Blogs

5124

As the ed-tech space continues to burgeon at a phenomenal pace, technology has been the major fuel boosting its progress. Organisations desiring to carve out a lion’s share of the market are investing massive sums of money on technological progress. upGrad is one of the key players in the ed-tech game. The edtech’s technology team is soaring to new heights, thanks to the persistent efforts of this week’s changemaker.  Meet Chintan Sheth, Vice President- Technology at upGrad While leading a team of 80 strong, Chintan navigates upGrad across the ocean of fast-paced change. Today, we will be delving deep into his work, his achievements at upGrad, and his upcoming plans for this educational firm. Here we go! Sparking the flames of technological interest As a student, Chintan was always driven by his interest in the field of computer science. This coupled with his desire to teach learners and providing industry-relevant content made him join the ed-tech arena. So, after knowing about upGrad’s mission, my Changemaker decided to leverage his skills at this ed-tech firm.  Mr Sheth handles the performance, scalability, testing, quality assurance, and security of core platforms at upGrad, along with the data engineering and education support teams. Apart from this, enhancing the speed of the upGrad mobile app and the website comes under his purview.  Furthermore, as Chintan plans to expand his team, he is also responsible for seeking out suitable talent for his team.  Chintan’s work at upGrad is all about making the platform more flexible for the smooth onboarding of learners. He also works to expand upGrad’s presence to even more nations and regions than before. Chintan is also involved in analysing the information churned out from the data analytics, data science, business analytics and product analytics teams. The data is then monitored and optimisation efforts are implemented whenever necessary. Skills that propel Chintan’s passion for work  Chintan is imbibed with a strong skill set for people management and project management. Rearchitecting platforms and upskilling innovations for learners are other major areas that my Changemaker is well-endowed in. One of his greatest strengths is his in-depth and strong knowledge of network security. Chintan leading the future of upGrad As upGrad expands, both in learner capacity and revenue, Chintan wants to expand the new dynamic market generation platform.This entails creating subscription offerings from reputed international institutes. While for now it includes institutes such as University of Arizona, Michigan State University, and others, Chintan plans to extend the same benefits from Ivy-league universities such as Harvard and Princeton.  He is also working on rearchitecting upGrad’s network that will make learners across geographies use its services. To achieve this, the portal also has to be scaled to match the growing number of learners and introduce a global attendance capability to offer a seamless educational experience. These future projects are expected to boost upGrad’s market footprint, learner base and increase revenue inflow overall. Factors boosting Chintan’s technological passion Chintan’s work mantra is: “Focus on Strategy, Planning, Design Thinking, Timely Execution and Precision.” This helps Chintan to carefully plan his work and ensure its timely delivery. According to Chintan, a challenging environment is conducive to his growth. It helps him to go beyond his comfort zone and enhance his capabilities. He credits this aspect of him behind being the proprietor of vast knowledge about various domains.  Apart from his work, Chintan loves to be physically active and loves to spend an afternoon playing tennis.  This vs That  Oops! I see that I have already extended my time with you guys today. I hope you had a great time knowing about this week’s changemaker and be inspired to work miracles in your domain to ‘bee’ the change you really want to see. If you really want to trigger seismic chances across the ed-tech landscape and catalyse your career to new heights, find the perfect role for you on our career page. I’ll ‘Bee’ back real soon!

