Vinit Shahdeo sharing his IT career journey

TechnoVans started Tech Stories series. And this is the first tech story we are sharing. Vinit Shahdeo a coder by passion and profession. TechnoVans team interviewed Vinit and got some amazing answers to the questions. We are sure Vinit’s thoughts and guidance will help all the people who are working or looking to work in the IT industry as a programmer/Developer. Currently, he is working as a Software Engineer at Postman. Let’s know more about Vinit as a Techie.

1. Tell our readers about yourself and your education/experience.

It was my curiosity and approaching every new object with the question of how it worked that developed my interest in computers, which was introduced to me during my school days at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, where I studied till my 10th STD. Of all the subjects taught to me throughout the week, I always eagerly waited for the Computer practical class which happened only once a week.

After completing my 12th STD from DPS Bokaro, like many others, I went to Kota with an aim to study at one of the premier engineering institutes of India. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it to IITs which left me disheartened. But the love and interest in programming were still alive and irrespective of the college I would get, I was determined to pursue Computer Science Engineering.

I still remember the day back in 2015 when I was at the counseling for admission into VIT with my dad, how upset I was that I didn’t get CSE! Now, I look back into the moment only to realize that I took the best decision of pursuing B.Tech in IT at VIT rather than pursuing CSE from any other college.

When days at college began, I came to know about different student clubs and chapters from seniors. I ended up joining VinnovateIT and CodeChef VIT. Working with the amazing team members, I learned and honed my skills day by day. I participated in many hackathons, workshops, and events to ace my knowledge on technology. I worked as President of VinnovateIT(an incubation and innovation Lab in VIT Vellore) and VP(tech) of CodeChef VIT(a student chapter at VIT Vellore) for one year. Our club has organized many events under my leadership which helped me to grow as a leader. I also spent time creating a few fine projects with my team. The fun that we had in our club events is something that I’ll cherish forever.

The green dots on my GitHub profile represent my journey. My journey varied from sleeping during Soft Skills classes to spending sleepless nights acing my coding skills, from missing assignments deadlines to securing positions at hackathons and mostly from being turned down by multiple companies in their HR rounds to get multiple job offers.  I didn’t even realize when these four years passed.

Throughout the four years, I’ve molded myself to fight fear with hope, arrogance with confidence, thoughts with actions, actions with the response, and pessimism with optimism. I’m indebted to VIT for everything I’ve achieved in my life.

I’m still connected with my juniors and mentor them on a regular basis for their upcoming hackathons, events, and job interviews. Currently, I’m working as a Software Engineer at Postman. 

2. How did you struggle to start your career in the IT industry?

The college placement was the most challenging phase for me. I got my first job after being rejected by 22 companies in the final rounds.  Each day began with going for interviews at 8:00 AM and ended by coming back to the hostel around 11 PM with rejection after rounds of interviews. This was heartbreaking. I used to clear the coding rounds and the tech rounds but the managerial rounds were tough for me. The more rejection I faced, the more I learned from the interviewers as the expectations vary from company to company.  As they say “Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can”. I didn’t lose my hope and eventually graduated with multiple job offers.

3. What programming languages do you love most and why?

It’s Javascript. I’ve had a deep abiding love for web pages since my early teens. Back in 2009 when my friends were excited about opening an account on Facebook, what intrigued me was – How Facebook worked? I used to inspect the source code and do some changes, which made me feel like Mr. Robot :p

JavaScript is a scripting language that allows us to implement complex things on web pages. I love all kinds of JS frameworks. One can do anything with it. It has been here for long and will stay for long because it evolves as much as you keep developing with it. With open source contributions and everything, it’s an endless sea of new and interesting things coming up every day for you to grab and work with.

4. How do you spend your regular day (daily routine)?

My day starts at 9:30 AM. I wake up after snoozing my alarms multiple times. :p Having started my office work at 10:30 AM, I spend some time checking my calendar, emails, and Slack messages with a cup of Coffee. Most mornings, I begin my day with my favorite RJs. I am a person who prefers FM Radio over Spotify.

For the next three hours, I sit in front of the computer finishing my tasks in the current sprint. I take a lunch break at 1:30 pm. Pre COVID-19, I used to have lunch with my colleagues with some gripping gossip. Nowadays being at home, I grab my phone and scroll memes on Instagram. I get back to work at 2:30 pm and grab my second hit of caffeine to continue working till late evening. I miss the evening tea with my friends before the pandemic hit the world. I try to finish all my office work by 7:00 PM or 8:00 PM. There may be some days where I work for longer hours to save time for later in the week to enjoy other activities.  As long as I’ve wrapped everything up and know what I’m doing the next day, I’m good to keep my eyes off of VSCode/Slack.

