��Ф�� India

Unlocking Potential: My Transformative Mentorship Experience at ��Ф��

Tuhin Chakraborty — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 06:57:05 +0000

Enrolling in the mentorship program at ��Ф�� was a decision driven by my eagerness for personal and professional growth, particularly in the field of product management. I was seeking guidance and mentorship from seasoned professionals who could help me navigate the intricacies of this dynamic and ever-evolving domain. The program seemed like the perfect opportunity to gain insights, expand my skill set, and accelerate my career trajectory. It was through the mentorship program at ��Ф�� India that I was fortunate to be paired with Sushant Mathur, a highly experienced Product Management professional. His wealth of knowledge and expertise in product domain made him an ideal mentor to guide me on this transformative journey.

The Foundation of a Successful Mentorship

The mentor-mentee arrangement with Sushant was structured in a way that allowed for regular interaction and fruitful collaboration. We agreed to bi-weekly meetings where we could discuss progress, challenges, and opportunities. Right from our initial meeting, he emphasized the importance of building trust and setting clear expectations. He provided a safe and open environment where I could freely express my concerns, aspirations, and goals. Through active listening and empathy, he made sure I felt heard and understood. This laid a solid foundation for our mentorship journey. Sushant worked closely with me to define both short-term and long-term objectives. Together, we pinpointed areas where I aspired to excel, such as technical acumen, customer engagement, and product knowledge. Leveraging his extensive industry experience, he guided me in creating a personalized roadmap to success, complete with actionable steps and measurable milestones to track progress.

Knowledge Sharing and Guidance: Leveraging Expertise

The role as a mentor extended beyond simply imparting knowledge; he became a constant source of guidance and support. Regular one-on-one meetings and mentoring sessions provided a platform for continuous learning. He shared valuable insights, industry best practices, and relevant resources to help me navigate the challenges and complexities of my new role. Whenever I encountered roadblocks or faced obstacles, he was there to offer guidance and help me find the best solutions. Importantly, his mentorship went beyond the professional realm. He recognized the occasional self-doubt and imposter syndrome that can creep in when transitioning into a new role. He offered unwavering encouragement and reminded me of my strengths and potential. His support and belief in my abilities instilled confidence, enabling me to tackle obstacles head-on and unlock my true potential.

Celebrating Successes and Learning from Setbacks: The Journey of Growth

Throughout our mentorship journey, Sushant and I celebrated every success, regardless of how big or small. Whether it was successfully executing a complex project, overcoming a technical challenge, or receiving positive feedback, he ensured that each accomplishment was acknowledged and celebrated. Equally important, we also reflected on lessons learned from setbacks, transforming them into valuable growth opportunities. The mentorship program at ��Ф��, facilitated by the incredible guidance of Sushant, has had a profound impact on my personal and professional development. It has provided me with the necessary tools, insights, and support to thrive in my new role as a Solutions Engineer. The experiences and outcomes we have shared together highlight the transformative power of mentorship.

Transformative Mentorship: Empowering the Leaders of Tomorrow

I encourage others within their respective organizations to take advantage of similar mentorship programs. The benefits are immense, ranging from acquiring new skills and knowledge to gaining guidance and support from experienced professionals. Mentorship not only accelerates career growth but also fosters lifelong connections and shapes the leaders of tomorrow. The mentorship between Sushant, the experienced Director of Product Management, and myself, the transitioning Solutions Engineer, serves as a testament to the profound impact mentorship can have. Through trust, guidance, and support, he has empowered me to reach new heights in my professional journey. This mentorship experience has been invaluable, and I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to be part of such a transformative program.

Learnings from The Big Pitch – Global Edition

Editorial Team — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 09:46:42 +0000

Learning is a continuous journey and the recent ideation event – The global Big Pitch 2023 was an incredible experience that was equally challenging and rewarding. To give you a quick view into its extent, the event spread over a month had about 51 qualified teams competing against each other with awesome ideas and 13 teams presenting in front of the live audience and judges. Ten of these made it to the winning list.

Leading an event of such scale was a unique experience. Here’s what I learnt from this one!

Collaboration is Key
An old proverb says – “Two heads are better than one!” and time and again I have seen the power of collaboration in achieving feats that are difficult to crack alone. When participants from different backgrounds and experience come together, their diversity also brings in truly amazing ideas to the fore.

Freedom Breeds Creativity
Often, I’ve been blown away with the results that comes from pushing our own boundaries. This Big Pitch, almost all ideas were creative and out of the box proving that freedom to take risks often leads to bigger rewards.

Importance of Planning and the Need for Continuous Adaptation
To ensure, a seamless and fair experience to all who are participating, judging, mentoring or even taking care of operations, a lot of groundwork is needed. And even after your best plans, sometimes, we need to adapt to the curveballs that arise due to the real time situation. How well we adapt to it will always be the most important factor determining the success of the event we’re leading.