by BuzzGrad, the Bee

22 Sep 2021

Blogs

5206

Greetings, from BuzzGrad, the Bee! The unprecedented growth of the ed-tech industry is being driven by a need to cater to the ever-evolving job market. Key players are pushing innovations to grab a larger share of the continuously burgeoning market.  To achieve this, an amalgamation of intelligent automated tools and a passionate mind are absolutely critical. My changemaker combines these two aspects to offer learners way more than just another certificate off of the internet. ‘Bee’ with me, as we take a deep dive into my changemaker’s accomplishments, plans, and more. Meet the Director-Engineering at upGrad, Rinku Singhal.  Penchant for the ed-tech industry Even in 2021, only a few women can accelerate their careers in engineering. Rinku is one of the many women who aimed to break this norm. While growing up, Rinku shared a strong proclivity towards teaching. Eventually, combined with her love of technology and her zeal to ensure education becomes more accessible compelled her to join this industry. Out of several ed-tech mammoths, she chose upGrad, which she believes provides full-fledged degrees, along with numerous forms of easily consumable content. Also upGrad’s mission to make excellent and value-based education affordable was one of the major reasons for Rinku’s arrival at this firm.  At upGrad, Rinku Singhal is working with learner-engagement products such as upGrad Masterclass. This requires building the right architecture to support more users which Rinku is working towards. She is also working on a microservice offering called- ‘Just in Time’ that allows upGrad learners to schedule a session with a subject expert on an immediate basis. Rinku’s journey at upGrad One of the first projects Rinku was responsible for at upGrad family was to develop upGrad Shorts. As the term indicates, these are short video content that explains a specific topic in an easy way. To complete this within the given timeline, Rinku had to carve out the bandwidth and ensure successful testing. After its completion, the metrics received indicated a definite victory for the project.  Another project Rinku was excited to delve into was upGrad Live that provides live sessions and classes with industry experts for learners. The inclusion of the latest technologies to develop this project is where Rinku found her calling. How does upGrad’s future look under Rinku One of the major projects Rinku is working towards is improving Masterclass services and their scalability. The goal is to allow learners to gain holistic learning by focusing on personalized recommendations.  In the near future, Rinku plans to build a self-serve purchase model on the upGrad website. Learners can identify specific services, sign up for their subscription and check out with self-served payment methods. She also wants to initiate breakout sessions for learners in minor groups. This will make it easy for learners to understand key topics much better. To achieve these goals, leveraging the following tools are important.  Factors catalysing Rinku’s career-passion Rinku credits her enthusiasm towards her work to the two quotes she lives by: “Do what makes you happy” AND “Find what keeps you going” Rinku often says that she loves her work at upGrad and this is the ultimate fuel that powers her drive to create change in the education sector. She believes that identifying what keeps one going and their own passion is a powerful catalyst in ensuring a smooth career journey.  Other than these aspects, Rinku has been a national level table tennis player in her college team and loves to stay active everyday!  Well, would you look at that! As the sky gives up its cerulean hues to take on a darker shade, I too must depart to my hive.  I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed narrating it. I promise to bring another epic chronicle about another new changemaker the next time we meet.  If you felt a wave of inspiration after reading about Rinku and believe that a tech-oriented atmosphere like this is where you want to be, find the perfect role for you on our career page. Till then… Au revoir! 

