How I had such a great time at my last Job
I have had a very unique and unbelievably great experience working at Zeta for past 2 years. I don’t know if it was the perfect job for me, or I was the perfect candidate for this job. However other people in the same place, at the same time, with same or better skills had a different experience. I have been thinking for quite some time on what caused that difference. I have come to the conclusion that this is a result of personal context and some small differences in approach to a job. This lead me to write my story and approach to work at Zeta.
In mid-April 2015, while on a road trip along Highway 1 in California, I received the news which crushed my hope of achieving a dream I have been working towards for 3 years, Indian Civil Services. I had failed to clear the exam in my second attempt, and I knew it was time to move on. Following 2 weeks were not easy, but I was ready to take on the next challenge by then.
I knew Ramki was working on something new, and I reached out to him. When Ramki first pitched Zeta to me and asked me how I felt about it, my words were “I am aroused”. In terms of vision, there was nothing better, by a huge margin. The team he had gathered by then was really impressive. I had worked with many of them in past and absolutely admired them. But I had to refuse to join Zeta. I was in the USA at that time and was planning to work in one of the big tech companies for at least a couple of years. I had only worked in smaller companies till then and wanted to change that. By mid may, I had passed on the offer.
But by mid-August situation had changed, because of some personal reasons, I had decided to move back to India. But still, I was looking to join a big tech company. I had interviewed around but did not find any one of them impressive. On one such interview trip to Bangalore, I visited Zeta’s office, to catch up with people. It was after 8 pm in the evening, and it did not at feel like that. It felt like it was the peak of work hours there. Coding, discussions, meetings, planning all were happening all around. There was enthusiasm and dedication all around, permeating everyone and everything. It felt like something was being created, something big, something important. I could not see that lively an environment in any of the companies in midday which I visited for an interview, not even close. I knew instantly I am going to join Zeta, no matter what anyone else offers me. I had been aching for that kind of a workplace for years at that time.
So I joined Zeta in end of Sept 2015. I was not confident of my skills at that time, as I had not been fully into tech for quite some time then. But I knew that I will give it my all. It was an opportunity of a lifetime for me. I had always wanted to be a growth journey of something that grows to be billion dollar business. This could be it, for sure. And if it had grown into that, I would have had a chance to shape so many things. Not just the tech, but the culture and everything else about building a company. It was going to be my wild west.
Motivation. When I started, I was already highly motivated. And in my opinion, that is the most important thing that would transform your experience at your job. For first few weeks I felt like an imposter. What was being created was huge. There was a lot to do, so many skills needed. I felt I am at the right place, but I don’t have enough skills to do what needs to be done. Maybe I will not be able to rise up to the challenge. But with high motivation, I unconsciously kept of devising strategies to handle that was all ahead of me. Motivation was the source, rest followed, without much effort.
Focus. It was overwhelming. I needed to reduce it to something very simple, and just focus on that. So I started small, one bug at a time, one API at a time. I didn’t have a plan. Except that I will do whatever came my way to best of my ability. By this time I had learned that doing more important than anything else. I had to make sure nothing came in the path of wrapping up things. There was no self or the others. There was no day or night, weekday or weekend. Food was only fuel. The world was a distraction. There was only something to be done, and when that was done, something else to be done. Nothing else. See the ball, hit the ball. Keep hitting. Plain and simple.
Don’t Let anything stop you. There were no boundaries. “Do whatever it takes to get shit done” was my motto. Don’t know something, Google it, ask around. Someone can’t-do their part, go do it yourself. Need more clarity, keep asking shamelessly. Not happy with something, go change it. Don’t like the way something is done, propose a solution. Too much traffic, live closer or travel in odd hours. Do whatever, do not stop. Go Go Go. And keep going.
Spend time in office. One of the things I hate most is spending time in commute, and in early days I was living away from the office. So to beat the traffic, I would travel in odd hours, I would be in the office early morning, and would leave late night. I had nothing better to do. I would reach office by 7 am, and by the time other people rolled in (about 12 pm), I would have finished a lot, in peace. This enabled me to churn a lot of code and spend a lot of time in office. So I was always around. Whatever was happening, I was around. Due to this I could participated in a lot of unplanned discussions, whether they were related to what I was working or not. Because usually, I would have finished my core work in early hours, I was able to participate in these discussions with full attention, without any worry of unfinished tasks. Just being around, in no hurry, helped in gaining more and more context, clarity. Along with this, and not stopping at the boundary of direct responsibilities, I started gaining ownership of more and more services. I could do it only for first 6 months, but that was enough to make headway.
Always be closing. Apart from spending a lot of time in office, another thing I did was to wrap things as quickly as I could. No idling around. Whenever I went into a new area, I quickly did an iteration there. Fixed whatever was to be fixed. Built whatever was to be built. And moved to another area. Thus, bug by bug, API by API, service by service, I kept gaining more context, confidence. The more I did, the more I got to do. I had unconsciously created a virtuous cycle.
Provide the quality of service you expect from others. Another principle I followed was to provide a quality of service I would demand from others. I had realized that to some extent what I was doing was essentially providing a service. I took it very seriously. I made sure that I met all the commitments I made. Whoever it was, my CTO, colleagues, clients, support, operations, sales, marketing, anyone, I attended to their requests and issues with all and equal seriousness. I made sure that I was communicating with all stakeholders frequently and proactively. I made sure to reach the bottom of every issue before someone else asked me to do so.If the buck reached me, it stopped with me. Soon people had confidence that if I am on it, it will be done reliably. This too contributed to the virtuous cycle.
Unblock others. I also ensured that I unblocked people as much as I could. The first rule was not to let anyone block on me. Second, even if they were blocked on anything else, I would do whatever I could do to help them. Some service is not behaving as expected, I would give it a look (and mostly fix it), even if I didn’t know that areas as well. Someone needed help in any debugging, I was there, did not matter if I knew that area or not. Someone needed to bounce off ideas, I was here.
It can not be a transaction. By then, I had realized that one of the essential ingredient of building something great is immersing yourself completely in it. And when you plan to do this at a job, it no longer remains a job. It rises above the transactional nature of usual job. It is no more like I work X hours and I get Y money. You no longer worry about are you getting paid at market level or not. Are you worse off from your friends or not. All you need then is to have enough to take care of myself (and family).
Balance. When you are working for a startup, you have to make some compromise based on your situation. You have to do lot of grunt work. You will not have enough time to design an code to best of your linking. You will have to use hacks and shortcuts. So in such an environment, it is important to strike a balance. Thankfully, I never felt too bad making these trade-offs and that lead to an overall positive feeling about work.
And that was it. Just doing this much I had incredible fun.