After finishing my office work, I make to-do lists to get organized for the day ahead. Now it’s time to tinker with my GitHub projects and check the different channels of the communities I’m part of. At the end of every day, I scroll Twitter lying on the bed till I fall asleep. 

Weekdays are for coding but weekends are for partying! I work on weekdays to enjoy weekends with my friends, that’s my motivation. I’m luckier to have friends from completely different backgrounds (other than engineering) i.e. Fashion Technology. Hanging out with them makes me feel better as we don’t discuss work, we discuss life, we have fun! No matter what’s happening in our life, weekends are all about cups of tea, late-night rides, hunting good places to eat. Unfortunately, we can not go out, I do enjoy watching Netflix, video-calling my friends as virtual socializing is the new cool.

5. Which websites do you follow to learn about open-source development?

There are no such websites that I do follow to learn about open-source but I am quite active on Twitter which helps me to learn about different open source programs. I do not follow celebrities on Twitter but I do follow a few tech influencers and their regular Tweets help me to learn about recently developed open-source projects. GitHub being my homepage helps me to keep myself updated with what’s happening in the open-source world.

6. How would you describe yourself in three words?

Focused, Approachable & Collaborative.

7. What are your best achievements you are proud of?

I don’t think I can categorize one particular event as the biggest achievement. Getting an opportunity to lead the way in API First Universe as a part of Postman is no less than a great achievement for me. There is still a long way to go because this field always comes with new challenges and opportunities so to excel and achieve one should always have the desire to get better every day which in itself is an achievement.  For example, I work with JavaScript, which is an endless sea. Every time I browse GitHub and I find a new framework on top of JavaScript. It’s fun to see such an awesome JavaScript community on GitHub.

8. Where do you see yourself after 5 years?

The journey has just started, I don’t know where I will land up after few years but one thing I am sure about is, I am not going to change my stream, and will continue working in this domain.

I am driven to be the best at what I do and I want to take on challenging projects and work with people I can really learn from. I look forward to learning new skills and improving my knowledge to advance my career. Five years from now, I might be someone who could train and mentor others to begin their journey into tech. Having said that, I see myself in a managerial role demonstrating my leadership capabilities.

9. Are you willing to code for a lifetime or you have some different plans?

If you mean, sitting in front of a computer and code all day, then it’s BIG NO! AFAIK this is something which no one does. Coding is a creative work, so most of the work is thinking, reading, learning new things, especially when you need to create something new or need to use new technology.

Learning is a life-long process and I aspire to learn and grow in the IT industry. Today I’m a Software Developer, I might be a Software Architect tomorrow. Solving a problem through technology will be forever. 

10. What will you say to the techies who are struggling to get a job as a developer or programmer? How will you motivate them?

Firstly be grateful wherever you are — be it with or without a job, right now.  As they say, “Never compare your first chapter with someone’s last chapter”. Compete with your past-self;  your code quality should always be improved from the last time. There’s no substitute for hard work and consistency, and this domain is no different – just code and improve yourself every day. Improvement is a continuous process. Your eagerness to learn and a habit of improving yourself will get you hired one day.

Getting a dream job as a developer might be tough but getting employment shouldn’t be tough if you’re passionate enough. Get an internship/contract job but do not settle. Once you start appearing for job interviews, and you might have a few of your dream companies knocking down your door, until they aren’t, and you are left to choose among the slim pickings just to not be unemployed, and you know, you should go for it. Go for the low paying job that will get you to your next awesome job, but start somewhere. I say go for it, and learn a lot and leave soon. There are many startups that are looking for curious souls and you just need to hunt for them. Sooner or later, you will find the best employer for you. 

As they say, good things take time but really great things happen in the blink of an eye. Do not lose your heart. Realizing that the fear of failure is something we all struggle with is very important.

If not an employee then you might become an employer, no one knows. What if your idea can become the next biggest MNC! You can consider freelancing with your skill sets. There are many companies and individuals who look to hire developers solely for a project. The best part of these opportunities is the flexibility in your scheduling, as you can work around with your day job or other commitments.

Always remember this quote “Success is a journey, not the destination”. Experience your journey to become the next leader who leads by example. Lastly, eat and sleep well(you deserve it) and always be kind to yourself. 

11. What are your thoughts about the TechnoVans.com platform?

The best part about TechnoVans.com is that it was started as an avocation and not as a venture. The stories of various Indian talents shared on this platform are highly inspiring. I highly recommend this platform to people with an entrepreneurial mindset. The startup success stories shared on platforms are highly inspiring.

Follow Vinit on Twitter, LinkedIn, GitHub

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