Mentorship is and has always been about as much about learning as it is about teaching and, as they say, it is only fitting that I don't stop learning for the rest of my life.
This is Anshul Singhal and I have been working as a Software Engineer for the past nine years. Currently working at Microsoft in the capacity of a Senior Software Engineer, I have had ample opportunities to explore my way in many well-known companies such as Samsung, Siemens, Adobe, etc. throughout my professional journey. Scaler is one of these incredible opportunities.
Brought up in the magnanimity of a city like Delhi, my inquisitiveness grew leaps and bounds every day because of the things around me. As a kid, extracurriculars were always as much a priority for me as studied, and hence, I got through most of my young life experiencing as many things as I could lay my hands on. So when college started and programming emerged as something I could be interested in, I didn't even think twice before diving in.
Computer science was never my first choice for a branch in engineering. I have always been a physics guy and so electronics felt like the thing I was meant for, but then I saw my world spin around with the captivity of the coding domain and it has been nothing but a fulfilling experience. My first ever job was a college placement with Samsung, where I understood that the means to actual success is anything but stagnation.
My college days were nothing about the coding culture. Neither my peers nor my professors were big enthusiasts to be a part of the community. We were taught theory brilliantly but the absence of its practical utilization strategy was always something that the campus lacked. I like to believe that it was only luck and my capabilities that got me through Samsung’s interview procedure because, for a long period, we thought Infosys was our best bid in the process.
My current role consists of me delivering a project end to end with everything involving designs and development. To be more technical about this, the framework that I collaborate on is known as the fluid framework, where people with different skills and talents without any designated hierarchy come together, to give the best they can.
The hardest part of the placement journey is looking for the ideal resource for yourself. That one ideal preparation strategy that can give you both the substance and the confidence that you need to crack an interview can be the making point of your interview and you need to take it seriously at all costs. That is precisely what Scaler is here for - To help you through the syllabi, to support you through mock interviews, and to guide you towards your ideal career path.
I never had the privilege to grow under such systematic guidance and so when I understood the vision here, I couldn't help but join hands to procreate it. All in all, I believe that Scaler as an academy has given me a chance to give it back to the universe and compensate for the loss of a mentor that I felt in my learning days. In every kid that I mentor, I see a part of me and so when they succeed, I see a part of me succeeding.
The most cherished moment of my mentorship journey here has been the relationship that I cultivated with my first ever batch of mentees. I was adamant about letting them know that I am one of their own, who started from a tier-three college and has gone on to become successful. And, so if I can do it then, they can too. I gave my all for understanding the backgrounds that these mentees came from and curated a unique strategy to support each one of them. The happiness that I saw on those faces when they achieved what they had set out for is to date, one memory that I will never forget.
My most important tip for young techies out there is to do a lot of open-source contributions. Indulging in lone activities like competitive programming and then expecting the best of the results is a barren path. You should work on other projects like app development and other things side by side to elevate your work profile every once in a while and, only then can you aim at holistic development.