Embracing Failure and Wins
No matter how good our ideas are, failure and success are the two sides of the same coin and at the end of any event, some of us will win, and some will lose! We benefit most from the experience when we embrace both our wins and failures equally.

Your Community is Your Superpower
To pull up anything of great importance, it is important to lean into the community we are a part of while encouraging each other to give their best. An event like Big Pitch was a result of coming together of a whole community of experts working in the background to ensure the show goes on! For example, the event wouldn’t have been possible without the amazing participants, judges and the core team that continued to communicate, collaborate, and adapt.

I hope everyone who participated in this event learnt something new and thank all of you for being such a sport!

��Ф��’s successful partnership with The/Nudge Foundation and The Apprentice Project

Editorial Team — Wed, 19 Oct 2022 08:41:30 +0000

��Ф�� believes giving back to the community is an amalgamation of two kinds of contribution – people and capital. Depending on the requirement, we, at ��Ф�� Bengaluru Global Capability Center, contribute by either funding a project or volunteering our team members’ time. In 2021, keeping with our CSR objectives, we partnered with The/Nudge Foundation and The Apprentice Project (TAP) to focus on a community initiative that promotes education and capacity building for future generations. We decided to incubate this early-stage nonprofit, leveraging technology to solve complex social challenges together. Our contribution includes, both non-financial and financial support, in the form of trainings, bootcamps, grants and leadership engagement.

Over 250 million students from low-income communities in India lack the socio-emotional learning (SEL) skills, opportunities, and exposure to thrive in the 21st century. TAP is one such initiative that is working towards building SEL skills and knowledge in these children through self-learning videos delivered via WhatsApp chatbot- TAP BUDDY. ��Ф��, being a technology solutions expert, is now helping TAP turn this around into a technically scalable and sustainable system. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP), ��Ф�� is helping train their system to respond to students at moments when flow editor alone cannot.

By mid-2022, ��Ф�� leadership was already supporting and scaling up this effort through direct interactions during planning and implementation. They have been mentoring the program and making a noticeable difference through their experience and expertise. Jacksy Verghese, with over 24 years of strategic IT and hospitality leadership experience; Vinod Kesvan, a Global Product & Technology leader; Prasad Parigi, with more than 23 years of experience leading Enterprise software products spanning across several domains and Sanjeeb Patel – Director, Software Engineering, form this incredible group of mentors.

From exchanging ideas to giving advice at every step in the lifecycle of ��Ф��/Nudge program, the mentors have helped in achieving significant milestones. First, Natural Language Processing (NLP) went live with testing across 2400 government school students. Later, the NLP integration was completed with the support of Glific, TAP and The/Nudge.

In line with the vision to empower low-income children to become leaders of today and tomorrow, TAP worked with around 10,000 children in 2022-23. Their intention is to scale up to 100,000 children in the coming years. We are geared up in helping TAP achieve this goal and bring transformation at the ground level.

My Internship Experience with ��Ф��

Editorial Team — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 08:20:45 +0000

When I joined ��Ф��, I was quite excited and nervous at the same time because it was going to be my first experience in the corporate world. Six months later, I am glad that I chose ��Ф�� to start my corporate journey.

Our internship journey commenced with a 3 week-long ’Intern Boot Camp 2022’ which was held virtually owing to the pandemic, where various sessions were conducted by ��Ф�� leaders to familiarize us with various tools and technologies which we would require in our day-to-day work. Along with these technical sessions, we also had various fun activities that fostered communication, collaboration and team building skills amongst the interns, who had come from various colleges across the country.

At the end of the Intern Boot Camp, a hackathon was organized, where we were required to submit our hacks with a working code along with a demo at the end of the event. So, after three days of working on the hack along with my team ‘Bon Voyage’ we got an opportunity to demo it in front of our senior leaders. We were elated that we secured the 3^rd position in the hackathon, even though we were shooting for first

After the Intern Boot Camp, I started working as a Software Developer with the GetThere team . GetThere is ��Ф��’s corporate travel booking platform which serves millions of business travelers in over 100 countries. My Director and my Manager ensured I feltat ease in the team. I can’t thank my colleagues enough for being so helpful and supportive. Several knowledge transfer sessions were conducted by experts within the GetThere team, which helped me better understand the capabilities of the platform, its architecture, processes, services etc.

I recently started working on Odyssey, which is GetThere’s Release Management tool, and my work revolves around developing new features and UI enhancements. Apart from this, our Director and Manager gave GetThere interns an opportunity to work on an exciting project called LEAP (Loyalty Exchange Accelerator Platform) where we got a chance to work on Blockchain technology! We worked on this project from scratch and developed a model to offer loyalty points on travel/hotel bookings, which can be redeemed to get a discount on the passenger’s next flight or hotel booking. This was developed to promote frequent travel by awarding the frequent travelers with loyalty points which could be redeemed later. We modeled this feature using Hyperledger Iroha which is a business blockchain framework, designed for infrastructure projects that need distributed ledger technology. During this project we had weekly meetings scheduled with our Director and Manager, where we brainstormed together on the LEAP Project, and I felt incredibly lucky that I got a team where my leaders allowed me to speak my mind and where all my suggestions were heard. Working on a new technology and a new project from scratch gave me the confidence that I belong here in the Software world, and now I can take up any challenge that is presented before me in the future!

