Hangin’ with Sachin from DataXu

As the leader of The TechGen I get to meet a ton of really cool people — students, founders, operators, etc. It’s one of my favorite parts of my job! I got to sit down with Sachin Doiphode from DataXu to hear about his role there as an Operational Software Engineer. Here’s what he had to say:

Sarah C: Where are you from originally and how did you end up in Boston?
Sachin D: I’m originally from Pune, India. I came to the United States for my Masters degree, and after completing it in December 2015 at Northeastern University I started working at DataXu.

SC: What’s your role at DataXu?
SD: My role here at the ‘Xu is as an Operational Software Engineer. Currently I’m working with our Realtime Systems (RTS) team, which is responsible for handling and processing bid requests from a wide variety of advertising exchanges.

SC: Why did you pick DataXu?
SD: While studying for my Masters at Northeastern University, I heard a lot about DataXu’s technology. It was originally developed for NASA’s Mars mission, and that’s definitely not a story you hear every day. Additionally, a lot of seniors from Northeastern have joined DataXu in the past, and their reviews online of our company were all super positive.

SC: What does your day-to-day look like?
SD: My team works across a bunch of different time zones. To make sure I am caught up on everything that has been happening overnight, I start my day by reading emails and checking HipChat. I then dive into handling bid requests from ad exchanges, which presents an exciting new challenge every day. I love learning and have enjoyed getting up to speed on the programmatic advertising space by researching our industry and speaking with senior members of our team.

Every other day I also have engineering scrum meetings, where every person on the team updates their colleagues on their status, which is really helpful. If I am experiencing an issue that someone on the team has already faced, senior members of the team suggest improvements during the scrum to help me out.

SC: What drives you? As in, what about your work gets you up and excited in the morning?
SD: There is so much to learn in the advertising industry — and trying to learn it all is very motivating! I also love working with the team here. Everyone is eager to help and it is a great environment.

SC: What advice would you give yourself as a college student?
SD: Steve Jobs once said, “Stay hungry, stay foolish.” I am really inspired by this quote and I would advise students to always have hunger to learn new things and tackle new challenges to the very best of their abilities!