#Technology #AsISawIt #2Decades

Rainy Sunday mornings are perfect for contemplation and reflection. Standing on the threshold of a milestone in career, I thought why not capture this incredible journey thus far.

A small thread on my journey..

1/n

While my love for puranas and food is well known, Technology has been a major love all through my life. This is a small snapshot of 2 decades of my career. I will try to capture technology aspects in simplistic manner..

If you have any queries, feel free to reach out..

2/n

Starting out of college, I landed working in a true blue Indian Bluechip Technology "Product" Company. It was a dream come true to land up in a R&D group surrounded entirely with IIT and IISc experts.

I was overwhelmed, but this was my 1st job. I worked on MPEG-7 from ISO

3/n

MPEG1, MPEG2 and MPEG4 mainly focused on compressing the content i.e. reducing size for storing on disks or transmitting over a wireless interface (Internet, Satellite etc)

BTW, MP3 is not a separate standard. It's MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3.

4/n

MPEG-7 worked on content description and was formally known as Multimedia Content Description Interface. To give an analogy, if you give a picture of rose, this standard provides a framework to extract some features (called descriptors) and store them

5/n

So, if you give a picture of rose, the database should return other roses. Remember, you are not typing the word Rose.

Majority of search today happens through metadata insertion where someone would have tagged a rose as rose.. Things are changing now with ability to give..

6/n

an image as an input to search. I was working on similar technologies in 2000/1.

My work was on Camera Motion and trust me, I didn't understand much of it at that time.

What fascinated that kid was "how does this search work" leading to what is called ...

7/n

"Parent-Child Node" or Red-Black Tree relationship. Don't be surprised if you read that this is used in ML (Machine Learning) / AI today..

I also have some vivid memories of meeting Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam who had come to inaugurate our new office..

8/n

Moving on, I worked in a start-up that went to become a success.

Worked on different encoding standards, exposed to different algorithms in video and image compression this was a major highlight of my career..

Worked on a lot of TI DSPs and lead a few teams too..

My tryst with leadership, belief in Pygmalion and ability to understand myself everything started from here..

MPEG-4 Video was a major part of work along with MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and upcoming AVC or H.264

Of course, JPEG and JPEG-2k were always part of the mix..

10/n

Towards end of my journey in this start up, I lead a team delivering all multimedia codecs to a major handset manufacturer ... This is definitely one of the most proud moments of my career..

Made a ton of friends who are still in touch today..

11/n

This start-up was sold to another major corporation and I decided to chart my own start-up journey..

I joined a brand-new startup from Stanford University working on literally cutting edge technology

This technology powers majority of the graphics cards in the world today

12/n

If some one is aware of compute / graphics or vertex shaders, the underlying technology is what our company worked on..

Video being my main skill, I continued to work on the same, but expanded my understanding to frameworks thanks to some seniors..

13/n

This was also the time when I saw Linux graduating from a desktop OS to a RTOS i.e. something that could run on an operating system.

There was a joke.. Video is measured in FPS i.e. frames per second.. In late 2005, I remember we used make fun of SPF i.e. secs per frame

14/n

Mar 2007 was another highlight with an amazing demo put together by a bunch of highly motivated and crazy guys.

I also had the privilege of meeting customers and representing company in this experience.. Was totally rewarding one..

15/n

2008-09 economic crisis meant we had to shut shop... My first tryst with job loss and the trauma that follows the same..

However, adversity is the best opportunity and that is what it turned out to me.. Will capture the exciting journey in next part

End of Part-1

Start of Part-2

Job loss teaches you many lessons. One of them is that it holds a mirror on who your true friends are .. Another it teaches you the importance of networking and skill upgrade..

Most importantly, it teaches you criticality of Financial Planning

17/n

42 applications, 2 interviews, some heartbreaks later, I got a wonderful job in an European JV company.. my best experience thus far...

Straight into job, I landed up flying to Sweden and working from there 3 months (KT)...

18/n

One of the best phases of life in learning about human relationships, self-sustenance and long lasting friendships..

Ofcourse, I could travel to Switzerland and enjoyed my every tryst here..

Working on multimedia systems, after initial RTOS based product..

19/n

I was ready for next leap of my life.. ANDROID..

This is where I came into my own.. Working on video and related technologies, I took to Android framework as a fish to water...

Graduated to leading android stuff within the organization, interfacing with Google and...

20/n

Contributing on open source on specific domains in Android (SO).

Putting Android on our silicons, evaluating Windows for future stuff, shipping 100s of millions of devices

Android Stagefright remains one of my favorites.. This was a dream run for ~ 4 years..

21/n

As with other JVs, the marriage between 2 MNCs was an unhappy one.. constant bickering aside, they decided to pull the plug and kill a potential game changing company..

2011, I have a memory etched in my brain..

22/n

VP of S Korean major had warned us.. If you go down, dont blame others.. We were a strong competitor for another comp that went on to become a huge force ..

2013 company folded down and I started my journey with an american semiconductor giant (almost)..

23/n

2.5 years was another dream.. Loads of good people, fantastic mentor (I respect him even today).. I got tons of respect in this organization..

I was entrusted with a lot of stuff and given very good recognition and love..

24/n

In between, I was part of architecting and implementing Widevine Level-1 Secure playback ...

I didn't have anything to complain, but human brain is lot complicated.. Lure of brand of another major company meant I switched jobs...

25/n

Joining this another american semiconductor major, I had another interesting tryst... 3 months into my job, a massive restructuring.. strategy change.. my projects closed.. and job losses...

Though I knew I shouldn't be impact, mind doesn't allow one to rest

26/n

after few months of confusion, switched to modems and specifically audio / voice on modems.. This has been an interesting journey working on a marquee product..

Last year, this division was sold to the customer itself and I had to change jobs again (though not by choice)

27/n

So here I am working on audio/voice and other aspects of RATs (Radio Access Technologies) that you know as LTE / 5G.

Never dreamt that I would be in this iconic company at this phase of my career.

28/n

2 decades is quite a long time and I am apprehensive if I will have another 2 decades..

Experiences and People have taught a lot of lessons.. Obviously, the path of roses is laden with thorns..

Some lifelong scars remained, while others faded into oblivion

29/n

In between, I met multiple interesting people and had the privilege of working with them.. I revere some of them even today (incl. someone who is on twitter).

Age teaches you to hold onto good and let of pains, but NOT without the lessons

30/n

To conclude, while the future is even more uncertain, I hope the journey will be equally exciting..

For obvious legal reasons, I am leaving out specifics / names. If interested, pls ping me directly.

Thank you for reading this thread

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