My journey

The long way round to product and engineering.

I got into computers by tinkering. It started with the Linux distros on PCQuest cover CDs and hours spent trying to get GNOME and KDE running on a SiS graphics card nobody supported. Once the whole setup finally worked, there was Freeciv to install and get running.

That tinkering turned into learning and then teaching how to code. With an arts degree and a computer diploma behind me, in 2001 I was training engineering students in C, Unix, Java and Oracle at TULEC, a Tata Infotech centre in Jalandhar, Punjab.

Then came a decade with people rather than code. I did sales on US campaigns from a call-centre floor. I counselled students deciding whether to study abroad and coached them on how to clear IELTS. And I spent seven years at Intelenet Global / Serco training customer service agents, and ended up leading 27 trainers for Vodafone.

Getting into product

In 2014 I quit to become the first employee at a health-tech startup, hired to write a 16-week diabetes programme. I had no product background, grew into the product anyway, and later became a co-founder at OneMedCrew, the company behind diabetEAZY. The product ran on a food-scoring algorithm we built with nutritionists and endocrinologists. It gave each meal a simple, personalised score for its likely effect on blood sugar, so people with diabetes could judge what they ate at a glance instead of getting confused counting calories. The Indian Express and Entrepreneur both covered it.

Next I ran product at SportsWizz and SportCo, two companies from the same founders. At SportsWizz, an engagement widget we built served 70M+ unique users through an IPL season, and we cut its running cost to a third as the season went on. We also built SportsQwizz, a quiz app that paid winners instantly through Paytm. It had over 100,000 downloads at the time.

What I do today

Today I run product, design and engineering as one team at HCAH, building the software behind recovery hospitals and home healthcare in India. We’ve built, in-house and from scratch, the systems our clinical, sales and marketing teams work in. The one I’m proudest of tracks each patient’s recovery milestones and shares them automatically with their family and referring doctor, so nobody has to call and ask how recovery is going.

The journey looks like a zigzag: code, sales, counselling, training, product. But serendipitously, each turn ended up being part of the job. And 25 years after I started, I’m shipping software again, this time by directing AI agents. It feels a lot like training: explain clearly, check the work, fix the explanation.

What I’m paying attention to

I’m watching how AI changes the way small teams build, starting with my own. I think a lot about product development, which is mostly sifting through a ton of feature requests and deciding what not to make. And I follow digital marketing from the seat of someone in product. I write about all of it, and you can get new essays by email at Minimum Viable Thinking.

Outside work

I read, mostly non-fiction and fantasy, and I love listening to music, and I occasionally game on a PlayStation. The story behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is what got me to write “Hire for Passion, Not Fit”.

The path

2001 Trainer, TULEC / Tata Infotech
2002 Freelance software, Jalandhar
2002 Telesales, Excel Callnet
2005 Assistant Manager, Columbus International Education
2007 Manager, Learning & Development, Intelenet Global / Serco
2014 First employee, then co-founder, OneMedCrew
2017 Product Head, SportsWizz
2018 Product Head, SportCo, alongside SportsWizz (same founders)
2020 HCAH, now Director of Product & Engineering

Recognition

2011 Best Team Manager, Vodafone Business India (Intelenet Global / Serco)
2016 Best Start-up of the Year (OneMedCrew), TiECON Chandigarh & STPI Mohali