Story Of A Professional

Disclaimer

Here, I am going to share you my story, being considered myself as an IT professional. I had been thinking about sharing my story with you for a long time. Please share me your thoughts and feedback. That really matters a lot to me, you have no idea how much I love to hear from you. You can alway read this story here in my blog.

The professional cycle

Childhood

There is a place called Trichur, a district of the state Kerala in India (which is also known as “Gods own country”). That is where I born. My childhood was not that good, as we didn’t have enough money for living. My mom struggled a lot to make each day liveable. But we were happy together. In our childhood we played so many things, games which is unknown to the new generation. Thank god that I was born in 90’s. If I born now, my path would have been different, I may be looking at the so called mobiles, tabs, computer games.

In the year of 2007, I passed my HSC from GHSS. My favourite subjects were Computer Science and Chemistry, yeah there is a reason behind it. The teachers of those two subjects were amazing, we were good friends in fact. Those two years (2005 to 2007) were beautiful, the credit goes to all of my girlfriends, lots of love. You all deserve a big appreciation.

Coming back to the life. I have two elder sisters, as we were belonging to a poor class family, my parents were not able to make of us graduated. Eventually that chance came to me as I was born as a boy. Yeah, that’s true, in India we had this comparison of boy and girl at that decade. So it was me chosen as a warrior, warrior to solve all of our financial crisis and other problem, a wall, which act as a barrier to the problems.

I usually go to work in my vacation time. Here in India, we get 2 months of leave every year. So, I utilize this two months for going to work and earn a bit amount of money so that I can help my family. Most of the time the daily payment was about 100 -150 INR (That’s 2 or 3 $). The timing of the work was 8.00 am – 6.00 pm. The feeling of getting hard earned money each day, was amazing.

I bought my first favourite branded Jean with the amount I earned in my 10th class vacation. And I bought my first mobile (Nokia 111oi) with my 12th class vacation salary.

Finally I joined Engineering with my friend Ajay, he is the one who boosted me to select engineering. Trust me, I would have chosen some coolie work, where we get paid around 200 – 300 INR (Now it is 8$) daily. Thank you Ajay, you have put the first light in my career.

Engineering College

It was an average college, and there were no much facilities. I was a back bencher (second last, most of the times). I still don’t know I was not studying enough there, in every exams somehow managed only to get pass mark, not less, not more. Please be noted that this is my story, there were students who were scoring 100 out 100.

I must say that, apart from teaching, the college was fantastic, we had full freedom. The ragging rate at my college was very high, the college management was supporting that. What are all the things you will do when you get full freedom at that age? As a result, studying were postponed to just a day before the exam. I have got many friends there, we enjoyed a lot even if no one had money in hands. How many of you wish to go back to your college life, where you don’t have as money as you have now? I am sure, you still wish to go back. Again I must say thanks to all my friends to make those days wonderful. I wasn’t a dreamer on those days, I was not even having an aim, the only goal I set in mind was to get a job as soon as possible.

Finally I got my engineering degree in the year of 2011 (luckily with no arrears).

Internship at HCL CDC, step towards a job

In a wink, four years passed. Finally I was an Engineer (with no job). There were not even one campus recruitment in my college. How it sounds? After all, it doesn’t matter where your life taking you to, what matters is how you are facing it.

How you see yourself

What matters most is, how you see yourself.

Few days after I managed to get a job in a hotel as a receptionist, where the employees were forced to spend almost 15 hours a day. Even though it was not related to my degree, I continued to do that job, I hardly needed a job. The only thing I wanted was money, no matter how less it is.

Usually the wok timing was 8.00 AM to 11 PM, in between we were allowed for a tea break and lunch break. Every night I was saying to my mind that this is not something that you need, but again in the morning I wake up and go to the hotel. Few days later I decided to quit that job, I could do that job only for two months. That was the moment I got such huge amount of money in my hand (6200 RS). My two months’ salary, felt really good.

I was almost running to catch my bus to go home, as it was hectic two months without seeing my parents. I bought an umbrella for me before going home (a 3 fold one, that was the trend at that time), and I gave all the remaining money to my mom. Can you guess how would that moment be?

