My Journey @ KQ Infotech

On 19th April’11 my journey with KQ Infotech ended with a positive note. STEC INC. acquired KQ Infotech.

In one of previous post I mentioned few points why I am leaving and Red Hat and joining the start up. It was a very hard decision for me at that time but now It looks, as I took the best I could at that point of time.

The journey at KQ Infotech was eventful as it could be. I was the one of the first five employee and have seen different phases from which company has gone through.We started at an incubation center at Pune IT Park and stayed there till Jan’09.

Before joining Anurag(Our CEO) told me that we have plan to start some kind of mentoring program for students who had passed out from engineering/MCA colleges.We”ll give them trainings for an year on System’s side without any fee and will try to hire most of them. I got really excited about this idea as I did not get such opportunity when I passed out from college.

I joined in Mid December’08 and we launched our first such program as PGDSP and had first entrance test  on 20th January’10. After having some interns we moved to Mitrangan App. at Baner road, Pune.

Later this was renamed as Mentor India Program. Till now we ran four such program successfully. I took part in every possible way as I could. Be it selection process, execution and most importantly class room sessions. Somehow I feel satisfied when I share my knowledge. I hope we start similar program in future.I believe by just being a good teacher one can contribute to India’s 2020 vision.

After working on few clients projects I got the chance to work on real fun project:- ZFS port to Linux. This was an internal project with no direct customer but it had become a kind passion within KQ to finish it. We did the Beta release in Sept.’10 and then the GA release in Jan’11.

Its feels great to part of such project. I have learnt a lot from it.

This project has given us lot visibility in the Industry. We got mentioned on slashdot. That day I felt very proud.

Anand Mitra (CTO) says , “ZFS made an big difference in our credibility with customer. Before ZFS, our customers would ask, ‘How do you know your team is capable of this kind of work,’ but after we did ZFS, the conversation would go,‘Clearly, you are capable, let’s talk about what we need’”

We will be actively working on this project to make it more stable and rich featured.

I also used to take technical training on Linux Kernel and its debugging for the company. I took few weekend batches and some corporate batches in companies like Symantec. This gave me immense opportunity to learn.

Working in start up throws lot of technical and non-technical challenges. I have managed the website, mail services and did lot of sysadmin work as well.. :). When we were moving to Mitrangan I even participated in finalizing the furniture, chairs etc.

It was the great journey and I feel lucky to be part of it. I thank Anuang and Anand for giving me this opportunity and believing in me.