Life in a Start-Up

One year back, I was working in a well established Software firm which was as old as me and most known name in the domain. As most in the industry, I wanted a switch after working for almost 3 years due to xyz reason. After long pursuit, I cleared an interview and soon a second one – both Start-ups. Now it was time to make the big decision - whether to join a Start-up. Positives like best time to take risk as a still a bachelor , would be great chance to learn things and obviously better financial benefits while the risk factor and delay in higher studies made the decision hard. Its funny when you ask others about opinion – “You might not get salary for some months”, “It will be great experience”,  “Be ready for everything” and so on. My best motivator was brother who gave his verdict - “You go and join. But if something goes wrong everyone including me will blame you alone”. So that’s it, go for your gut-feel and I joined a START-UP!!

First day

I reached by 9:30 at office and I was the only one over there. But my first day memory is mostly about the lunch. As a senior-pro recommended we went in search of a restaurant “Unde ka funda”. We had to walk around the streets to find it and after taking 2-3 wrong roads we reached there. It was a “thattu-kada” – which can’t accommodate more than 2 tables and you were actually in the kitchen. Luckily for me, someone decided to move to another Chinese hotel. And there is something special about my date of joining – it was my birth day too. So I had my cake cutting ceremony also.

But in long run terms, office was a house and in I sat in all men’s room, 4 bachelors and CTO- who was crazier than us. It looked like a room of friends rather than a bunch of professionals sitting around. I was the only one in the team who worked on my domain and there was a guy to help me who wont be in office more than 4 hours in office a week. For a person who had set up Php just once in my life, it was a difficult days.

Funny Days

Soon I too was part of the “family” and family was growing fast. It turned out like when we plan for a release - it was discussions, lunch and table tennis at office and coding from home at night. Usually my days were from 6:30am to 11-12pm had soon changed 8am to 1-2am. Best part was, every discussions always had an objective and will achieve it unless a lady cries. In an office of 12 people, you can see people reaching from 9am to 12am and leaving from 5:30pm to 9:30pm on a normal day. But will have lunch always together. Partying was so frequent that you can expect 4 in every month.  My roommate had asked me couple of times even, “So when to you guys actually work, you have party every other day”. It doesn't matter how much you are drunk or what time you reach home, everyone will be online for next hour. There are times I reached home after 2am on consecutive days - first after party and second after release(not the other way).

But when you come to work, there is no compromise either. Sometimes a requirement comes to you and will have to be delivered overnight. You can expect a call at anytime of the day or night and have to be available. I was luckiest one the engineering team to get the least of those calls at midnight. One of the guys had to resolve an issue at midnight just 2 days after his marriage!!

Each one of us had learnt a lot during the period. As there is zero-politics, everyone one is ready to help and co-ordinate. You can pass your work to someone also very easily but will have to accept when someone passes to you too. 

Professionally you can trust anyone, but as in any friendship if someone calls you and say there is a serious issue when you are busy, you can be sure that a false call because he would have solved the issue earlier.

Tough Days
If you ask me about the tough days in last one year, I dont remember a single one. During last release done on a Saturday night, I decided to do it from office and was the only one left at office. But when CTO has sms-ed and called me multiple times asking for the status in the night even when he was in for a movie his wife. And after movie he came to office just to drop me home. He had to wait for another 1hour before getting everything stable. There was also a lady  to test everything throughout the night from home. On worst of releases, when you are backed-up so much, you will never feel the pressure or being cornered.

There is another phase which most Start-ups usually have. When a serious issue comes, employees saying - we are in trouble and we made a wrong decision joining here. Very next day, when looks good the same guy could be saying we are going to be Millionaires soon. But for us, it was smoother compared what many of friends had - there are moments of anxiety but always looked like, we could fix it.

Its all fun to work with people who care for each other and is ready to complement each other. I always believe, I am quite often granted more than even what I wished for and after one year in the start-up, I am its is top on that list.

We are the hardworking Software Engineers

When I was young I have heard someone saying, the laziest people on earth are school teachers. They had summer vacations, 2 set of other 10 days vacations, all 2 days weekend-off, class timing not more than 9:15 to 4:00, same syllabus for atleast 5years and more importantly no risks at all. But the best part is most of them will be complaining about their ‘hectic’ life. 

Time has changed, professions have changed, and schedules have changed. Teachers have to work on Saturdays, vacation classes are common and their life got more hectic but they are no more complaining.

Then who has replaced teachers of past decade??

 I believe it's people like me, “Software Engineers”. We usually have 5 days week. We just have to sit and relax in air-conditioned rooms for 9 hours of which normally we work for not more than 6 hours. And the funniest part is, we are doing something any high-school pass out can do; but we talk to others as if we are  working on rocket science. Salary, we can`t compromise on that, we need a 100% hike every year.

There are many common things I have heard or observed from many of my friends who are holding the designation.

1. If we reach office by 11:00, we are early. But we will stay till 7:30 in the evening. (Obviously girls cannot work after 6pm, it is late. Yeah, they can roam on a weekend till midnight, that’s a different scenario)
2. We don’t know why, all our seniors are dumb. Senior Software Engineers are dumb, Team Leads/Tech Leads are dumber and Project Managers are the dumbest.
3. We know how our seniors reached there- playing politics and favouritism.
4. At work, we have a “Use Me” tag; all works no one wants to do, will always come to us.
5. If we work on a night, we had a hectic day and need a compensatory-off. Same rule applies if we work on a weekend, even if it is for one hour.
6. Fridays are days for fashion-show at office, don’t miss it. (I loved my bus ride to Electronic City)
7. In a discussion, always use some random terminologies. For example, I once told my Lead, “The method you have implemented is based on greedy algorithm. This is a particular case of knapsack problem and we need to have a proper backtracking”. And my Lead immediately waved a green flag to my new algorithm.
8. After all these great works, there comes the appraisal. Everyone whom we hate will get a grade change or better hike, and never for us.
9. And finally we are bored with our work and no hikes too. We are going to try our luck with next employer

When it comes to person life, we again have some strict rules.

1. We can’t wake before 7:30 though we prefer 8:00. But on weekend, we cannot wake before 10:00. We hit the bed after 12, not even got knows what we do till that time.
2. We can wear only branded items, be it a shirt, jeans, shoes or whatever it is.
3. Volvo is the only bus we can get in. While travelling we need to hear songs from our phone and will be having a thick Novel to make others think we are reading a lot.
4. Multiplex is the only place apart from your laptop where we can watch movies. A movie ticket can never be cheaper than 250 bucks.
5. Bars are something which is no more matching us, we will visit only pubs.
6. We meet more friends in Facebook or GTalk rather than in person. We cannot live without internet for sure.
7. We can give treats with food-coupons like Sodhexo and Ticket coupon but cant buy you a Paav-Baaji by paying 15bucks.

If I have missed out any, please add them below.