If there was one person whose life could be a good source material for a semi-realistic Bollywood movie, it would be me.
I began with not being good at computers to being awarded the best trainee in Trivandrum from TCS. The process was long and difficult, filled with roadblocks, both professional and personal. During this journey, I lost my mother, my rock, to covid. I doubted if I could move forward without her in my life, but I knew she’d want me to do my best to build a happy life, even if it was one without her.
So my story begins with my school days, during which I passed most of my classes because I have an eidetic memory. I would memorise things and not learn, as a result of which, I failed my computer exam in ninth grade. In school, I used to memorise programs by heart. My trick was to memorise and not learn. I remember my class teacher asking my mother to talk to the computer teacher because this subject would hold me back for a year. I scored a meagre 27/100 and the funny part is that I didn’t even expect a 20. My family didn’t own a computer at home so my only hope was the school computer. I failed another examination this time but because of a checking error, I eventually received enough marks to pass this exam.
There was a wonderful end to this story. Soon after I joined a tuition class for this subject. This specific institution was attended by all my friends, but I wasn’t particularly fond of it. However, that year I topped my class with a 75/1oo and left everyone shocked. I think at that point I realised that I wanted to do computers. From then on it was Aakash Srivastava topping all the computer classes.
I went to a government college with high hopes of bagging a good job offer at the end of my degree. However, my hopes were shattered when I realised that we won’t be getting placements from the college. I and some of my batchmates used to sit for placements which happened in private colleges near my college. Confused and clueless, we turned to our seniors to ask about a prospective plan. They advised us to sit for GATE or any other government examinations. I knew that I wanted to work in the field of programming and coding so most of their advice didn’t suit me. I had a senior who informed me about TCS and its nationwide drive for employment. I was intrigued and knew then and there that I had to crack this examination.
I travelled from Kanpur to Lucknow for an interview at TCS and cracked 3-4 of its rounds. Out of the 400-500 people who sat for the interview, I was among the top 20-30 people who were selected. I had a choice between TCS and a Lucknow-based pharma company called Eastern software system for which I was offered a job. But, in the end, I picked TCS.
It turned out to be a bench job for 2-3 months. In the interview process, I was asked about coding concepts but in the real job, I was given support work and I did not like it. I asked my manager to give me coding work, but no one supported me and I felt like my growth had stunted itself under that management. I asked all authorities to change my work profile. But, I wasn’t provided with a positive response.
I was burnt out and I started searching for help desperately. Even my colleagues didn’t want to stay here. Everyone was waiting for the next best opportunity to leave their bench. I started looking at quora for answers like any other exhausted and disillusioned engineer in a boring job. I found Anshuman’s answer about InterviewBit on quora and started preparing for several examinations from their site. As a natural but desperate next step, I started preparing for GATE from the InterviewBit site. I did not want to take this examination and needed another option but I didn’t have any. Serendipitously, thirteen days before this exam, I found out about Scaler’s exam from the InterviewBit website.
I knew I had to join this online coding class to improve my programming skills, so I worked towards getting through their test. And fortunately, I cleared it. I genuinely appreciated the organisational skills of Scaler. Their mentor system was wonderful: I felt like I was articulating all my skills and investing my time in the right thing. Even when the Adobe interview showed up, Amit Kumar, my mentor, motivated me to go and leap at this opportunity. Pragya Sir was another person I cannot thank enough. I thought that I could not do dynamic programming ever but Tarun Malhotra sir gave me the courage and knowledge to do it.
My favourite book is Habit of Winning by Dr. Prakash Iyer and I have believed in it with all my heart. I believe that I have to fight to win something. There is no win without some strategic losses. I think that I lost a bit of time before I learned what I wanted to do but that is okay. Coding and solving problems are my hobbies now. It’s ironic how I couldn’t even pass that paper once and now I would spend my free time doing it too. Today, I work at Adobe. Coming from a position where my manager asked me to quit to reach a place where students want to get in touch with me because I work at Adobe, I have come a long way. This bridge in my life was provided by Scaler Academy.
Connect with Akash Shrivastava on LinkedIn