After few days, back to coding, in my 12th class I took Computer science, I must thanks my computer science teacher Jisha here. She is the one who taught me coding. In my Engineering classes, coding was a rare thing. I joined a Dot Net course at HCL CDC Trichur, Kerala. We were a group of 5 people from college (Me, Ajay, Ansary, Murali, Aghil), decided to join this course. And yeah, we were doing very well there, it was not same as in college life, we become matured, we were paying attention to each classes, we were doing demos. The best part is, we joined mentorship program there and could teach few students there while we were studying, my first mentoring program.

Yeah, I was continuing the internship program there in HCL CDC till my course ends (6 months). Thanks to all HCL CDC members for giving me that opportunity. I started my professional career there.

I got my first reward Certificate of excellence, my first professional award.

Moving to Chennai

Later in my career, I got a job in a small company as a software trainee. I still remember the day, how I went for the interview there, if I am right, I was ill with high fever. But I had to make a move and attend the interview, so me and my friend boarded a local train to Chennai, yeah we usually travels in local train at that time.

We passed the interview, and we joined that company, the salary was 5000 INR per month, living in Chennai with 5000 rupees was indeed a tough task. But luckily, we were able to sustain with that. After an year, I got a salary increment to 12,000 rupees per month, that was a great relief. Finally, I was starting to have some relaxed life.

Joining in C# corner

In the year of 2012, I came to know about the communities and how people are helping each other in our professional world. I joined C# corner, which was my first step towards community contribution. As you all know starting things are pretty much easy, continuing is not. There was no participation’s from my end for another two years, I got buried in my office works.

In the year of 2014, I logged in to C# corner again and started contributing to the community. There I received a warm welcome from all the C# corner family members. I really appreciate that. Many thanks to C# corner. And from 2014, I was in the monthly winners list of C# corner several times, and my articles were selected in Asp.Net as article of the day page. These things really motivated me to contribute more.

In Jan 2015, I was awarded as C# corner MVP, my first C# Corner MVP award. I was really happy that I was given a chance to be a part of C# Corner annual conference as a result. That was the place where I got to know about the Microsoft MVP program. I had set my goal towards becoming a Microsoft MVP there.

In the year 2015, I started my own blog and joined DZone, where I have been awarded as MVB (Most Valuable Blogger).

In Jan 2016, I was awarded C# Corner MVP second time. I was super excited to see my contributions were recognised. Thanks much to all of my readers. I kept contributing to communities like C# corner, Code Project, DZone, MSDN, Asp.Net, Stack Overflow, Tech Net etc.

2016, April 1st was the day which I can never forget in my life. There is a saying “Patience pays off”. It is true, I got rewarded for my patience and hard work. I would treat this as one of the great achievement in my life. Feeling proud to be a part of such a great community. I was super charged to read a mail received in my mail box, saying that I had been selected as Microsoft MVP. I was screaming like anything, for a few minutes I forgot that I was in office.

In the year of 2017, I have received my 2nd Microsoft MVP award and 3rd C# Corner MVP award.

Again in the year 2018, I received my 4th C# Corner MVP award

Effect of being a Microsoft MVP

After my first Microsoft MVP award, following days were fantastic, each day my inbox was filled with appreciation mails and congratulations from my colleagues and friends. Many thanks to my Employer Customer Analytics India, the motivations you have showed was much appreciable. My image was published in my company website. I felt proud when I saw that. That was cool right?

Sibeesh Venu CA Employee

As an MVP, I was given chance to be a part of Product Group Interaction (PGI) events organized by Microsoft. I met lot of wonderful techie professionals, I learned a lot from them. I was recognized in the crowd, which was really new to me. And I enjoyed it, still enjoying. It is a great feeling when people ask you some suggestions or help, I really improved myself when giving suggestions or help. You will learn in that way a lot.

