It was a wonderful time filled with lots of learning, ups and downs, where I spent my 2.9 years at Neewee right after college, which was my first company.
The First Call
It was a day when all of my hostel mates were there (either we bunked class or it was a holiday—I don't remember 😅), in the middle of some arguments. It was very normal to have friendly fights with your hostel mates. Suddenly, I got a call, and it became my excuse to step out of the fight.
Initially, I couldn’t hear much—just noise and sounds. Later, I realized it was an HR call. She asked a few questions about my qualifications and availability (the usual HR questions) and scheduled an interview. But honestly, I didn’t even remember when I had applied for the role. I figured out the company name and details only after receiving the interview invite email 😶.
Interview
There were two rounds of technical interviews. I was really impressed by the first question asked by the interviewer, Rahul Garg—"How do you blink an LED?" It’s like the "Hello World!" program for embedded developers. Then, the questions covered different topics, my projects, and my experience. Overall, it went well.
A few days later, I got an invite for the second interview with Gucchu. Even though I was a bit nervous after stalking the interviewer on LinkedIn, it went really well. The questions were mostly about my past experience and projects. The second round went smoothly, and I got the offer 😉.
First Day
After all the final-year drama from college, I came to Bengaluru (Bangalore). My joining date was June 1st, but my last day in college was May 26th. It was sudden—just three days after college, I had to move to Bangalore for my first full-time job.
Like anyone else, I was really excited. A one-week stay at Ginger Hotel with continental breakfast was a completely new experience for me.
After all the excitement, I joined Neewee on June 1st. As a fresher, everything was new—HR orientations, processes, new people, a new workspace. Learning how to deal with each situation was a whole new experience for me.
Rishee Team
I joined as an Embedded Engineer, so I was part of the Rishee Team (aka IoT team). Here we go! The team was sitting inside a lab on the 2nd floor, while everyone else was on the 3rd floor.
It was a memorable experience with the Rishee team—the KT or whiteboard sessions by Rahul Garg before starting any new task, endless disagreements and discussions on every topic, and working with highly skilled Neha Ji (the only one who could set up Eclipse with ESP-IDF). Then there was Aravind, who always tried to break our code (a typical QA guy!), Dipendra with his special yummy food, Hemanth—the moto/mechanical/3D/machine expert, Sneha, who was always scared of her PG owner, and Milind, who was always busy handling clients. Then our biggest support, Gucchu. These people truly helped shape me from a college kid into an engineer.
To Mumbai
After a few months, I got the chance to visit a client location in Mumbai. I was kind of nervous, but I had to go. It was also my first flight experience. Three weeks in Mumbai brought a lot of new experiences—working from early morning to late night at the client site, the soundproof room where Akshay Bhagat and I found some peace from the surrounding noise, exploring every dish on the Hotel Auris menu, and discovering Mumbai on weekends. There, I met four more amazing people — Akshay, Piyush, Abhishek and Aman. Altogether, those three weeks were filled with learnings and fun.
To 3rd Floor
Just after I returned to Bangalore, I was pulled into some Python-related tasks. That’s where I met Sarat. Soon after, my place was moved to the 3rd floor (eventually, the entire Rishee team shifted there). There, I worked on many projects, handled clients, and managed everything from requirement gathering to deployment. It was a completely different experience. I worked with Sarat, Rachna, Akshay Kundap (the SQL expert), Piyush, Abhishek, and Ananya.
Algo Team
After more than a year, many things changed, and finally, I was pulled into the Algo Team 💡. I met new people— Sarat, Gokul, Manish, Prashant, Kusuma, Rudra, Nandita, Bhumika, Avinash, and Shoen. Initially, it was full busy. lots of night outs, production issues, new features, and bugs. I learned a lot. The team vibe was completely different, everyone supported each other to bring out the best and make things work.
Vizag Trip
One of the most memorable experiences was the Vizag trip for my manager 🫣 Sarat's wedding. It was 1000+ km away from Bangalore. The journey was filled with fun. The racing between Avinash and Gokul, long meetings between the BA team and the Algo team, experiencing delicious Andhra style food, staying in tents, hiking, tea breaks, and endless food adventures. I really enjoyed it.
My Contributions
Over the past 2.9 years, here’s what I’ve contributed as a Software Engineer:
- 38 repositories
- 2,512 contributions
- 1,321 commits made
- 87,076 lines of code added (+)
- 66,651 lines of code removed (-)
Thanks to the People!
Everyone at Neewee played a role in shaping my journey.
- First of all, thanks to the people who gave me this opportunity (founders, HRs, decision-makers).
- Thanks to Nataraj, Gucchu, Suyog and Harsimrat for the opportunity.
- Thanks, Parasu Bhaiyya, for keeping the office fresh every day and providing us with energy drinks (tea and coffee).
- My first manager and teammate, Rahul Garg, for your continuous feedback and support.
- Aravind, who gave me a Mallu company and helping me to understand the process in the very beginning.
- Neha, thanks for the feedback, suggestions, and mentorship. Also, thanks for the delicious food you prepared for me.
- Hemanth, the best at documentation and explanations—thanks for the free consultancy on fixing my bike.
- Dipendra, my mentor and foodie buddy. Great company for both code and food.
- Milind, Thanks for patiently explaining things multiple times and for your advice.
- Piyush, Abhishek, and Akshay, for hosting me in Mumbai and the endless roasting sessions.
- Akshay Kundap and Ananya - You guys support me a lot in understand complex queries.
- Rachna, for bringing lunch and sweets for me.
- Nandita, for all the lunch companies, support, suggestions and advice.
- Sarat, my mentor and biggest supporter—thank you for your continuous feedback, guidance, and even the teasing!
- Gokul and Manish, thanks for all the support, despite our never-ending debate on VS Code & PyCharm.
- Kusuma, thanks for the SQL help—I hope you’ve learned enough Malayalam from me ;)
- Avinash, for all the fun, including the pepper spray incident 😂.
- Bhumika, Prashanth and Rudra, for all the support and help.
- Rahul Reddy, for patiently clearing all my doubts.
- Rahul Baliga, Aniket and Somu — I know I disturbed you guys a lot. Thanks for patiently deploying things even late at night.
- Pavan, Making sure that we all are connected.
- Abijith and Sourab for all the roasting, feedback, support, and for handling clients and developers so patiently.
- The entire BA team—for bravely taking customers fire and then calmly passing the issues to developers.
- The support team, for patiently addressing customer issues and doing backups and restorations multiple times.
- The QA team, for testing our code multiple times.
- Shubham Gour, for patiently checking multiple tickets and ensuring processes were followed.
- All developers, for spending days and nights to keep things up and running.
- Thanks to every single person I met at Neewee!
This journey has been incredible, and I’m grateful for every moment. Thank you, Neewee!🚀 Ma'a salama!