A Leader’s Mind Part 1: Shivraj Kumar, ADoE

The early beginnings…

The best part of being a developer is the adventurousness it adds to your personality, which comes with experimenting with various tech stacks. I have always been into computers, and I immensely enjoyed playing games on the system. Our family had got one quite early on, and I spent hours on it, which got me interested in how they work. I was keen on fixing it myself when it broke down, which led me to learn more about them, and that's what got me interested in coding; since then, it has been my passion.

I always enjoyed exploring new things; I started coding quite early in school and adapted to it quickly as I enjoyed the teaching methods. I was always into problem-solving and was lucky enough to be brought up in an environment where I got to work with computers from a relatively young age. My love for coding grew over the years I have spent in the industry and I have mostly enjoyed the process as it allowed me to think outside the box and solve problems in my unique way.

My journey at GeekyAnts

When I joined GeekyAnts as a fresher, I didn't know much about various tech stacks. Over the past six years, I worked with experienced mentors, leading to my growth as a contributing member of the dev community. At GeekyAnts, I got a chance to experience how the process works in different ways. This ranged from improving an agile user story and implementing new features to testing and creating a project from scratch, not to forget the various open-source experiments that I got to be a part of, along with a highly collaborative team. 

I explored the app development world quite a bit as a core part of the product team at geekyAnts. The whole process started as we were one of the first people to work with React Native, which led to the creation of NativeBase, and I was honored to be part of it. We created many open-source innovations that got us recognition from the development community. It started with tech talks and meeting other people from the community, which led to understanding and looking at problems from different perspectives, which was an exciting whirlwind experience. 

As a leader in the tech community

After journeying in the world of apps and the development ecosystem, I realized that the best way to give back to the community and the people who helped me succeed is by helping others by sharing knowledge, spreading ideas, and supporting other aspiring individuals. Leading a team of developers is exciting and new to me. I believe in understanding an individual and relating to them so that they know I am on their team always to lead and support them. This allows them to respect my position and still speak with me candidly, allowing us to grow and learn together, but it also helps me understand their journey better! 

As I've grown and entered the business side of things, I understand more about how it's a give and take relationship with my team. They constantly keep me on my toes with questions about new technologies and the problems coming up with the latest tech stacks, making learning more fun through their thirst for knowledge.

What the future holds

If there is one word to describe me and how I approach my life and work, it's curiosity. In the words of Charles Dickens, "I have been- I am- curious." A lot of what I do as a programmer is crazy and unexpected. As a result, I enjoy the essence of surprise and the learning that comes from meeting new people and being expected to do something I have never done before. 

When I don't feel like I am being challenged enough, it makes me feel unsatisfied, because of which I have always believed that learning is limitless. I think the journey has just begun, and the future holds a time where I will continue to learn new things and how they are made better with the changes in technology.