This is a submission for the 2026 WeCoded Challenge: Echoes of Experience
After graduating with a B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering, I was confused about which profession to choose. There were no mentors around me, and no one I knew worked in this field. Choosing a career path was difficult. I attended several aptitude tests and managed to clear some of them, but I often struggled during interviews because of my poor communication skills. Even today, I still find it challenging to express what is in my mind clearly. Many times, when I tried to explain something, people misunderstood me, which made me even more disappointed.
After about two months, I received an offer from a company based in Bangalore. Because of the COVID situation, the job was remote. However, the role turned out to be very different from what was described in the job description. It was not a technical role, and the work environment was quite toxic. Since there was nothing meaningful to learn and it did not help in building my career, I decided to resign after just one month. Looking back today, it was one of the wisest decisions I have made in my life.
Soon after that, I received a call from another company located in Cochin, close to my hometown. The role was related to Linux, so I decided to give it a try.
I joined Poornam Infovision in January 2022. Initially, it was very tough because I had no background in Linux. After completing my probation period, I moved to a team that provided shared hosting support. We handled more than 60 clients and mainly provided ticket-based support. Even though there were some Linux-related tasks, most of the work involved cPanel and Plesk.
I struggled with multitasking. The ticket flow in the team was very high, and handling multiple issues simultaneously was difficult for me. When I worked on several things at the same time, I sometimes missed important details in tickets, which started affecting my performance. After a few months, HR noticed this, and they initially decided to let me go. I was mentally prepared for it because I felt this role was not the right fit for me.
However, instead of terminating my role, the HR lead decided to give me another chance and moved me to a different team. That decision completely changed my life.
In my second team, the most interesting person was my team lead. He became my first real mentor and guided me well. When I joined the team, we had only two clients. Suddenly, we received another client — a data centre where we managed operations. The work involved pure Linux and networking. That was the moment things started to become interesting for me.
My lead handed over full responsibility for that client to me. It became my first client. In my previous team, my lead was afraid to even let me handle a single ticket, but here someone trusted me with an entire client. I gave my 100% effort, and things slowly started to change. I became more interested in learning new technologies.
During the same time, one of my college friends joined an MNC and told me about the tasks he was doing during training. That motivated me to start learning on my own. I created an AWS account and launched my first EC2 instance. I experimented with setting up reverse proxies, configuring firewalls, and deploying websites on my server. Slowly, I began exploring other AWS services as well.
During this period, the client I was handling was moved to another team because it required deeper networking expertise. However, the company decided to merge our team with another team that was focused on AWS. This gave me the opportunity to apply what I had been learning on my own.
By this time, I had developed a basic understanding of Linux and networking through data centre operations. Through self-learning, I also gained knowledge of core AWS services. From my hosting support experience, I already knew the basics of DNS and Linux systems. This was only the seventh month of my career.
After the teams merged, we started working on multiple projects together. The environment was very open and collaborative. There were no strict restrictions — we explored problems from different perspectives and discussed ideas as a team. This helped us gain a deeper technical understanding.
I never stopped learning. I dedicated at least one hour every day to learning something new. I started learning Docker and CI/CD tools. In one of our projects, Docker was required, but the microservices were running as traditional Linux services. I proposed the idea of containerising them to my lead, and he showed interest.
We attempted to containerise the microservices. I spent more than two months working on it, but eventually failed to achieve the final result. However, during that process, I learned a lot. I gained a deep understanding of file descriptor tables, Docker, Docker Compose, Docker Swarm, Docker networking, volumes, resource management, and secrets.
Because my early performance in the first team had affected my evaluation, my salary remained very low — around ₹12,000 per month. Meanwhile, some new employees in the team were earning more than ₹25,000. I never complained about it. I focused on learning and improving myself. From a management perspective, they were evaluating based on output, so technically it was understandable.
After spending two years there, I decided it was time to explore new opportunities. I started applying to other companies and attending interviews. Once again, my communication challenges became a barrier. Even though I had the technical knowledge, explaining it clearly was difficult. But I kept trying.
Eventually, I received an offer from Infosys.
At Infosys, I joined a legacy project that was around 15 years old. The team was working on modernising the infrastructure. The project was related to aircraft maintenance systems, and the infrastructure was fully based on AWS.
At Infosys, I learned a lot about professional processes and enterprise environments. I also worked on improving my communication skills. I learned Bash scripting and started building automation using AWS CLI. I also designed and set up a self-managed Kubernetes cluster as a testing environment. Through this, I gained a better understanding of system architecture and infrastructure design.
However, after spending almost a year there, I felt that my learning opportunities were becoming limited. Most of the work involved routine operational tasks. I applied internally for other opportunities and even got selected for an Azure-based project. Unfortunately, my manager did not release me from the current project because my performance was strong.
At that point, I realized that resignation was the only option. Exactly one year after joining, I decided to resign.
Currently, I am working at Accenture Song. It has been about seven months now. I received the offer and joined immediately after my last working day at Infosys.
The work here is more challenging. I have to communicate directly with clients and handle complex tasks. There is definitely pressure, but I actually enjoy it. Every day is different, with new challenges and new learning opportunities.
When I look back at my journey, I realise that the best decisions I made were choosing the right opportunities at the right time. Instead of staying in my comfort zone, I focused on improving myself.
I am naturally a very introverted person, and my current role requires constant communication with clients. I am still working on improving this skill. At one point in my life, I never imagined that I would work at a company like Accenture. But life has its own way of surprising us.
I do not know where I will be in the next 5 or 10 years. But I am certain about one thing — I will continue to take opportunities, keep learning, and keep improving myself.
I still remember that, in the early stages of my career, I often thought about quitting. Looking back today, not quitting was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I may not be working at the biggest company or earning the highest salary. But for someone like me — a person who started with nothing and had no background or guidance in this field — this journey itself feels like an achievement.
Top comments (0)