I ❤ ThoughtWorks.
But I quit!
Here’s why…
I believe you shouldn’t be married to an organisation; but instead to a fundamental philosophy that drives you to achieve what you are looking for, a purpose, at a given point in time in your lives. This in turn should determine, what you work on, who you work with and for how long.
the history
I joined ThoughtWorks in July 2010. It was a juncture in my career when, I was working on a variety of interesting things at Capgemini. Most people who knew me, were surprised that I was leaving and always considered me to be someone who would stay there for the long haul. Well, they were right, in some sense. But personally I saw an opportunity that allowed me to break through the barriers I had back then and further build my career.
Sometime in 2009, I started interacting with Dinesh Tantri, who had just joined ThoughtWorks and was working on building the social collaboration practice there. Knowing him for years through our local community of practitioners, helped me strengthen the relationship and eventually led to me to consider joining him in this initiative. I was happy at Capgemini, but I decided to move out and join ThoughtWorks. It was a bold move, but in the hindsight, the right one.
There was another element of history too; when back in 2004, I walked into the ThoughtWorks Bangalore office. I was doing my MBA then — when Sagar, my high-school friend was placed here as he graduated in Engineering.
I had heard a lot about the company; it made me inquisitive.
And then one day I decided to visit the Diamond District office. By the time I left the place I told myself, this is where I would like to work. Spent the next few months reading and knowing more about the company and its culture.
In 2006, it almost felt like a dream come true, when I got a call from ThoughtWorks. I went through the recruitment process. And I failed. I couldn’t make it through, even the first round. But in 2010, when Dinesh called, it almost felt like a home-coming, and as though I was destined to work here. I knew the time had come and now was the time.
the now
Fast-forward to today and it’s been a wonderful 4.5 years at ThoughtWorks. With its share of ups and downs. It’s one of the most enriching experiences I’ve had — personally and professionally. I’ve become a better human. Understanding the world at large. I’ve always insisted, everyone should study management, it helps in every single thing you do in life. Same applies here; everyone should work at ThoughtWorks, at least once in their career — just for the experience!
Coming back to my decision to leave ThoughtWorks. It’s deja vu; being in a similar situation and state of mind (as I was when I left Capgemini). It only reinstates the belief that, moving out to a newer place will only help me in the long run. Just so it’s clear; I am not leaving because I am unhappy. But because I feel there’s more out there that I could contribute to. There’s more for me to achieve. A bigger purpose. There are things that interest me currently. Things that I feel passionately about. Ones that I see as making the big positive impact in the near future — in general, but particularly for me.
While I put down thoughts on why I am leaving, there are aspects that I would like to highlight — the good and the not-so-good — of being part of this cult that is ThoughtWorks.
Of course these are from my perspective & experiences and are subjective.
the good
When someone asks me how is ThoughtWorks, my response is always — “it’s different”. The culture, the people, the vision, the purpose, the way of working, the way of running the company and everything else. Almost everything about it, is different. In it’s truest sense. I know of many companies that boast of open & free culture, no hierarchies and no cubicles but at ThoughtWorks, it really is that way. I have experienced some of the most intense and open conversations that I can imagine inside an organisation, in here. It gets all the more hard to believe when you realise it’s not really a startup with just a handful of people on board. It’s a mid scale organisation with over 3,000 people and 30 offices around the world. Running a company with that scale (and growing) and sustaining for over 22 years is not an easy task.
travel
Personally speaking though, I had some of the most exciting times of my career so far, with the most important being the opportunity to travel. In this span of 4.5 years at ThoughtWorks, I travelled locally to all our India offices — my favourite being the Pune office. But also, internationally to San Francisco, Chicago, Las Vegas, Manchester, London, Sydney, Melbourne and Beijing. Not to forget, I managed to do short personal trips to Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Denver, Minneapolis and host of other places while on travel (of course on my own). The amount of exposure and learning I’ve had from these trips cannot be quantified. You only realize it, when you get into a conversation with someone and feel good about the know-how you’ve gained over time. I’ve come to believe that one really has to be well-travelled to be a well-rounded person. In fact, my passion for travel has increased many-folds since I started getting opportunities for travel. Which led me onto a lot more personal trips (read vacations) to places that I wouldn’t have imagined visiting — everything from a short trip spotting migratory birds a couple of hours away from my local office, to doing an exhaustive 10 day long adventure around the island of Borneo.
time
This brings us to the other big advantage I had while working here — the flexibility. Whether it’s flexi-timings, work-from-home or simply giving me enough time to work on my other interests in life such as photography, film-making, supporting local electronic dance music scene or the more important of all, the time with family and friends.
