"Keep trying and exploring. Work on new technologies and make mistakes. That is a great way to grow and learn" is the advice that our November 2019 BCAPS Star, Alok Maurya has for programmers that are just starting out. In our latest blog post, Alok shares his core values, what motivates him, and his greatest accomplishment to date.
We recently interviewed Alok to know his journey at Neebal and to understand his core values that help him excel at work. Here is the interview.
How did you start your journey at Neebal?
I interviewed with Neebal in mid-2019 and was impressed by the interview process where the focus was on what I knew and how well I could solve problems. I got a second chance to appear for the interview as I went almost blank the first time. I knew that I had to give it my best to get into Neebal and I wouldn’t have known the outcome until I tried. And try I did. The rest was history and I’ve been here for over six months.
What would you say has been your greatest accomplishment?
Harding Centos7 with cis-benchmarks: I wrote the shell script that can make any Centos7 server comply with Center for internet security benchmarks. We recently published this image on the AWS marketplace. The solution that I helped develop, is a recommended base system on top of which mission-critical applications can be hosted.
Configuring Active Directory (AD) server from the base and writing Powershell script to migrate all users from the old Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server to the AD server. The other challenge was to integrate all our servers/users machine with Active Directory so I wrote one shell script that joins the servers/users machine to AD with ease.
What motivates you?
Acquiring new skills is very important to me. I recently worked on Kubernetes and Docker to manage one of our client’s critical services despite not having worked with them before. Learning these softwares was very exciting. Overcoming challenges with simple conclusions keeps me motivated.
What are your current goals?
My short term goal is to complete the AWS Solutions Architect certificate and in the long run, I’d like to grow as a programmer. I would like to learn as much as I can and take in every single drop of experience as I move ahead. These are not just goals but guidelines that I have to follow.
What are your core values?
I always try to find ways to solve problems. No matter how much time it takes, if there is a way, I will find it. I remember an instance where I was running a tomcat-cis shell script and the OS on my laptop needed to be reinstalled. I had to re-run every single module of the script on the virtual machine and it took me around two days to find the bug. I was ecstatic when I found the issue.
What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken?
The biggest risk that comes to mind was a recent server migration we did. There was a lot of critical data that needed to be migrated to the cloud within the maintenance window with minimal downtime.
What has your experience at Neebal been like so far?
It’s been awesome! The working environment at Neebal is very nice. So far, I’ve worked on different domains and learned new technologies. My peers and mentors are very helpful when I feel stuck. I am glad to have people around that are helping me grow.
What are the most important values that you look for in an organization?
I think an organisation should give its employees freedom to do the work they think matters most, flexibility to create a healthy work-life balance and create an environment where employees can have fun too. It pushed them to work harder.
What advice would you give someone that is just starting out?
Keep trying and keep exploring. Don’t be nervous. Do things that you think are right. Work on new technologies and make mistakes. That is a great way to grow. That is how we learn and proceed in our careers.