I am extremely fortunate that I can learn and explore something new at ��Ф�� every day. Work, development, learning, innovation, and joy all come together at ��Ф��! I am excited to continue my corporate journey with ��Ф�� and help shape the future of travel.

Day in The Life of a Product Manager – Part 2: Krishna RKS

Editorial Team — Fri, 13 May 2022 10:46:16 +0000

Not all days are alike for a Product Manager, yet there are some common themes that cut across. Through this article, I share how a day in my life looks like. If some of the inputs mentioned look very specific, that is only because I’m chronicling a particular day – May 10, 2022.

My Morning Routine

I know that I have a hectic day ahead, yet I’m quite eager to get on, bursting with energy. There are three different topics which requires my attention today – a go-to-market plan for a feature which is completing the development phase, next is the discovery process for a feature which is to be developed in the next quarter, and finally, a customer call in which I will have to present the new enhancements introduced to our product. So, I start my day with the most dreaded but important app on my computer – MS Outlook!

Go-to-Market Plan

By the time I finish checking my emails, it is already 11 AM. I then focus on my first task for the day – which is the go-to-market planning for a new feature, where I’ve to I engage with the Product Marketing team during the planning and strategizing phase. In ��Ф��, we have a go-to-market hub, which provides comprehensive guidelines, best practices, and reference material that are required for planning the release activities. One of the biggest advantage of working for an organization like ��Ф�� is that there’s a lot of emphasis on processes, SOPs and meticulous codification of knowledge, which allows product managers like me to focus on innovation, rather than having to reinvent the wheel each time. Sometimes, the process could seem like a bottleneck – but with experience comes a broader perspective and the flexibility to adapt without compromising on the process. Now that I have completed my go-to-market plan and related documentation, it’s time to have a stand-up meeting with the development team and the Technical Product Manager (TPM). At this time during the day, my mood is generally enthusiastic and up-beat.

Current Running Features

A big part of my roles and responsibilities is to ensure that the development team does not face any roadblocks while working on the development of new features. For this, I need to do a lot of groundwork, which involves research, planning, and documentation. But my responsibility doesn’t end there – if the execution is not tracked, it could have serious consequences at a later stage. I work closely with the development team, TPMs, and/or Product Owners, on the acceptance criteria and other details. By the time these meetings are done, it’s lunch time. After lunch, I begin the discovery process for an upcoming feature.

Discovery For an Upcoming Feature

The discovery phase typically involves brainstorming with subject matter experts. I collect all the inputs and do further research to help flesh out the plan. I rely on data analytics and use tools like SQL and Hadoop to extract the relevant data points for this. Once I have prepared my findings, I send them over along with necessary action items to all the relevant stakeholders, which is assigned to owners and a timeline is established. After I have all the necessary inputs to complete the feature requirements, I update the feature in Rally. The documentations for the same is uploaded to a knowledgebase for future reference. It’s evening and though I’m a little worried about the remaining task at hand, my enthusiasm has not reduced.

Customer Engagement

From a product management perspective, engaging with customers on a regular basis is very important. At ��Ф��, we get to do this every other week, which is very healthy. Today, I am going to meet one of the top hoteliers, and a quick search reveals that the participants on today’s call are veterans in the hotel industry. But I am confident and I’ve all my discussion points jotted down. Doing a meeting prep always helps – you are armed with all the information that the customer could ask for. After a very productive call with the customer, I call it a day, and I feel like I’ve had a very productive day. Tomorrow is a new day, with new opportunities and challenges. I hope you like this short glimpse into my typical workday. I’ll conclude this article with one of my favorite quotes, which I practice everyday: . “Be stubborn on vision, but flexible on details”. – Jeff Bezos.

Approach for CI-CD in Machine Learning: A Retail Intelligence Use Case

Editorial Team — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 06:01:06 +0000

An enterprise application software is composed of multiple layers, components and verticals. While until most recently, the foundations of these systems comprised of elements like databases, web-engines, MQs, User interface etc., machine learning based sub systems have made a significant foray into the ecosystem. Like other auxiliary systems that make up part of the bigger ecosystem, sub-systems that implement machine learning practices should also adhere to common software development and deployment strategies like CI-CD covering all functional and nonfunctional facets like code testing, verification, security and portability. Level pegging of a ML system’s CI-CD strategy to a web application system in all characteristics would not be a correct strategy to follow. Retail Intelligence is ��Ф��’s pilot initiative to operationalize systems backed with machine intelligence on production, helping airlines to capitalize on revenues generated from dynamic bundle offers. As part of the initiative, the team formalized a generic approach to implement CI – CD practices for ML project. This article details our strategy and implementation in applying CI and CD practices behind the Retail Intelligence tool’s Machine Learning Systems.

