Last Day @ ITTIAM

May 31st 2010

Today is my last day here at ITTIAM. My First glance at the corporate world comes to an end today. So far a dream ride, without killing the REBEL inside.

I can still remember the day i stepped into ittiam and with me a few more bunch of enthusiasts. Time just manages to get away without waiting and that is what exactly happened over the past four years. I can still remember the excitement i had when i received my first hardware development kit. I had to take special permission from people to work on one of those at college. Now it was all going to be mine. No more resource sharing. In the time to come the hardware excitement did die out but the interest in resolving issues on hardware continued to gain.

When i received my first task. This was my first question "Is this a regular training task?". Kumar reply "We don't have time to waste. You are on job already". This was on the second week of joining. I gave an estimate of 3 weeks for the completion of the task (My first ever task time estimation). It took me 3.5 months to finish it off though :(. Kumar knew that from the very beginning but then some things better learnt the way it is to be.

I still remember how badly i used to dislike C programming in college days (Assembly coding was my way of doing things). I had the opportunity to work with one of the largest C code base (at that point of time may be the largest) for Video phone. It was one of those roller coaster rides i will never forget. More than a lakh lines of code put in the most sophisticated manner by few of the most talented people in the team. Somehow used to end up searching for the changes which i had done just 30 minutes ago. Thanks to Puneet for helping me out with it.

It was fun working with the systems applications team. There were huge set of reviews, comments and introspection's on design and style for every module being written and integrated. The most fought after were for the variable names. Can't believe that when i look back now.

Hopefully a respectable farewell has been organized for me. I don't know how many speakers would get senti with tears on their cheeks. But I do know that i will be missing out on a lot of good people.

I owe a lot to all my friends at ittiam, a few being listed below.

Anil, Puneet: Thanks for tons of support.
SIP Nori: Have lost all hopes on you as for now.. ROFL
Prashanth: I haven't lost hope yet. Will keep trying with the never say die spirit.
Ashraf: Thanks for the support and help (On numerous occasion)
Kumar: I have troubled you the most at times. Thanks for bearing with me for more than 2 years. I know it was really tough. :)
Ashwini, Battula, Karthy, Soni, Sumanth, Vikas: You guys ROCK
BG: You are a star.
Sumanth: No person has the right to be happy always. September 2010 is the deadline for you.
Namratha: You have been one of the better P.I.C
Lijo: You still owe me a portfolio. Hoping to catch up soon before you get busy
Sunny, Sumukh: You guys are the next rock stars
Suma, Sameer: I did trouble you guys quite often. Thanks for listening to my dumb questions :)
To all the troubled souls at the carom board: Those shots weren't fluke !!

Last but not the least. Special thanks to Mr Ravishankar (VP, SOC IP) for giving me an opportunity to work at Ittiam. It been a wonderful journey altogether. My learning curve could never reach the place where it is right now had I not been here.

One last good bye to a wonderful learning place. Wishing the very best to everyone at Ittiam. You guys ROCK. Will catch up with you tech maniacs soon.