In my stint here, I lost my grandfather, my mother went through a year long chemotherapy treatment (she’s fit & fine now) and had more than a few failed relationships — but I was lucky to have never been under pressure due to work. It wasn’t like work stopped, but just the emotional, moral and financial support I got from the team and company at wide, was invaluable — especially during these tough times.
interests
In terms of my personal interests, I managed to upgrade from being an Instagram photographer to using a DSLR. And that’s gone a long way in building my photography skills. Not to forget the immensely talented photographers we have at work, who have been a continuous learning source. The combination of my interest in photography and my proximity to the local dance music community, I saw myself for the first time enter the field of film-making. Still an amateur but I would like to believe that I’ve come a long way — at least now I am better at understanding good art, a well made film and what goes into it. It was during this time, I started a new project called Reverb, with two other friends (and support from many others). It’s a documentary series based on Indian dance music scene. Trust me, it needs a lot, lot of time investment and it would’ve been impossible, had it not been with the support I got from my workplace.
In a nutshell, ThoughtWorks gave me enough time & support to be able to read more, listen more, watch more, meet more and all in all, learn more. I am skeptical I will get such an environment again to be able spend so much time on personal learning.
Flexibility of time is probably the biggest and best perk I got at ThoughtWorks!
guilty pleasures
Apart from these, there were the materialistic perks that came along (luckily during my stint here), where I was able to buy an iPhone and an iPad, thanks to the productivity bonus we got, back in 2011. I got to be honest here, with my financial state back then and the responsibilities, I would’ve never been able to afford an iPhone (forget about the iPad). Being the big fan that I am of Apple and it’s products, this was a sweet dream come true. Oh, and did I mention that we get to choose our laptops at ThoughtWorks — goes without saying I’ve been on the Macbook since I joined. Earlier on the MacBook Pro and the last couple of years on the MacBook Air. For someone like me, life couldn’t have been cooler! ☺
And then, there’s free food (well almost), you can wear anything to work (well almost) and you can sit anywhere in the office (well almost, again). There are many other good things about working at ThoughtWorks, but I would let you experience it yourself. If you are really excited and curious, then you may want to start by checking out the current openings here, or find and engage in a conversation with ThoughtWorkers on Twitter/Facebook.
the not so good
Well, we all know everything can’t be rosy always. No company can be perfect in all aspects. ThoughtWorks is no different (did I earlier say this is a different place? ☺). Well, yes. In reality, it’s still a company, more particularly the one which has people to its core. No place that’s run by humans can be perfect for everyone. Because each one of us is different. With ThoughtWorks that multiples multi-fold with the freedom and openness it provides to it’s people to share and express — making it that much more difficult to run this place. What is a boon, can some times become the barrier to growth or progress.
chaos
One of the the things that struck me, and struck hard when I joined was the amount of chaos, generally all around in everything. The lack of process and standardisation. Obviously, coming as a lateral hire from a traditional IT services company, the almost lack of structure and process made me uncomfortable in the beginning and later, frustrating at times. Being part of an internal function (IT) ensured that I could clearly see some of ways in which things were run. Chaos in itself may not be such a bad thing, but occasionally I wonder— it’s a miracle how this place manages to run amongst all the chaos.
speed
It’s almost impossible to believe the speed at which things happen at ThoughtWorks. Slowness is becoming an integral part of ThoughtWorks and it worries me. Of course a lot of this is coming from my experience of working in the internal IT team. ThoughtWorks does some fantastic work for their clients, but it could do a lot better looking inwardly. Some might say this contradicts to the fact that ThoughtWorks is follows agile methodology. Well, it does that works brilliantly. However, with things like extreme democracy (explained below), can slow down the execution. Being risk averse (read living in a bubble), can also make you narrow-minded in tredding unknown paths.
bubble
Many ThoughtWorkers seem to live in their own sweet bubble. With a lot of ThoughtWorkers, who haven’t worked at any other company, brings in a level of narrow-mindedness. I really wish more people had the open-mind to things which could lead to some amazing things that ThoughtWorks can do. It also means, at times ThoughtWorkers become very risk-averse. Being what they are, ThoughtWorks should be ready to take more risks.
extreme democracy
The free culture that I referred to earlier, is also a form of an extreme democracy which can be great but quite crazy. Yes, people should have a say, but can’t expect 3,000 people to come to “same” conclusion on a company-wide decision. You cannot have a democratic approach to solving every problem in the company. Ask anything at ThoughtWorks and you will be sure to get 3,000 opinions. And all must be valued and considered. One thing I learnt (well it was re-emphasised), was that you can’t make everyone happy.
the balance
Having shared some of my perspectives I want to highlight one last thing. Balance.
Achieving balance in a chaotic, free, unstructured, passionate and energetic environment, such as ThoughtWorks is near impossible. However, IMHO, ThoughtWorks can do a lot better. There are many quick-wins and areas of improvement, which if addressed can make it that idealistic-impossible-balanced company that we usually read of, in books and articles by luminaries.
ThoughtWorks is probably one of the most unique experiences you can have, of working at an organisation!
the end
ThoughtWorks is and will always remain like a second home for me. I won’t lie; I’ll miss ThoughtWorks.
The warmth and friendliness of the place is undeniable. I really wish my interests and the opportunities at ThoughtWorks, align again; and I would love to return here for another stint.
Till then, here’s wishing everyone at ThoughtWorks the best on their ambitious mission to better humanity through software and help create a socially and economically just world!
And for those who are curious, what next for me… I’m joining Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and will continue to be based out of Bangalore.