CI – CD & Machine Learning

Continuous integrations and Continuous Delivery / Deployment have become dominant facets of software engineering. Before we dive into the strategy and implementation of CI-CD for machine learning systems, it’s imperative to understand what CI – CD is, and how it might differ for a ML system.

What is CI-CD – CD?

While CI and CD are two different concepts, their lineage and correlation make them almost inseparable in contemporary times.

CI (Continuous Integration) refers to an automation process, that facilitates automated code build, unit / module / integration testing, which are then merged to a shared repository that has defined branches (versions). These branches / versions would eventually be deployed in production.
CD (Continuous Deployment) is a process that is executed in conjunction with CI where the built and tested code are compiled to create artefacts like war, jar, docker image etc. and pushed to an artefact registry like Nexus.
CD (Continuous Delivery) refers to activities that automatically (via a change set management tool) deploys the code to production location

CI CD in a Web Application: A known world example

The core constituents of a web application can be categorized as follows:

Data Store: Relational / no -SQL format cloud or on-premises data bases like Oracle, MySQL etc. These have static URLs on which connection is generally made using JDBC connection by a consumer application
Messaging Infra: MQ’s used by application to communicate between components
Application Artefact: A docker or war files that takes in environment variable for a one time connection setup like DB, MQ, message formatting set up and is good to receive requests and send back meaningful responses

Thus, for a web application, the built artefact from the code that goes though the cycle of CI/CD – CD is deployed as a production endpoint.

CI CD for a Machine Learning Application

What constitutes Machine Learning based Application Development?

Our ML solution uses the below components –

TFX (TensorFlow Extended) are components that form part of the ML pipeline. Components like ExampleGen, StatisticsGen, Trainer, Evaluator etc. are used in conjunction to create a ML Pipeline. Some of these components like Trainer and Transformer run custom code. The TFX components and the custom code components are written using Python.
Kubeflow is the orchestrator for ML-Pipeline. It is a compiled configuration file that records pipeline components, their lineage and run configurations, which run on infrastructure that facilitates machine learning. Examples of these infrastructure can be GKE cluster, AI Platform, Vertex AI on GCP and SageMaker, EKS on AWS.
Docker containers are used to package and run the ML custom code and components. Kubeflow pipeline configuration file is updated with the Docker URI. The pipeline config and docker image are used by infrastructure for training pipelines.
GCS and GCR: Since our ML pipelines are run on GCP, the ML artefacts are made accessible by uploading them on GCS (Kubeflow pipeline config) and GCR (Docker image) for ML infra services to run the pipelines.
Vertex AI Platform Pipelines provides us managed infrastructure services to run Kubeflow pipelines. Here Kubeflow jobs are triggered that run continuous ML pipelines.

What Makes this Different?

Unlike web applications, Machine Learning models are the end products that are deployed at a production endpoint. These models are prepared in the working environment using ML pipelines relying on standard ML libs and APIs along with some custom codes, training data and the distributed computing infra underneath that work in harmony. Thus, the containerized code and configurations that are used to create these models become the primary CI-CD focus. The model that is eventually created in your environment might require a grant mechanism to be the defaulted version at hosting endpoints, something that we are not covering within the scope of this document.

Google’s Recommendation

Google recommends using GCP based services to implement CI-CD for ML based projects. The block below highlights the services that can be used: The suggested approach has the following challenges, when implementing ��Ф��’s standard practices:

Leaving ��Ф��’s CI-CD best practices and adopting an entirely different non-vetted strategy
Changeset management tools for vetted delivery like Armada would be missed out on
Vetted tools for artefact scan like vera-code might have to be skipped
Piggy banking on Google’s build system makes our delivery systems very cloud native

Other challenges:

GCP’s Vertex AI does not have access to ��Ф�� Nexus repo
Pipelines configurations must be created per client per environment wise. Precompiling these configurations would mean higher build time and unwanted artefacts generation

Keeping the above in mind the below figure depicts the strategy to implement CI CD for ML systems built on TFX, orchestrated by Kubeflow and run on GCP’s Vertex AI platform. Key Highlights:

Unlike a Java based web application, where a JAR or the docker image would be the primary entity to be deployed as part of CI CD practices, for ML, the code that creates the pipeline would be treated as the intermediate primary entity to be deployed and delivered
��Ф�� Nexus repo is an intermediary storage repository and the docker image would be copied to GCR, since Vertex does not have access to ��Ф�� Nexus repos. This step can evolve as access processes take more robust shape
Armada is ��Ф��’s changeset management tool in verifying and validating artifact delivery

Implementing CI – CD for Retail Intelligence ML

In line with the above strategy the flow for implementing CI – CD – CD for ML Systems as part of Retail Intelligence is as follows: Core Constituents:

