Impact of the first manager(s) on career

When some entry-level engineers ask my suggestion about career, one thing always comes to my mind is, the impact of the first few managers and company culture have on your career in the long run. It's like learning personal values from parents and family while growing as kids, most of the time it becomes lifelong. So, here are my first few managers and the biggest career lessons I learned from them. 

Prof. Milind Sohoni: He was my guide at IIT Bombay, I did the junior and senior thesis under him. After graduation, I continued working under him as a junior research fellow, even after that when I joined Geometric, he was the research consultant of the project I was working. He has the biggest impact on my career and the way I think about engineering.

• Your place in world order: Sometimes when we see people around us more successful, we feel disappointed. His lesson, everybody plays their role in the growth of any organization or society in general, it's not about one role is better or worst, it's about how beautifully you perform your role.
• Engineering/Problem-solving: In engineering, you get to solve a variety of problems, your skill and success depend on how you connect one with others.
• Kind of job you do: Your degree is like the starting balance. Add to the principal and live on the interest. Its time to move if you see the principal depleting.

Nitin Bhide: When I was getting interviewed for Geometric, I was in Mumbai and Nitin was in Pune, he was the manager of the team I was getting recruited. In the Geometric Mumbai office, I had the final round interview with Nitin through video conference. Video conference link failed and that interview did not happen but I get recruited. Till today, I joke if that video link would have worked, I would not have been recruited for that team. The reason is very obvious, his standard is very high. Lessons from him

• You are an adult(Don't need any explanation)
• Growth mindset: He taught this long before it becomes the software industry buzzword. If you like to have a successful and happy career, keep learning, keep improving, be it the software you create or life in general. No job is worth doing if there is no significant learning in that.

Aniruddha Raste: He was my manager in the last part of the project I worked under Nitin. Mindfulness, Emotional intelligence are buzzwords nowadays, he practiced it years back. Be it a tough situation of a project or you are doing great, your emotion is more important than your knowledge. So here is the life lesson I learned but mostly failed to follow.

• ये दिवस जातील(These days will be gone): This is Marathi phrase(not sure spelling is correct). This is so common in Indian philosophy, there are similar phrases in many Indian languages. In professional life and this competitive world, we face many tough times and some great days too. But your emotion and behavior in those situations make you good or bad not those failures or success.

Some of you may think, what is a big deal in these philosophies, lots of people have it. What makes my learning better with these people are they not only teach, they practice it more than they teach. If they ask you to follow X, they themselves do 10X. Examples follow.

• How many professors you know who do research in Group theory, Computational Geometry, etc. and also working on the water crisis problem of the country, Prof. Sohoni is doing it. It's about applying math to solving real-life problems.
• In my 15 years of career, I don't know any person, who read and learn about technology more than Nitin.
• Aniruddha is the coolest manager I had!

If you are fresher or early in career, choose your manager wisely, I know it's not your control but if lucks favor, the lesson in the early days is much more helpful than things you learn later.

Thank you Sohoni Sir, Nitin, Aniruddha, your life lessons are always guiding torch for my career. 

PS: In my 15 years career, I rarely get awards from top management, but two feedback that is much more than those awards are words of two of my juniors from Geometric and PayPal. Once I did with knowledge transfer, they said "Manish, everything fine but it will be very tough for me to maintain code quality like you!", Thanks Nitin!