Zoho at 25 - My Journey -- Part 1

I didn't realize till I saw this video that Zoho has turned 25!

The video made me turn the clock back and see how the journey began for me with Zoho.

It was actually my elder brother, who first gave the interview in 1997, a year earlier to me, to this nondescript software company by the name Vembu Systems Pvt. Ltd in a residential area near my house. He cleared the tests but wasn't keen to join because the interviewer (I think it must be Sridhar Vembu🤔) told him very clearly that "we can't promise you any onsite opportunities". 

Having known me, my brother asked me to try my luck with this company even before I completed my graduation. I was in my final year in 1998. It was during the month of February that I attended the written and personal interviews there. 

 To my surprise, there were only 3 of us attending the interview on that day.. The other two had bigger ambitions and aspirations than me. I was suddenly feeling a touch inferior to them because of my very low expectations.. My only aim was to get a decent salaried job that will help me to pay off my educational loan and reduce the burden of my father, who has to undergo hardships, like any other middle-class family then.

That's enough of the background story..

Now, cutting back, the test itself was simple and only two of us were sitting in the room. I remember the third person left after feeling that the test was not "up to the standards".. So, in a way, the competition reduced for me 😉 The duration of the test was 1-1/2 hours and both of us were done with the test in less than half the time. We were chatting among ourselves.. To our surprise, no one came to collect the papers! So, we ourselves ventured into an adjacent room and handed over the papers to a staff there, came back and resumed our conversations. He was elder to me and was already employed and so had a touch of nonchalance in attending this interview. Not getting selected was not a big deal for him.. But, for me it was quite the opposite.

Suddenly, it was lunch hour and a staff came and told us to expect the result in another hour or so. I had never attended an interview before and so I didn't know what to expect. Luckily, I had my lunch in my house before coming to the interview (thank you amma 🙏) and so wasn't feeling hungry at all. My talk-mate(!) also wasn't feeling hungry.. Now, after a while a person emerged and called my talk-mate for the interview.. I thought, my chances are doomed now. Lots of thoughts running through my head.. "May be he performed better in the test and scored more marks and that is the reason for him being called for interview before me".. To add to my anxiety, I wasn't being called at all and the time was ticking by.. In fact, that interview went on for more than 2 hours till someone called me.

[This is my first experience at a job interview... The QA sessions I had attended earlier were viva voces during my practical exams, which hardly span for 15 minutes.. This could explain my nervousness in waiting for my turn for hours together!]

After what looked like eons (but was only 2 hours) I was called in for the interview. My first interviewer was Sekar Vembu. He was running through my answer sheets and asking me the questions which I had answered incorrectly.. I think I was able to give the right answers this time around and that probably impressed him. He was also running through the code I wrote (I was actually pretty confident of the code because I used to do well in the CS labs and most of my class looked up to me for programming answers).. This is when I got nervous.. I thought I wrote a "good" and "working" code but Sekar was pointing out multiple "bugs" in my code and worse still asked me to correct it without a computer!.. I stumbled and somehow after a lot of sweat was able to complete it..

This made me realize how unprepared I was to attend a programming test.. It also showed me how big a bridge it is between the CS lab programs and the interview ones.

I started to give up now.. Realizing that I need to prepare much better next time.. so, I was mentally prepared to hear the 'news'... This is when Sekar asked me to wait and told there will be one more interview.

That was a shock to me.. I thought I had already answered whatever I knew. what more someone else is going to ask me? I was a bit perplexed now. Tension, sorrow, defeat. I think I had all those emotions together at that time.

The next interviewer was Kumar Vembu and he came with a sheet of paper and started explaining something in the lines of Fiber-in-Local-Loop (FiLL), Wireless-in-Local-Loop (WiLL) and some other telephone technology which I was hearing for the first time ever in my life.. I forgot to mention that my graduation is Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE). Only then I realized that I should have studied the communications engineering a bit better.. I was sitting there listening and hardly understanding anything he said. I was expecting him to ask me some questions based on what he was "lecturing" me.. Being very nervous and unable to understand anything, I saw the writing on the wall.. I should prepare much better to have a chance at any interview in future..

Now, after what seemed like 15 hours (but was only 15 minutes in reality), Kumar turned to me and asked 'how do you like this project?' 'will you work on this?'.. I initially thought he was kidding but I told him that I don't understand a thing of what he said but I'm willing to learn and work on that.. He gave me a smile (or is it my imagination?)

The next one was the one every interviewee likes to hear.. He asked me what is my salary expectation? Well, my only expectation was to pay back the educational loan, which was 2,000/- p.m.. So, I told him I expect to be paid "3500 p.m" (that was my father's salary back then!). He gave me a wry smile again and wished me good luck.. He asked me to call back in 2 weeks to know the results..

In all this, I didn't really hear one warning he gave, which is that they are shifting to a bigger office space  and everyone will be busy with that. So, my joining date isn't fixed.

[to be continued...]