Meet the Nerd Shilpi Agrawal
1. How did you get started in Computer Science?
Frankly speaking I was never fond of Science, Technology, Computers or any of the geeky stuff. Before coming to an Engineering college, I had never even heard of what computer science is! I thought of pursuing Engineering as my career since everybody I knew of was doing the same. And during my VIT counseling everyone advised me to opt for computer science as it was considered to be the most sought after branch. That’s how I got into Computer Science.
But after getting into it, I totally freaked out. I had never done any coding before. In my first semester, I had C as my subject and I got C grade in it! I found the course offered here was totally different from whatever i studied in school. And everyone with me was already coding for more than 3 years. I started losing my confidence but I always believed in one thing, ”Nothing is impossible”.
If you have no option other than surviving with ”that god damn thing”, then start learning it, have fun. So that’s what I did. I love learning, I like learning new new things everyday. And after my first semester i started coding on my own, I started writing small small programs on my own rather than by rote. At that time I didn’t even know how to write a for loop. But my first program was a C program using structure, which was far ahead of for loops. And yeah, it executed without any error and that boosted my confidence! Since then I never looked back, and by God’s grace I managed to survive here and now I love it. :D
2. What was your path to Skcript?
I think my path to Skcript was already defined in my destiny. Even in my wildest dream I had never thought that I will end up working at such an awesome place with such energetic people. I met Karthik and Swaathi in WTM 2013, since that time I was eager to work at Skcript. Placement season was going on in my college, and facing rejection everyday after reaching the final round was difficult to take. But in my heart I knew that I was never going to be placed in all these companies, so called “dream companies” because i knew that I don’t have the thing they look for, and what I want, they didn’t offer.
But still I had to try because in these reputed colleges being placed defines your success, and posting it on your Facebook has become a trend among final year students. I didn’t want to do all those things but one thing I desperately wanted at that time was to wait for that “one” day when I would call up my parents and grandparents and tell them that I am placed :). That pressure was breaking me down.
I used to keep track of Skcript and one day Swaathi shared some post of launching their product Evolvr and at that moment i realized that I love those guys. They were the kind of people, I had always wanted to work with. And one fine day i sent a mail to Swaathi mentioning about my desire to join skcript. I sent that from Vellore at night and the very next morning i had a written test for Amazon. I left the exam, took a bus the same night came back to Chennai, to meet Karthik and Swaathi.
It was a momentary decision, I had no idea what was coming next. I had a lot of pressure from my parents to get into a MNC, but i didn’t want to follow someone else’s dream and their definition of success. For me success is just one thing, to love what you are doing. After that, Swaathi and Karthik replied and we had our first interview at Starbucks. And from that day my awesome journey at Skcript started. And I just pray that never comes to an end.
3. What’s the most interesting technical challenge you’ve worked on since joining?
The most interesting challenge that I have worked on since joining is probably everything we ever worked and are still working are interesting because they are challenging. Every day we need some new feature or attribute and we don’t have any choice other than making it work. Hell yeah! “We are engineers we will somehow make it work” ;). We are working for every profile; we are testers, developers, researchers, network admins, you name it we are there.
4. What do you want to work on next?
I want to work on Artificial Intelligence. I know it will be really challenging but it fascinates me deep down.
5. What is your favorite core value of Skcript, and how do you live it?
Have passion for something and give your 100% to make it work. I am passionate about making this country and this world a better place to live in. I know on a larger scale I have not even reached 0.0000…1% but as we say charity starts from home. I think to make it work, I am giving my 100% .
6. What’s your favorite Skcript experience?
My favorite Skcript experience was our first tour to ECR resort and Coimbatore tour.
7. What would you say to those who’ll be joining Skcript in future?
First thing i would like to say is Skcript is not anymore a startup, we have grown out of that phase. Yeah we are a small team but we are equal to a 100 employee company. There is not even a single thing which we cannot accomplish. We are a super exciting team whose driving force is not money. We all have our innumerable small dreams and our passion keeps us driving towards our goals.
“We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for. -George Mallory “.
And if you need some daily motivation Karthik will always be there for you.
Originally published at blog.skcript.com.