ML Custom code and pipeline gen codes: Codes that are used in ML training pipeline. These components are part of the docker image that is created and used in running pipelines on Vertex
TF (Terraform) codes that are used to create GCE instance. This instance would be used to compile and create pipeline configuration files from the docker image
Shell Script: Orchestrating pipeline creation and artefact deployment on GCE and GCR. Script would be executed in GCE

Key Points:

Docker image and TF code would be scanned using the vera code scanner, thus all the code layers before deployment and delivery would be scanned
The base image of TFX used to create the final docker image would be uploaded to ��Ф�� Nexus repo and to be picked from there to create the final docker image that would be pushed to ��Ф�� Nexus Repo

Summary

The above approach capitalizes ��Ф��’s defined CI – CD best practices in creating standards practices for ML system’s development to delivery lifecycle. As processes are further evolved this approach can be more compact and agile.

Day in The Life of a Product Manager – Part 1: Sushant Mathur

Editorial Team — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 11:37:18 +0000

If you ask a Product Manager (PM) to describe a typical day at work for them, their first response will be that ‘every day is different!’. Although that response may sound vague, it is true in most cases. There is no ‘typical’ day for product managers as they juggle multiple priorities to find a perfect balance between strategy, technology and execution, without losing focus on the customers needs. Having said that, there are many common themes and standard deliverables that dictate most product managers’ daily routines or schedules. In this new blog series titled ‘Day In The Life Of A Product Manager’, we are going to talk to different product managers at ��Ф�� Bengaluru, and find out what a typical day looks like for them. To kick things off, we have Sushant Mathur talking about his day.

Sushant Mathur Director – Product Management When we look at Product Management as a role, multiple factors define their typical duties and responsibilities as a Product Manager. These activities vary based on seniority levels, type of industry, specific focus area, among other variables. But If I have to explain my typical day at work, then I can categorize them into 3 major buckets –

Engagement (Internal/External) – I spend the majority of my time engaging with various stakeholders from different job functions, i.e. strategy, engineering, sales and product marketing, to understand the customer feedback regularly.Another key objective is to ensure that there is no disconnect or gaps in the product priorities and our short, mid and long term strategic vision is well articulated and understood by all key stakeholders. Also, as a product manager, another key aspect for me is ensuring that communication is not just one-way and that I continue to leverage the collective expertise of all key teams to ensure we are building the right solutions and collecting all data points to make the right decisions.
Communicating With Stakeholders: Peter Drucker once said, “the most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t” After all, the important and difficult job is not to find the right answer, it is to find the right question. So, asking the right questions as a product manager helps me find the right answers to brainstorm, prioritize and finalize the roadmap and make key product decisions.This requires me to be part of several scheduled product management meetings along with many ad hoc (and impromptu) meetings. These meetings provide me with good clarity about customer pain points, areas of focus and weaves these learnings into everything we do as product managers to develop products successfully for our customers.

Research, Analysis and Planning: I spend a good amount of my time every day analyzing metrics, market trends, competitive research, reviewing the product roadmap, and preparing for customer meetings and demos. This provides me with all the required details to build a solid runway for my products along with finding the potential opportunities to run experiments around customers’ needs. I also plan to use these data points to generate new ideas and opportunities to build creative solutions for common customer challenges.

The day in the life of a product manager is varied and rarely has the same routine, and the same applies to me as well. However, there are always opportunities to shape the future and the day never become dull for me as the focus is always about solving the complex needs of the customers.

I’d like to pass this next to Krishna RKS, to talk about what a typical day looks like for him.

Introducing NIMBUS – Open Source Functional Test Automation Framework

Editorial Team — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 11:50:34 +0000

The NIMBUS journey started four years back, right after the Lodging team based in Bengaluru grew from a handful of team members to close to a 100.This team was tasked with building a next-generation lodging platform for shopping and booking hotel properties. This effort was tracked under the program named PHOENIX and the platform itself later evolved into what is today known as Content Services for Lodging (CSL). As we all know, with growth comes the challenges of scalability. Even with Phoenix/CSL, we noticed that the processes that were working well with limited number of people started showing signs of strain. One such item was automation testing. With multiple teams working on this, many splinters of automation testing were created, and very soon each one of these started looking significantly different that the rest. That’s when we decided to build an automation framework that would bring in standardization across all aspects of automation. This includes faster automation (data driven testing, debug), ease of execution (test case tagging), smooth analysis (html reports) and post execution metrics (result analytics). Why name it NIMBUS? When we started this effort, we realized we were building something that can also be used outside the scope of the program (PHOENIX) we were working on then. We wanted to choose a name that would be closely associated with the program, irrespective of where it will be used in the future. PHOENIX, which is an immortal bird in Greek mythology, has always been associated with a halo around its head – called NIMBUS. That name seemed appropriate for the framework that we were creating. Hurdles Along the Way There are many ways to go about building a framework, but we wanted to achieve it in such a way that there is no dependency on the current project/component(s). Hence, we relied heavily on the extensions that SoapUI provides called Event Listeners. The best thing about this approach is that the framework elements completely run in the background, making any existing project instantly realize few benefits of the framework, without any additional changes. To achieve this, we had to understand the ins and outs of the SoapUI workflow; the fact that SoapUI had an open-source version of the tool helped us tremendously. Packaging this framework in a way that eliminates the need to do many manual steps to onboard new project(s), was another challenge. We went through multiple iterations over a period of three years, to arrive at the way NIMBUS is packaged currently, which makes it extremely easy to launch and use.

