it more from the work life Harmony perspective not balance me right it doesn’t have to be you only spend eight hours here and then eight hours there kind of thing there will be times where you will have to spend a lot more time at work right let’s say if
(47:02) you’re aiming for a promotion that’s due in six months you should spend disproportionate about of time at work and probably not spend too much time on your own extracurricular and hobbies or activities right but then there will be time when you achieve that and then there is some kind of downtime and you spend more on your own thing and of course like everybody situation probably different like to your earlier Point like probably not worth missing kids birthdays if you’re going for promotion but again like you
(47:29) get the point right it’s basically it’s not that everything has to be balanced all the time sometimes there’s sometimes that depending on the situation I think is is more practical and achievable in my opinion yeah we are intellectual worker knowledge worker and we can put some thoughts around different things so toward the end of the segment end of this session I wanted to ask is there any question that I have not asked you but you want to answer I would like to touch on the challenging limiting belief
(47:58) part if if that’s okay so I think and this is diagonal like oral what you want to call it it it started so I was never like an athletic person and I was like super average or even below average like I could barely do any pups and whatnot but in Bloomberg again like I think surrounding yourself with people with the right mindset is really important so at that time like a lot of folks uh were driven which made me feel that okay what do I want to do with my end of career and then be more interal but at the same
(48:29) time a lot of people were also into sports and whatnot and I know few friends where participating in New York City Triathlon and at that time I was like there is no way I could do Triathlon right like three hours of physical activity who’s going to do that but if you have company and through the company there there was also training program like you had to raise money for that organization blood cancer related organization but they would in return they would provide you free training so I said okay worth trying right like why
(48:55) not I see my other friends doing it who also don’t seem to be in great shape okay I can at least start and then I I did that and I finished that under three hours which was my Target and that was like a light bul moment where I felt that okay consistent effort can lead you to achieve these kind of goals you don’t have to be naturally born amazing athlete to do this right again I didn’t win it but I didn’t want to win it either right like in in my first attempt I just wanted to finish it because that
(49:23) was a victory for me right and that kind of helped me go more in this direction of okay challenge what other thing that you think that you cannot do for example in the triathlon running was my weakest point and that in the Trion like 10K was the last running segment so I decided okay if that is my weakest Point like how do I go into that area so then I appeared for a half marathon like a few hours down the line not immediately but few hour down the line sorry again I failed in my first half marathon attempt also I actually fainted in the last
(49:52) smile and that’s because I did not focus on hydration properly hydration and and nutrition and like running 13 miles is is not a joke like your body is not built for that right you need to provide it with frequent hydration and this thing but again I learned from that and I appeared for another half marathon just couple months down the line and I finished that in the time that I wanted to and then I was like okay what’s next and then I grow into like finishing a marathon so it again it didn’t happen
(50:18) immediately one after the other thing but that helped me after the half marathon like is also okay if I could do this I could probably also go and apply for Google right so having that growth mindset and trying that in one area of your life can also impact other areas of your life right and you should look at it like competition with yourself like it’s not the end goal is not winning but challenging your belief and doing something that you have not done so far by stretching your limits even a little bit right that will give you confidence
(50:47) in that area and that will also apply to other areas in your life and even if it doesn’t great I just give you satisfaction that you tried right like rather than just saying that okay not my cup of tea so I think that thing of like challeng having I and I don’t think I have the perfect growth mindset I I don’t think I can say that now I can go and apply to IIT again and get into IIT or anything like that but at least I made much a lot more progress than before in in that area so I think I would also like to encourage viewers to
(51:14) think about that there is a book called mindset by Carol Dr Carol D I think I think I would highly recommend that to challenge your own limiting beliefs and have your competition with own previous sell right not with some else and even if you see tiniest Improvement I think that’s a big win this could be a niche VJ talking about growth mindset yeah or breaking your limiting belief and for developer is specific for developers thanks thanks for the suggestions do you have a question for me not specific to
(51:42) this topic but I would definitely love to have a chat about some other things like I saw you posted a video about your daughter participating like Robotics and what not it so I wanted to chat about my son is also 13 years old he’s the older one I have a younger daughter and he is probably just like me he just like sits and things and redeems and whatnot I want to see like how do I ignite that Spar in him to do something constructive so we can talk about that some other time all right I typically asked for a
(52:08) message to the audience but I believe you you have you just covered a very strong message for them anything else that you want to tell them no go follow venod And subscribe to his podcast as well I think I’m I’m really happy that I connected with you and I get to learn a lot of things from you as well and keep adding M and thank you for having me here don’t follow me if you’re not following VJ because you will find very practical advice so you will see people in Twitter in LinkedIn they’re talking
(52:40) about hundreds of advice that they have not tried but what I have seen in vj’s comments and his post is things that he has tried himself the thing that work for him and in this interview you have seen how much he has achieved and did more than achieve the the type of mindset and type of work ethics that VJ has we will come back and I would love to have another session with you to cover the journey that you had from your Masters and then all the different things that you have done which which made you super Focus about getting into
(53:19) Tech and not putting that intensity behind sounds good all right thank you you and thank you everyone for watching we we’ll come back again thanks and wish everybody all the best hope you achieve your dream