I've spent the week in beautiful downtown Bangalore with the Director engineering team. A week filled with non-stop planning and development for future versions of Director has left me numb with delight. I must admit that from the astonishing spectacle of tropical birds gliding among the tree tops to the startlingly beautiful local blooms that pepper the trees I am totally enamored of Bangalore's beauty.
The signpost is genuine. The service apartment in which i stayed was about 2 blocks from the Adobe office. A brief, albeit exciting walk in and among Bangalore's buzzing 5mph traffic led me to the morning each day.
Now I don't want to be accused of sugar coating anything, so i'll add that like most westerners I found my initial reaction to the dense traffic, wild dogs, wandering livestock and wind strewn trash was initially cautious suspiscion. It was difficult at first to see beyond the primitive and ancient structures and traditions to the heart of the city. But after some sleep and a bit of extraordinary food, I came to find that there was a giant place in my heart for Bangalore.
The view out my apartment window is testament to Bangalore's exotic appeal.
Of course the traffic lives up to its notorious reputation and to a small town guy from the midwest the hustle and bustle of Bangalore is quite eye opening, but the people throughout the city and espescially those on the third floor of Salarpuria Infinity (the Adobe office where my favorite product is in active development) were a joy. Good natured and smiling it was impossible not to immediately feel the excitement of the dozens of developers working literally day and night to deliver our next release.
Perhaps the most impressive thing; however, was the tremendous community the team have formed. They work closely with one another and even eat meals together. They gather periodically for 'sweets' at one another's desks and this strong sense of common purpose is clearly the result of mutual love for the product.
A good chunk of the Dev Team pauses for sweets.
Such a big team in fact that it was difficult (well for me impossible) to learn everyone's name. Nonetheless meeting the engineers, quality enginnering team and management face to face was fantastic. As has been true for the past couple of months, every day I enjoy the work I get to do more and more. I was most impressed with the enthusiasm the team has for the product. Its clear that these guys are absolutely thrilled about Director.
They attack problems and challenges with a fervor that can only come from an extraordinary committment to making software they love. In fact, Vivek Pai, the engineering manager on the team told me more than once "this is my baby." and there is no question that he is a committed parent working dilligently to ensure that the next release is the best release. Vivek is passionate and ingenious. He commands respect with his extraordinary depth of knowledge about Director, and frankly he taught me an enormous amount about it with the ease of seasoned professor.
His partner in the effort is the soft spoken but firm Krishnan HS (Director's QE Manager.) Krishnan works tirelessly to clear every issue from the system. He is so incredibly responsive to the general community he is fast becoming an model for me. I think perhaps we should call him the exterminator as he takes great pleasure in fixing and closing bugs. ;)
I want to extend a huge thanks to Tridib Chowdhury and the entire Director Team in Bangalore. My visit was full of great experiences, memories and new friends. You guys are the best, and we the Director community are very, very lucky to have you working on Director.