Key Features and Benefits

��Some of the areas where NIMBUS helps add value is a s follows:

Faster Automation: Data-driven testing, makes test automation faster by parametrising the tests, and feeding data sets from an excel sheet
Ease of Execution: Tagging of test cases and choosing what to execute via run time parameters, allows great flexibility during execution, making it a great test framework for CI/CD integration��

Powerful Reports: NIMBUS creates simple and efficient HTML reports for every execution, without having to make any changes to existing SoapUI tests

Results Storage: The tool exposes data storage capabilities of ‘Extent’ reports that paves the way for building analytics capabilities, and determining the effectiveness of test executions

NIMBUS Workflow What is OSS? Open-Source Software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. It may be developed in a collaborative public manner. Open-source software is a great example of open collaboration; meaning any capable user is able to participate online in development, making the number of possible contributors indefinite. The ability to examine the code facilitates public trust in the software. Open-source software development can bring in diverse perspectives beyond those of a single company. Standish Group is an independent international IT research advisory firm, known from their reports about free and open source among many others related to information system implementations. A 2008 report by this group stated that adoption of open-source software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year for consumers and this numbers has grown significantly since then. While ��Ф�� uses a few open-source software in its products, ��Ф�� also encourages its team members to contribute to the open-source community. ��Ф�� has a�� channel through which all contributions are done. There are about 33 open-source software released by ��Ф�� until now and NIMBUS is the latest in that list and is first from ��Ф�� Bengaluru.

Contributions

NIMBUS wouldn’t have been possible without the support from LGS&A QA community, who have been instrumental in testing all its features and providing timely and valuable feedback. The LGS&A Leadership Group have been our cheerleaders, offering their encouragement and support throughout this journey You can find NIMBUS here –

Intern Bootcamp 2022: How I learned to Transform, Transcend, Together

Editorial Team — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 09:28:34 +0000

In these turbulent times, when all one is looking for in the chaos is a bright spot, I found my very own silver lining, my internship! Joining a company as spectacular as ��Ф�� as an intern is a dream come true. First work stint is always special and comes with unlimited hopes. Though I thought the pandemic-gifted work-from-home culture had shattered most of our “first day at office” dreams, the ��Ф�� Intern Bootcamp’22 experience came as a breath of fresh air! A unique and well-planned concept of a three-week intensive on-boarding program, the ��Ф�� Intern Boot camp gave us a glimpse of the corporate way of work in the best way possible. From the commencement with ��“Curtain Raiser” ceremony with some of the great leaders of the organization to the final showdown, the journey has been worth remembering. The Boot camp undoubtedly proved to be the perfect bridge that I needed to transition from campus to corporate. Here are the 5 takeaways from this awesome journey that helped me to transform and transcend together with my fellow interns: Diverse Knowledge for Holistic Development The most unique and enriching takeaway of the three-week dynamic journey as Bootcamp was the opportunity to learn from some of the most experienced associates of ��Ф��. Introduction to various technologies used by the company, gave us the much-needed head start before we started our career. From learning something as basic as Java, the core programming language, to next generation technologies like Machine Learning and Cloud Computing, these technical sessions were like enthralling trailers to a much more dynamic picture that will unfold slowly as we step our foot in the corporate world. Importance of Collaboration As they say, “Teamwork makes dreams work,” the fun filled activity sessions every day at the camp made sure to instill in us team spirit in its truest sense. Linking us into groups was the perfect idea to get us out of our cozy cocoons and make friends even in this virtual scenario. The more unfeasible as it sounds to collaborate virtually, the more seamless the Get Together Sessions made it for us. From brainstorming a creative name for our respective teams to exciting competitions like scavenger hunt, these collaborative activities helped us ��create bonds that we will cherish forever. Putting Knowledge to Application Often, the knowledge that creates something striking is not just the one you acquire but the one you apply. This was one of my key learnings from the Boot camp. This year’s Boot camp introduced us to a unique way of solving problems. All the teams were given a problem statement in the initial days which we had to deploy as a working model by the end of the camp. The problem could be solved easily by applying technologies and skills we had learned in the various technical sessions we attended. This exceptional way of applying what we learn daily in real life projects helped us to work on a plethora of new technologies, understand their use and advantages and their integration with the other existing technologies. It helped us to get out of our comfort zones, learn something new each day and stay focused throughout. Transform to Transcend The main highlight of the Boot camp was undoubtedly the Virtual Hackathon. The four-day long hackathon justified this year’s theme of “Transform, Transcend Together” in its most dynamic form. From brainstorming the problem statement to the final showdown, the journey of working with our teams all day and all night to Transform and Transcend our ideas into a reality Together is an experience I will always cherish. The hackathon was a major learning experience, it made us brush up our technical skills, work on new technologies, and most importantly transformed us into go-getters. In the stipulated time that we had, each team had a unique solution and there was a lot to learn from every solution thereby helping us to broaden our technical knowledge in diverse areas. Adapting To Change Like many other take ways that will stay with me forever, adapting to change is something I have learnt in these three weeks. Transitioning from a student to an employee can be a bit overwhelming at times, but the Boot camp made sure that this transition was as smooth as it could be. None of us ever realized when we got out of our protective shells and adapted to be independent individuals, responsible for our own actions. The Boot camp made us flexible enough to adapt new technologies, new ways of thinking, new surrounding thereby opening doors for a lot of new opportunities. The Intern Bootcamp filled all of us new interns with new zeal and vigor as we stand at the threshold of our corporate journey. It is a huge opportunity for me to be part of such an amazing team and I look forward to my journey as an Intern in ��Ф��.