by BuzzGrad, the Bee

24 Aug 2021

Blogs

5188

Hey there fellow Humans! Greetings from Buzzgrad, the Bee. As I flutter around this magnificent ed-tech marvel, I am truly inspired to find several passion-led leaders with a common mission. That mission is to make education accessible and affordable, resulting in creating career opportunities for more learners. As more and more people become aware of upGrad’s vision, this chronicle will detail the forces catalyzing that change. So, today, let me bring you the exclusive insider info about one such changemaker who is determined to bring affordable e-education accessibility into a pulsating reality. You would want to Bee here to witness the change Now, a significant chunk of the population across the globe can relate with the paralyzing pressure of student loans for higher education. The changemaker I chose today has personally undergone this mammoth challenge and is trying to minimize this very problem. Let’s see how… Rohit Dhar, upGrad’s President of Product, Data, Design, Technology, Content (PDTC)  Unlike the queen bee who dominates my hive and makes us work tirelessly, Rohit Dhar or RD, is a man who always strives to be the change he wants to see in this world. From a true leader to an amicable friend to a man with a mission; RD is truly the creme de la creme. The Wavemaker Rohit creates indelible legacies wherever he goes. His journey at upGrad is no different. Here, his mission is coming to its fruition as he plans to roll out the upGrad SuperApp and multiple offerings, such as: One-on-One Mentorship: Helps shape a learner’s career with personalised expert advice based on their future goals. upGrad Rise: Engages new learners to inculcate soft skills, both live and offline, by experts. Career Path Predictor: An intuitive system that will analyse learners’ career goals to suggest the ideal career choices. Shorts: upGrad’s freemium offering that helps everyday professionals upskill in less than 5 mins. Each of these are designed to offer not just valuable educational content, but also help learners understand their career needs and instill crucial skills. While these skills are often ignored in mainstream education institutes, RD understands its necessity in the evolving job market today. Aside from these, RD also works to offer a seamless user journey and acts as a career buddy to – be it existing learners or a wanderer like me.  Ask him what do you add to the table and pat comes the reply, “It’s my team who delivers. I am just a catalyst.” Being the bee that I am, I know that’s a humble leader speaking. Prod him more and he just smiles, “If it’s all working efficiently it’s a job well done, it’s when there is a lot of noise from cross functional teams and customers… that’s a siren for us, ‘coz we know something is broken somewhere. Since most of the things we do are not ‘seen’ by the customer but are ‘experienced’. I aspire for a smooth user journey rather than applause.”  I know all the conversation and mini celebrations around data that demonstrate the stance and the strategy. The Visionary Since we are not getting beyond the layers that are obvious, I will get a little philosophical. I believe the future of upGrad has an impact on the future of online education. However, with RD accelerating this ed-tech’s growth, I can already imagine more learners’ careers being upgraded.  With upGrad soon to be a unicorn, Rohit, in the next two years, plans to open a new business avenue. This avenue is aligned towards boosting profit margins for the organization. RD plans to do this by creating bite-sized content on an unprecedented scale. It will directly increase the platform’s bandwidth and allow more users to access it.  These will be made possible by RD’s teams who use AI, ML, Data Science, and other deep-technology variants to create a human-tech collaboration. These tech teams are upGrad’s secret sauce to success, bringing the human touch into the labyrinth of technology.  Sounds exciting, right?  The Leader Coming to RD’s teams, it is 176 strong, consisting of personnel from Product, Data, Design, Technology, and Content. Together they form the heart of the Human Tech Collaboration. Rohit makes sure these functions encompass an amazing work environment that is high on energy, integrity and passion; high salary packages, free Employee Education Programme, growth environment and more. Furthermore, inclusion is a crucial value of the upGrad family. This is why this ed-tech firm works to make itself a safe space where diversity is celebrated and empathy is cherished. The bundling of these perks makes being part of this team an overall spectacular experience.  These are some of the major reasons why talents across the country are keen to be part of this revolution. But, that’s not all that is making working at upGrad so lucrative for them.  With upGrad in its hyper-growth stage, Rohit plans to increase the size of his team by nearly 30% in the near future. He is on the lookout for talent that is proficient in multiple programming languages or are full-stack developers, iOS and android engineers. The engineers joining RD’s PDTC team will be working on: the technical roadmap to support acquisitions, learning experience, engagement, payments & revenue. RD’s mentorship propels the talent joining the PDTC team to get groomed as future leaders.  Apart from Python, Java, Node & React, upGrad’s tech-stack includes widely used tools such as: Mr. Popular RD has unofficially acquired the title: Master of all. Given his vast experience and domain-knowledge, some of his team members break down the R and D. For them, R stands for ‘Revolutionary’ and D for ‘Doing it Right’. However, he credits his work-success to his entrepreneurial mindset; which is always open to learning more.  When asked how he manages to don so many hats? He simply quotes his personal work mantra which is derived from Pareto’s rule:  “If you have a heap of tasks to be completed, instead of taking on all of them all at once, choose 20% of the total workload that will offer 80% of the output, boosting your overall productivity.” Aside from unwavering commitment towards his work, RD is also a great listener. Be it new ideas or a personal crisis of an employee. Especially with Work From Home being the new norm across industries, employees often need emotional support. RD is always ready to provide support to anyone who’s going through a bad time.  RD’s team meetings are often accompanied by fun activities and online games that bring a smile to everyone’s e-meet screens. With monthly updates on each project, colloquial conversations pertaining to everyone’s well-being is quite common when you’re in a meeting with RD. From working with his team, occasionally munching on Rasgullas to dancing with his team, I have seen it all! Be a Part of upGrad’s Ed-Tech Revolution if you too have an ambitious dream. A promising career at upGrad sounds like a perfect opportunity for that, right?   Helping launch careers in this fiercely competitive market. Plans to boost upGrad’s hyper-growth curve. A heap of benefits for upGrad employees. I hope this story has inspired you to follow your mission and be the change you want to see. Now excuse me as I go implement some of these striving leadership standards in my hive. But I will be back soon with the success secrets of other equally impressive leaders at upGrad.

by BuzzGrad, the Bee

26 Jul 2021