Welcome to another edition of the #GrowWithMeesho series, where we present inspiring stories of personal and professional growth from across departments and experience levels at Meesho. This time, we talk to Darshan Naik, who, despite all the curveballs that life threw his way, followed the route less travelled and realised his dream of becoming a software engineer.

Can you give a brief intro about yourself and your responsibilities at Meesho?

I’m Darshan Naik from Sirsi in Uttara Kannada, Karnataka. I joined Meesho as SDE I in 2021, and am currently an SDE II. I do Frontend Development in the Offers Platform team.

How and why did you decide to be an engineer? What was your education like?

My obsession with engineering started right in my childhood. When mobile phones and the internet entered the picture in the early 2000s, I was very curious about how they work, and realised that these technologies will be the future.

Finances placed an unfair burden on my way to getting a BTech, but I was driven to become a software engineer, and set out to find another way.

Due to financial issues, I was unable to pursue a BTech or any other degree for that matter. After completing my 10th standard exams, I started working at a local mobile shop and saved up enough money to pursue a three-year diploma in Electronics and Communication. While I thoroughly enjoyed this course, I realised that having a BTech is a must to make a career in engineering.

Yet again, finances placed an unfair burden on me, but I was driven to become a software engineer. This is when I got to know about Masai School, which follows a “pay after placement” model for fees — you can join and complete the course free of cost and are only required to pay the tuition fee if you get placed within a year of course completion. This was the perfect model for my situation.

While the curriculum and teaching were essential to my skills and knowledge, they also helped me improve my communication and interviewing skills, which increased my prospects of getting a job significantly.

What has been your professional journey before joining Meesho?

I started out as a Product Engineer in Electronics and did it for about three years. I really enjoyed the work and learned a lot including mobile phone assembly and iPhone manufacturing. Of course, I still knew in my heart that software engineering is my true calling.

As I gained stability and confidence in myself, I realised I can finally switch careers and pursue Computer Science (CS). However, as soon as I quit my job, the pandemic hit, and I was in a pickle. But I did use my time well, and self-taught a lot of CS skills during the lockdown. This was also when I decided to join Masai School

After completing my course at Masai, the school’s placement cell helped me apply for jobs and I got offers from three companies including Meesho. Ultimately, Meesho and I found the perfect match in each other 😃

Great choice! What enticed you to choose Meesho over all the others?

I researched the companies before sitting in the interviews. For Meesho, what attracted me was the mission and growth outlook.

Coming from a small town, I knew that not a lot of people shopped online, and Meesho’s mission was to democratise internet commerce and bring it to every nook and corner of the country.

With Covid confining people to their homes and mobile data getting rapidly accessible for everyone, it was obvious that online shopping will explode in even the smallest of towns, and that’s exactly what happened.

The second thing was personal and professional growth. While Meesho was already established as a big player, there was still a lot left to build from scratch. I reasoned that contributing to building things from the ground up will help me learn a lot more than maintaining and evolving an already mature codebase. As a bonus, the tech stack was completely new to me, which was a great opportunity to learn new technologies and skills.

Of course, the package and the amazing MeeSOPs sealed the deal for me 😉.

How was your interviewing experience at Meesho?

They focused on my skills and the projects that I’d worked on rather than my educational background, and made me feel comfortable. Here, having an existing portfolio of public projects helped a lot.

The other great thing was the transparency. I could freely ask questions about the team, the project, what they were working on, and what lies in the future. This is where it finally clicked for me — I could see that the team believed in what they were doing, and had ambitious goals for the future.

Can you describe your journey as an SDE at Meesho?

I joined Meesho in 2021 as SDE I, and handled web development. At the time, the web app was very basic compared to the already full-featured Android and iOS apps. I was involved in implementing the frontend for the image search, the checkout flow, and the address input and validation form, among others.

Getting to implement features on a completely new tech stack early in my SDE career was critical in improving my skills and career growth.

Later, I switched pods and joined the Offers Platform — something that my team and I created from scratch. Here, I helped create the supplier panel and the promotions tool to help sellers offer discounts and participate in existing offers. Recently, I worked on the “Daily Deals” feature, which played a big role in making our recent Mega Blockbuster Sale a success.

To be honest, even though I loved implementing projects from scratch, they were assigned to me when I was still an SDE I, and I was as nervous as I was excited. But, thanks to the support from my manager and the rest of the team, I was able to perform well and we successfully pulled the projects off. This also resulted in me getting promoted to SDE II within a year of joining.

That’s amazing! It sounds like you found a very good cultural fit in the company.

Exactly. We have a very liberal and flexible work culture. There’s friendliness and mutual respect across the hierarchy, and no micromanagement. We are allowed to experiment, fail and, learn from our mistakes. Ultimately, that’s what helped me and the team implement new features and improve the codebase within a short period.

Since you started without a CS degree, what advice would you give to other aspiring engineers who aren’t following the “conventional” path?

The most important thing for someone taking the unconventional route — other than technical skills — is to have a public portfolio of projects. In my case, I had created a Facebook-like social network when I was in Masai. Since I hadn’t worked as a developer in my previous jobs, demonstrating my existing projects showed the interviewers that I had the skills, drive, and autonomy to pull major projects off.

The second piece of advice would be to never feel comfortable with where you are. As I mentioned before, I was tasked with implementing major features on a completely new tech stack at an early stage in my SDE career. This was critical in improving my skills and progressing my career.

That sounds like great advice! Let’s close the interview with something fun. We recently had an 11-day long, company-wide “Reset and Recharge” break to let everyone in the company disconnect from work. How did you use this time off?

My hobby is photography, so I used the time to travel to Sathodi Falls in Yellapur, Karnataka, with my family. We spent time in nature, had a nice adventure, and of course, took a lot of photos! It was the perfect vacation.

That’s it for Darshan’s growth story. If you found it inspiring and know someone who might benefit from reading his journey, feel free to share this post and spread the word. Also, to ensure you don’t miss our upcoming stories, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram!

BTW, did you know that Meesho is hiring? Come join us and work with talented techies like Darshan as we bring e-commerce to the next billion users in Bharat.

Credits

Interviewee: Darshan Naik

Interviewed by: Shivam Raj

Creatives 🧑🏻‍🎨Ved Sarkar (Portfolio, Linkedin)