Lessons from my Internship at ��Ф�� India

Editorial Team — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 06:41:10 +0000

I loved my stint at ��Ф�� as here, real responsibilities are handed to interns. I feel thankful for this experience as I can actively contribute to my team, enhance my exposure and experience as much as possible. To sum up my internship experience in three words, I would describe it as Learn, Fun, Contribute. You will learn a lot, contribute, but don’t forget to also have fun while doing those two at ��Ф��! What I like about my internship experience I think that the best part of my internship turned out to be the People and Culture at ��Ф�� – work hard and enjoy the process. Some of my memorable moments during the boot camp include the time when we used to interact with other interns and play games. We also got a chance to attend other ��Ф�� led events organized during this period which gave us a peek into the culture and other learning programs at ��Ф��. The ice breaker sessions conducted during the Boot Camp gave us the chance to know our colleagues better in an informal setting. Challenges that I met during my internship Initially, the steep learning curve that involved grasping new technologies like Java, Spring which I hadn’t worked before, felt mind boggling. However, I realized that the Intern Boot Camp was designed to challenge each one of us and was sprinkled with helpful and friendly mentors who would take the time and effort to guide me/us. Not only that, but there were also training sessions conducted by our colleagues giving us more confidence to speak our minds. What I learned from my internship I have learnt both the technical aspects involved, like the process that goes into building good software products as well as the soft skills such as a strong work ethic and high standards required of our work. The biggest takeaway for me would be the friendships and relationships forged through the internship. It is important and beneficial to have confidants and peers that are in the same industry to give you advice and to offer you encouragement in your career journey, especially so in the competitive IT industry. My advice for internship #1: Be pro-active – Look for quality work so that you can have the chance to learn as well as to contribute. #2: Interact – Make friends and contacts at work; you never know when an opportunity might present itself from it. #3: Be yourself – Internships are a chance for employers to know you but also for you to understand your prospective employer and to decide if you are a good fit for each other; be yourself so that you will be able to make an informed decision at the end of the day.

International Men’s Day: Time to Relook at Modern Masculinity?

Editorial Team — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 10:49:54 +0000

International Men’s Day is around the corner and before I go any further, let me share a quick reminder on its roots and origin. It was celebrated for the first time in 1992 and was originally celebrated in February. In the late 90s, it started being celebrated on November 19^th of every year. The original intent of dedicating a day to men was to celebrate the contributions and achievements of men and boys. The focus was their contributions towards the nation, society, community and family. Over time, the objective behind celebrating Men’s day has broadened, and now aims to raise awareness towards issues that men face, and to promote humanitarian values. The main principles are laid out in the ‘six pillars’ of International Men’s day. Here’s a quick recap:

To focus on men’s and boys’ mental and physical health
Enhancing gender relations
Promoting gender equality and wellbeing
Focusing on discrimination against men
Promoting positive men role models
Helping in creating a safer and better world

Out of the six pillars of International Men’s Day, a key one is to ‘improve gender relations and promote gender equality’ not only for men but for women too. The theme for 2021 is ‘Better relations between men and women.’ Setting Realistic Standards A lot has changed in the last few centuries. Man has evolved from a food gatherer,�� hunter, warrior, figure of physical strength and security, the sole breadwinner to a more balanced role of doing a good mix of all the earlier roles and balancing it with a lot of household chores. These include taking care of the kids, doing the dishes, doing laundry, cooking meals, and various other things We are at a good tipping point where role reversals are seen as healthy and needed, between the two genders. Gender stereotypes and traditional views are fading at a good speed. And to bring it closer to the theme for 2021 – with the role reversals being seen as healthy and stereotypes ending, the relations between the genders are even better than ever. Issues that Should be Discussed Openly Human beings need more than just the bare necessities to keep them healthy; they need things that feed them mentally, spiritually, physically and they need things that give their lives meaning. On average,��one in eight men��will experience depression and one in five men will experience anxiety at some stage of their lives. This mental and physical stress can leave them scarred for life. Boys and men should indulge in various activities that inspire them mentally and physically outside their day-to-day work and family life. And to bring it closer to the theme for 2021 – these apply equally to both genders and being cognizant of this fact is going to help families, societies, and nations. The 3 things men can do to stay mentally and physically healthy?

