AMA with Divyendu Singh

We recently have an AMA session on our Telegram group with Divyendu Singh.

He is currently working with Prisma as an open source engineer. A company that does developer tools with the motto — “we make data easy”. Here is how you can find him on the internet: https://www.divyendusingh.com.

1. @divyenduz Do you have any suggestions for people who would like to start working remotely? or If you have worked like so?
   I have worked remotely almost throughout my career so far as a freelancer (stopped freelancing when I started working with Prisma) but I am still working remotely from Bangalore with Prisma which is in Berlin.
   The single most important skill for remote working is communication and it is generally a very good idea to invest in communication anyways.
   This also includes being honest like if things are not going well, inform the stakeholders quickly and if things are going well celebrate.
   Another thing that happens in isolation, where you are in touch with your team (if any) only sporadically and that can be tiring at times as you are alone.
   The last thing that I would like to mention here is that you have to set boundaries about rest and work, otherwise, you end up overworking and hence burning out.
   Boundaries can be — a dedicated place to work from and sleep from or actually dressing up for the job even when remote. This is only needed if you (like me) can’t stop working.
2. How do you keep yourself motivated while doing personal projects besides your daily working schedule?
   am generally very passionate about things and I love programming, even today after 14 years of professional + non-professional programming (I coded when in school as a hobby) I still love when I write a “hello world” program.
   I have this motto of “if it is worth doing, it is worth doing well”.
   That being said, resting is very important, you cannot push through all your life. Listen to your body, take proper rest, exercise and organize to spare time for hobby stuff :)
3. Dibyendu, it is always said that India is good in software and coding but why we lack behind in any leading open source project or any good software solutions to our problems?
   I believe that we are getting better at open source and international SaaS companies overall and this is a transition.
   Software development came to India as a result of the “millennium bug”, we were trained to do services, then we moved on to building products as outsourced teams.
   Then we moved on to build internal products like Flipkart, Bookmyshow and other famous startups targeting India.
   The next wave is international SaaS products like BrowserStack, Postman, Hasura.
   Once we have a good stronghold here, open source will bloom (I can also mention the exact business reasons if you want).
   In fact, GeekyAnts and Hasura are already doing amazing OSS work among many many individual developers.
   The only way is up :point_up_2:
4. Hi @divyenduz. This is Moksh from 3rd year CSE. How was your experience working as a mobile lead in Sportskeeda?
   Hi Moksh,
   It was amazing, I actually joined as a junior developer but came up through the ranks quickly because that can happen in startups. We built a solid team and a created culture. I am very proud of the work we did together at SK.
   Almost at all times in SK, there were around 2–6 developers, a small team made the responsibilities grow and learning bloom.
5. Hello @divyenduz I am Akshit 2nd year CSE
   Actually, as we know that besides doing projects we need to have a strong algorithm and competitive programming skill but both can’t be done at same time, so can u give suggestion about that how to manage
   both simultaneously or how much is it important to do competitive programming for the future?
   Here would be my recommendation (personal opinion). You have to mix it up and be exposed to both ends and one of the best ways to do that is to build a long challenging side project (btw my next side project is to build a Game boy emulator).
   Building a project that would see the light of the internet prepares you for most of the jobs out there and you can start with a naive implementation but when you are doing an exercise like this, you would run into issues that need to be solved with efficient algorithms — that is where you can practice algorithms on the job and learn.
   Having said that, it is a good idea to go through a good algorithms book once. Like mathematics, algorithms design and application is mostly about problem classification that comes through practice.
   The question here is that why can’t we do projects and algorithms at the same time, the answer for me is that both are open-ended problems that can run into infinite time consumption if you are doing one or both. You have your time cap your learning and maximize the output.
   This is a great talk on time (or life )management: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU
6. Hi @divyenduz Would love to know business reasons also? (reference with question-3)
   Well, generally OSS is either a hobby venture as a developer solving their own problem OR a company backed venture.
   There is no such thing as “free lunch” and this also applies to OSS software.
   Financing and motivation must exist for the individuals doing OSS. While many projects exist without finances their authors are self-motivated and I think that is good for some projects but not for a whole ecosystem to thrive.
   From the last message, I will pick various roles that we were doing as a country and its impact on OSS and why.
   1. Service role — no OSS because there is a very little culture of OSS when you are an outsourced team.
   2. Products for other countries as an outsourced team — same as 1
   3. Internal products — This is where OSS kick-started but still being profitable in INR is tough, there is some OSS activity but not enough to build the ecosystem and the free mind is still not there to invest a lot in it. Also, culturally, I think us Indians are a bit skeptical and fewer risk takers (no marriage when no job for examples :sweat_smile: )
   4. Products for the international world — earning in other currencies. More time and freedom. Developer tools need to be OSS nowadays — no one wants another Oracle.
   P.S. company does OSS mainly for trust/hiring reasons.
   Metaphorically, we put food on the table first and then go to movies. We are in the process of reliably putting food on the table and movies (OSS) will come.
7. hi @divyenduz actually I’m working on some opensource projects. I’m trying to solve the issue but I am not getting solved. how to ask them about to solve this issue?
   You can raise an issue, stating what you tried doing and where you are stuck. Generally, maintainers are very helpful and will guide you the right way.
   Writing a failing test case is already a contribution.
   This is a good example: https://github.com/Microsoft/typescript-template-language-service-decorator/issues/8
   Where I have some ideas but I am not sure about the implementation, and the solution I choose in this case is to ask via issue :)
8. @divyenduz I would love to know your experience or suggestions for companies interviews :)
   Depends on the company to company — a lot of people do whiteboard interviews, a lot do practical assignments, most do a mix of both.
   I personally prefer fewer whiteboard interviews and more practical (even real) assignments.
   Thanks All :)
   I guess this is where we call it a day today. Feel free to reach out to me via telegram or Twitter DM if you have any questions. Happy to help. |
   We can also do this again :)
9. Hi, @divu how do you deal with boredom while working remotely? Sometimes it happens you have some exciting work piled and sometimes you don’t. How do you cheer up yourself? You cannot mention reading: Tell us a good story.
   I go out and enjoy with friends, play football, do something meaningful in side projects — yada yada :)

## Personal conclusion -
1. Invest in communication

2. Be honest about your work status

3. Set boundaries about rest and work

4. Listen to your body (rest, exercise, hobby)

5. Always keep running a side project