Life, Recession and some Nostalgia
Sometime around this last year, I was patting my team members on the back. We had collectively achieved what for me was "the biggest achievement of my career".
Some 10 months earlier, my CEO had felt the need to revamp one of our offerings. It was a web application in the Education vertical of Lead Generation market, and it had gone pretty big contributing to almost a third of company's revenues. But the product was a two tier jsp/servlet/mysql architecture with little reporting features. We wanted to take this to the next level - scalable and flexible architecture, easier maintenance, much higher data gathering and lots of reporting, optimization and mining on top of that. Me and a colleague of mine were entrusted with this project.
This was exactly the kind of technical challenge I was looking for. Working on the product from scratch, right from reqts to design to coding to testing/deployment, everything was in my hands. And as I realizes later on, such challenges are not just "technical"
10 months is a long time. Its the time when confidences get shaken. Its the time when the entire business team gets changed. And its also the time when a team to 2 grows to team of 10. And when a guy moves from Senior Software Engr -> Tech Lead -> Tech Architect.
It was a great Dec. There are night outs everyday. Everyone in the team was highly motivated. Typical schedule was working till 11 and then having dinner together. We were determined to get our baby to replace the old boy by January. And we did it. I was so proud of my team. I still am.
Sadly, not many are in the company to witness the 1st birthday of the child. The success of the product gave me enough confidence to move towards my next dream, my entrepreneur venture. But some of the others were not as lucky. I never really felt that recession would cause laying off in Indian companies, but it did happen last month and quite a few of my colleagues were unfortunate to be part of it.
Life does not always have a happy ending, but that does not reduce the flavour of the proceedings. The time we all worked together was great, and I would always be proud of working with such a great team. And thank you everyone for making my dream a reality.
Some 10 months earlier, my CEO had felt the need to revamp one of our offerings. It was a web application in the Education vertical of Lead Generation market, and it had gone pretty big contributing to almost a third of company's revenues. But the product was a two tier jsp/servlet/mysql architecture with little reporting features. We wanted to take this to the next level - scalable and flexible architecture, easier maintenance, much higher data gathering and lots of reporting, optimization and mining on top of that. Me and a colleague of mine were entrusted with this project.
This was exactly the kind of technical challenge I was looking for. Working on the product from scratch, right from reqts to design to coding to testing/deployment, everything was in my hands. And as I realizes later on, such challenges are not just "technical"
10 months is a long time. Its the time when confidences get shaken. Its the time when the entire business team gets changed. And its also the time when a team to 2 grows to team of 10. And when a guy moves from Senior Software Engr -> Tech Lead -> Tech Architect.
It was a great Dec. There are night outs everyday. Everyone in the team was highly motivated. Typical schedule was working till 11 and then having dinner together. We were determined to get our baby to replace the old boy by January. And we did it. I was so proud of my team. I still am.
Sadly, not many are in the company to witness the 1st birthday of the child. The success of the product gave me enough confidence to move towards my next dream, my entrepreneur venture. But some of the others were not as lucky. I never really felt that recession would cause laying off in Indian companies, but it did happen last month and quite a few of my colleagues were unfortunate to be part of it.
Life does not always have a happy ending, but that does not reduce the flavour of the proceedings. The time we all worked together was great, and I would always be proud of working with such a great team. And thank you everyone for making my dream a reality.
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Hum abhie bhi hai naa :)..
ReplyDeleteBilkul ... I hope you are enjoying your time :)
ReplyDeleteSeriously that was a great time which we have spent together as a team.
ReplyDeleteThat was the best team i had.
AboveAll we were the most happening team in Tribal Fusion.