Back to Kerala

Though I had worked with many companies in my life, the one which I liked working is, CA(Customer Analytics), that is where I started my community activities. The management was very friendly and supportive for my activities. But I had to leave that company as I thought of moving to my hometown, so I joined Cognizant Technology Solutions and applied for a transfer to Cochin. And it took over an year of timespan to get the transfer, and finally I am back to my Kerala in the year of 2017.

Let me introduce myself

Sibeesh Venu Microsoft MVP

Name: Sibeesh Venu
Number of years in industry: 7
Microsoft MVP award category: Visual Studio and Development Technologies
First Microsoft MVP year awarded: 2016
No of C# Corner MVP award: 4
No of Microsoft MVP award: 2
Technologies worked: Asp.Net, Asp.Net Core, C#, MVC, Web, Web API, Angular, Node JS, Microsoft Azure, SQL, JavaScript, jQuery, JavaScript, Mongo DB, HTML5, CSS, WordPress.

You can find my achievements here

You can always see my online resume here.

Social references

Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter
Google plus

Present

It all went good, and now I am in a position to solve all of my financial crisis and other problems. I am doing that for almost 7 years now. The best part is, I am living with my own family, my world. Life is smooth now, and I could say that I have gained the capacity to make it straight and smooth no matter what the barrier is. Thanks a lot to my parents, for making who I am today.

Career advises

I’m neither an expert nor a guru, but still I would like to point out some do’s and don’ts which is a drop I learned from an ocean.

Do’s

• Try to be a master in at least one technology you love. Talk, write and answer about that technology
  you love.
• Always get to know what is happening in the industry, try to be aware of the technologies released
  each month.
• Be passionate to the technologies.
• Always participate in all the local user groups (Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus…)
• Whenever you are given an opportunity to work or experience, never miss that chance. It can be in your office or in any crowd. Be confident and take that chance, it will do magic.
• Last but not the least always love your family and take care of their needs. This will give you the strength to move on.
• Adjust your time/calendar for your career and family, work life balance is very important. Isn’t it?

Don’ts

• Never run behind awards or title, those will automatically come to you but it may take little time. There is quote “Never worry about the delay of your success compared to others. Because construction of a palace takes more time than an ordinary building”.
• Never do anything disrespectful to others, There are three things you cannot recover in life, the moment after it’s missed, the word after it’s said and the moment after it’s wasted.
• Be you, and maintain it. Never pilfer what others have done.
• We live in a society, and each people are different, so never criticize anyone, they have their own character like you do.
• And do not show off, I am not saying showing off is a bad thing. But if you do it every time, everywhere, then there are high chances, that the people will judge your character in a wrong way. There is a saying ” The better you feel about yourself, the less you need to show off”
• Never miss the best of our life, FAMILY.

Conclusion

Did I miss anything that you may think which is needed? I hope you liked this article. Without your help and feedback’s, I would haven’t reached where I am today. Thanks much. Please share me your valuable suggestions and feedback.

I always love motivational words, and reading them is one of my hobby. Trust, sometimes, some words can do miracles in your life. I would like to conclude this post with some of the quotes which I like most.

• Be yourself everyone else is already taken
• Today is the tomorrow of yesterday
• If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door
• To begin, Begin!
• If you expect the world to be fair with you because you are fair, you’re fooling yourself. That’s like expecting the lion not to eat you because you didn’t eat him
• Never worry about the delay of your success compared to others. Because construction of a palace takes more time than an ordinary building
• I never lose. Either I win or I learn
• The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step!
• Being positive in a negative situation is a sign of wisdom and character!
• No matter how good a person you are, there will always be someone criticizing you
• Talk to yourself once in a day, otherwise you may miss meeting an excellent person in this world
• If you’re going through hell, keep going
• There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it
• Believe you can and you’re halfway there
• Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new
• Less me, more we
• You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough
• “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”

Your turn. What do you think?

A blog isn’t a blog without comments, but do try to stay on topic. If you have a question unrelated to this post, you’re better off posting it on C# Corner, Code Project, Stack Overflow, Asp.Net Forum instead of commenting here. Tweet or email me a link to your question there and I’ll definitely try to help if I can.

Kindest Regards
Sibeesh Venu