Time Flies : My 15th work Anniversary with #teamamex

 

15 years ago, when I completed my master’s degree from IIIT-Hyderabad, I had three offers in hand from #americanexpress , #ibm & Scientist Job with #BARC (Bhabha Atomic Center), it was not clear from where I was going to start my professional career. While my family and elders suggested me to pick one of the most reputed job as Scientist with BARC (love towards govt sector job, job stability and many other factors), I was very keen towards joining Amex because of my core inclination towards Databases (my favorite subject during BTech and specialization course during MTech). 

 

Finally, after many rounds of brainstorming and discussion with variety of people (Family, Friends, Teachers, Seniors, and mentors) I chose to go ahead with my love and passion towards #DATA and landed to #AmericanExpress family and now after 15 years I must say that even back then, I had ability to make correct decisions 

 

This journey from a Management Trainee to Director has gone through seven different roles, four business units (all around data) where each role was full of learning on technology, product, leadership & people management tangents and even today it provides me an opportunity to keep learning and sharpen my skills each passing day. Few of you wanted to know what kept me going so long, so decided to summarize my #teamAmex below :

 

1. For someone like me who is passionate about #Data technologies, there can’t be a better place than Amex. You name the DB, and we have it, my leaders were kind enough to provide me opportunity to work in various DBs like Sybase (IQ & ASE), IBM- UDB, Oracle, Postgres, CouchDB, Cassandra, MongoDB, MySQL, BigData & CockroachDB. Can anyone ask for more ?

 

2. I have not experienced any other corporate, but Amex has extraordinary value and care for its people. After moving to leadership roles, I realized about the type of focus our senior leaders have towards career, growth, and wellbeing of employees. I must say this is embedded in our DNA and the most valuable quality which makes Amex unique and different from other organizations.

 

3. Amex is a 172-year young organization and one thing which keeps us engaged with the organization is its appetite to accept the change and be innovative in almost every field where it operates, in last 15 years I have experienced so many changes in the way we operate based upon what market demands. These changes are so beautifully managed on all levels that with minimum impact to employees and our operations with maximum gain for organization. At times I have realized that we don’t hesitate to operate like a new startup to provide best output and value to our stakeholders, this culture of innovation makes sure I never feel outdated in the market. 

 

4. I feel excited about my work every day, looking forward to connecting with people and discussing my products, roadmap, tech solutions, development discussion and product integration with full confidence in my Senior leaderships, peers, partners, and my team members that together we will move in the best possible direction to serve the enterprise. Can’t ask for more.

 

When I was getting interviewed for this job way back in 2007, one of interview questions was “How long you will continue with Amex”, I responded- “By the time I think I am able to contribute to Amex’s success and feel that Amex is taking care of my needs”, even today both conditions holds true and hence this journey is still ON !

 

Big thanks to all my leaders, mentors, colleagues, partners, and my awesome team members who help in creating a wonderful experience every day at Amex!