As the famous adage goes, “Tough times don’t last, tough people do”, It’s important to be positive, and express gratitude and take one day at a time.
Practice mindfulness across your thinking, eating, exercise, resting. Remember there is a BIG difference between mind-full and mindful.
‘Like Katie Reed said, “Self-care is giving the world the best of you instead of what’s left of you”. Be there for yourself as much as for others.

Coming back to this year’s theme – ’Better relations between men and women’, I personally feel a lot has improved, diversity rates at workplaces have gone up, leadership positions are filled by both genders, education opportunities have been made available for all, there’s renewed focus on Diversity and Inclusion in the workspace. With all this progress, it means you are in constant partnership and collaborating closely with folks from both genders – don’t let any past bias, prior experience, superstitions, ��mar this wonderful experience of reaping the wide experience and rounded perspectives. With this, a big thank you to all the men and women who have shaped economies, discovered and invented great things, and have driven generations forward. Happy Men’s Day!

Men Can Cry

Editorial Team — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 09:11:59 +0000

I am sure many of us were raised in an environment where boys and girls have been brought up differently A boy has to be ‘this way’ and a girl must be ‘that way’. Our parents and their parents raised us within the boundaries defined by society, about what each gender can and cannot do. How many times have you been told, growing up “Don’t cry, be a man!” or “Don’t be rude, that’s not becoming of proper girl”? As a society we have set unrealistic standards, which are often used as insults. For instance, when it came to boys, the taunt they would receive quite often is “Ek ladki se har gaya?” (lost to a girl?), which is not only critical of the boy’s performance but is also dismissive of the girl’s capabilities. Gender role expectations is the bane of every society. Masculinity a.k.a manhood a.k.a manliness is normally associated with not wanting to appear weak. We all know how men are stereotyped in our society, culture and even movies. “Mard ko dard nahin hota” (men don’t feel pain), is for instance a famous Bollywood movie dialogue as well as something that people say when they want to ask someone to ‘man-up’. As a result, men tend to conform to this stereotype. If I were to give my own example – my mother doesn’t like to see me cleaning the dishes or doing ‘��󲹻��-�ʴǳ��’ (sweeping and mopping) at all. How do I make her understand that times have changed, when she has been accustomed to seeing the men in her family steering clear of these responsibilities? I have to ensure that I help out around the house with day-to-day chores, while managing to not hurt my mother’s sentiments. Believe me, it’s a tough job when you are sandwiched between generations and are trying to do the right thing. She has begun to accept it, but progress has been slow. In this case, the stereotype has been a set of rigid expectations and perceptions of what ‘manly’ behavior should entail. Society has conditioned us to believe that being a man means that we can’t cry, we’ve to be tough, fight, smoke, drink, drive rashly, be aggressive, be strong, and always be in control. ��There are several issues that plague men today, owing to this stereotype and ��these unrealistic expectations. Men avoid opening-up, which can lead to several mental and wellness issues. We need to eliminate the stigma associated with men being vulnerable. We must openly talk about mental health and remind men that asking for help, expressing emotions, and seeking therapy is okay. Men are more likely to suffer issues such as depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease, and they could engage in heavy drinking and even consider suicide, without timely intervention.

(This illustration has been created by the author’s son – Sarin Patel. Subject to copyright. Please do not use without permission)

So, what should we do to make men feel less boxed-in? There is no silver bullet for this. These societal norms and stereotypes have been in existence for a long time and has been passed down from generations. We must be proactive and cultivate an environment to enable the elimination of this stereotype. The corporate world is far ahead in this, compared to the typical Indian culture or society. Research has found that men who are warmer, caring, supportive and sympathetic made significantly less money than more stereotypically masculine men. The ‘nice guys’ were evaluated as less competent and less hirable for managerial roles. Many-a-time it is perceived that nice guys are incapable of getting things done and a so-called aggressive guy gets preferential advantage just because they’re aggressive in nature. This must change. It is important for men who display these ‘nice guy’ qualities to be acknowledged and recognized. Having said that, we are in the middle of a cultural shift at this very moment. The next generations of men should aspire to overcome stereotype masculinity fully and live up to the right definition of manhood – things like being a good father, a good husband or becoming a responsible, caring adult and human-being. So, for those who think men can’t cry or shouldn’t cry, maybe it’s time you began to let loose a little. To all the men out there who dare to show emotions and cry – kudos to you. Wishing all the men a happy #InternationalMensDay!

������Ф���� India

Unlocking Potential: My Transformative Mentorship Experience at ������Ф����