From a nursery notebook in Aligarh to building for the world.

This is where it all began, with a school bag, a pencil box and a nursery notebook I still have. I found my first two loves here, drawing and chess, and I was proud to represent my school in competitions for both.

The sketches got bolder and the chess got sharper, and I kept representing the school in both. Then cricket walked in and never left. Making the school cricket team was my first real lesson in playing for something bigger than myself.

Two years at Aligarh Muslim University’s senior secondary school. Maths and I got serious here, and one wish became very clear: I wanted to work with computers.

My side door into computers, and honestly the best detour I ever took. This is where I wrote my first real programs and discovered how much fun it is to make a machine do what you imagine.

Maths by day, code by evening. Maths gave me a way of thinking in structures that still shows up in how I build products. I also played cricket for the university team, and yes, I got to play against Virender Sehwag before he was picked for India. I still tell that story.

Finally, computers full time. Three years of doing exactly what I had wanted to do since school. I finished as the college topper, and in January 2004 I walked into my very first internship.

My very first ID badge. I worked on the Computerized Attendance Recording System, which captured employee attendance with fingerprints. It started as a small automation project at Badarpur, and in 2005 NTPC rolled it out across every one of its locations. Not a bad way to begin.

My first full time job. I built an Asset Management System for the property and investment management world, and learned early that behind every messy spreadsheet on a client’s desk, there is a product waiting to happen.

I joined the team building the Multi Purpose National Identity Card System, or MNICS. Today the whole country knows it as Aadhaar. Writing code that might one day touch a billion lives changed how seriously I take every single edge case.

A short and fast chapter. I built an Inventory Management System for an e-commerce leader, where the stock count had to be right every time, because every wrong number is a disappointed customer.

My first lead role. Three years on Employee Benefits systems, where the software touches people’s pay, health and families. It taught me to build with extra care, and it gave me my first taste of leading a team.

Four years helping build MarkLogic Server, a serious enterprise database. Quality and automation became my thing here, and they turned out to be the bridge that carried me from engineering into product.

This is where I became a product person. I built WebiTest and AppiTest and owned both, from the first idea all the way to production. Then Intel Education acquired AppiTest for $2M. I still remember the mix of pride and disbelief when that deal closed.

I led product strategy, roadmap governance and delivery for Connect, a mobile first enterprise platform used across HR, IT, Security and enterprise operations. Internal apps usually gather dust. This one reached 26,000+ colleagues around the world, and they actually loved using it.

Everything I learned at PayPal made me want to go bigger. I co-founded Uniify, an AI native B2B SaaS platform, and owned product strategy, platform architecture, the roadmap and go-to-market. We grew from zero to 50,000+ daily users across 11 countries in two years, and then to a successful exit. The most fun I have ever had building.

• uniifyapp.com(opens in a new tab)

HR folks spend their days looking after everyone else, so I built a place that looks after them. HRIN is a closed, vetted community of HR professionals. To support our members around the world, I also built the HRIN App.

• thehrin.org(opens in a new tab)
• HRIN App(opens in a new tab)

I mentor early stage founders, tech and non-tech, through government backed programs. Watching an idea finally click for a founder is one of my favourite feelings in the world.