Hire the right talent and empower them: Shanmugam Nagarajan
ET Bureau|
Updated: Oct 17, 2017, 12.13 AM IST
The brief I was given and what I did in thefirst 100 days at work
I started my career at TCS way back in 1988. The company had just bought the source code for the Oracle relational database management system and had acquired the rights to sell it in India. My first project was to port the Oracle source code onto local Unix computers. We had to do this in three months. It was interesting work and as a young techie, it was very satisfying and exciting to be working on such a strategic project with significant business impact.
The worst mistake I made
I DON’T REMEMBER any mistake as such during the first year. However, if I were to go back in time and change something, I would probably devote more time on seeding new product development ideas.
The best leadership lesson I learnt
THE WORK CULTURE was great. The company was big on employee empowerment, enabling them to contribute and participate to their fullest potential. This taught me the fundamental talent philosophy that by hiring the right talent and empowering them (and not micromanaging them), an organisation can scale smoothly and swiftly.
How I managed my work-life balance
AS A YOUNG TECHIE, I was trying to spend as much time at work as possible, without looking at the clock, soaking in all I could. I loved what I did as programming was my passion, and the learning opportunities in real world projects were numerous for me to even think outside of work. Fun was interwoven into work all the time.
My biggest innovation
As the saying goes ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. Porting thousands of lines of Oracle source code onto local Unix computers brought out a number of bugs and inefficiencies in the native compiler. Since we could not give the compiler team the Oracle code for non-disclosure and copyright reasons, I came up with ways to obfuscate huge code bases into 4-5 lines of code that would just elicit each problem in the compiler without giving away the IP. I look back at it as a great learning opportunity that required me to think out-of-the-box and on my feet.
I started my career at TCS way back in 1988. The company had just bought the source code for the Oracle relational database management system and had acquired the rights to sell it in India. My first project was to port the Oracle source code onto local Unix computers. We had to do this in three months. It was interesting work and as a young techie, it was very satisfying and exciting to be working on such a strategic project with significant business impact.
The worst mistake I made
I DON’T REMEMBER any mistake as such during the first year. However, if I were to go back in time and change something, I would probably devote more time on seeding new product development ideas.
The best leadership lesson I learnt
THE WORK CULTURE was great. The company was big on employee empowerment, enabling them to contribute and participate to their fullest potential. This taught me the fundamental talent philosophy that by hiring the right talent and empowering them (and not micromanaging them), an organisation can scale smoothly and swiftly.
How I managed my work-life balance
AS A YOUNG TECHIE, I was trying to spend as much time at work as possible, without looking at the clock, soaking in all I could. I loved what I did as programming was my passion, and the learning opportunities in real world projects were numerous for me to even think outside of work. Fun was interwoven into work all the time.
My biggest innovation
As the saying goes ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. Porting thousands of lines of Oracle source code onto local Unix computers brought out a number of bugs and inefficiencies in the native compiler. Since we could not give the compiler team the Oracle code for non-disclosure and copyright reasons, I came up with ways to obfuscate huge code bases into 4-5 lines of code that would just elicit each problem in the compiler without giving away the IP. I look back at it as a great learning opportunity that required me to think out-of-the-box and on my feet.
