I have left something behind...

Its been almost 72 hours now but I haven't had the chance to reflect even 1 second on what is it that I m leaving behind. Leaving a job, a company is not that simple after all. Its not the just the job or the company you leave its a lot of other things - the routine, the people, the environment, the zone that you are so use-to now. But then life has its ways to surprise you, bring you new opportunities, expand your horizon and you make that call. The call to move on.

I have just been through the same and I too am leaving a lot behind me. But it will be unfair if I forget the people who have been so selflessly good towards me before I make the move. Here is what would make me remember them:

# Suresh Chahal, Krishna Joshi and Sudip Arora: for being awesome team members and my default event subscribers :P

# Rajat Jain: For being one of my true genuine fans in this world. Respect is mutual.

# Dheeraj Verma, Bhawna Gupta and Pratibha Shukla: For all the XAML help.

# Uday Mehta: For bearing me all this while. Truly, the one person whom a really gave a tough time.

# Gagtandeep Singh Randhawa: For 'Shandigarh' and 'Shotu'

# Anurag Mohan: For being an awesome friend and support to me.

# Kshitiz Sharma: For forcing his friendship on to me. LOL. Jokes apart Kshitiz will remain a dear friend.

# Divya Aggarwal, Ramanpreet Singh, Manish Kumar and Deep Kaur: For being my fellow Scrum Masters and making me feel I belong in their league (although I think otherwise). There is a lot one can learn from each one of them.

# Saurabh Panthri, Ankush Gupta, Amit Bharwal: For 'quick' code reviews and 'review comments'

# Subhash Chand and Harish Kushwaha: For being my fellow cab-mates.

# Swekriti Sharma and Jatin Khurana: For making me believe that its a mistake that we ever met. :P

# Anurag Aggarwal and Gaurav Jayal: For raising very few bugs on me.

# Hitesh Kathuria and Amit Jain: For believing in me.

# Mohit Bansal and Rajesh Sachdev: For pushing me in the right direction.

# Rohit Tandon, Sumit Jain, Arun Kumar Garg and Sunit Jaglan: For their awesome support when I was just starting in Nagarro.

# Gaurav Arya: For being an awesome source of inspiration. I salute this man.

# Jyoti Arora: For the opportunities she provided me in Nagarro.

# Isha Gupta: For being my first student. I gave her a session on Model Views. My first and last.

# Ankit Jain: For his politeness and calming nature.

# Sushant Khurana: For being a psycho equal to me.

# Vipendra Singh and Vipin Khari: Coz I could not get to know you more.

I wish everyone with whom I have worked (mentioned here and otherwise) a very bright future. I wish and hope you guys reach your true potential and reach where you want to be.

When I look back

Seems like yesterday when I was first introduced to the term Program/Programming. The year was 2002 and I had just joined college - a computers degree. I still remember the hard time I had writing my first C++ program. Though, I copied it I could not get 'the thing' to compile. It still brings a smile on my face when I think of it.

Not everyone in college was fond of computers but one guy was - and that wasn't me. It was one of my closest buddies. He was and still is one of the reasons for making me what I m.. god bless him. By the time I was in final year, I had experimented with C++/VB 6.0/ASP 3.0/HTML and I had actually started liking the whole things - i was falling for it.

College had to end someday and it did in 2005. And I had no idea what to do with my life. I appeared for a few call centers but no luck. Life is not so rosy after all -is what I was learning the hard way.

All things end good or bad. I got my lucky break in a very small company and the deal - work free (almost) for 6 months and we shall see if you are worth it. I had nothing just determination and I slogged for 6 long (very long) months. And on the 19th Jan 2006 my first salary was decided. I wanted to touch the sky wished I had wings. Silly I know, but such was the joy.

Initially, it was just ASP 3.0/HTML/CSS/Javascript for me. But then some1 thought I can do .NET and hence I got introduced to OOPS. It was a nice experience. I use to stay in office alone late at nights to work. The feeling of accomplishment is amazing - yes it is.

I stayed there for a while 2.5 years to be exact and then left them in Jan 2008 to join another company. A new boss, a new team and lots of new challenges. The first few months were hectic we were working on a high profile website. It ended and other challenge arrived - a VISA and PASSPORT application. Things were not always quite between me and my project manager but when he left it all came down upon me. The team was new or shud I say fresh with not much exp of programming. We toiled, we fought, we won. Yeap, we delivered the project.

It was time for a shift and I landed in Nagarro. One of the companies I heard has the toughest interviews. I got through somehow. And my first assignment was a WPF project. Wow.. .NET 3.5 and WPF and I had no idea. Life is not so simple after all is what I told myself. Well I didn't last long in the project. Got pushed to a web app. Something I had some clues about. I worked on the app for 1 year, fighting my way through some not so well written code, building things in and around the app. Then I got a chance to work on iPhone apps and I was just wowed by what could be achieved here. Just awesome stuff. I worked on a 2.0 release for a dating app and I was amazed by what is lying under the hood.

Well that didn't last long either and I got moved to a WPF project again. This time an awesome framework with clear distinctions on what goes where. I was amazed but still skeptical since last time I tried WPF it didn't came out that great. But this time I had the resolve and the will to do well. I worked on this app for almost 1 year before resigning from the company all together. I will be joining somewhere (a little secret :P)

Now, when I reflect back on where I have come I still pinch myself just to make sure it is not a dream. And if at all this is a dream I don't want this to end, I refuse to wake up.