I hold a Master of Computing degree from National University of Singpapore and a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Anna University since June, 2000. I had my schooling in 3 different places viz., Pennadam, Trichy and Madurai. I did my primary school study at Aruna Kindergarten School, Pennadam. My higher secondary schooling took place at RSK Higher Secondary School, Trichy. My next phase of schooling was at TVS Lakshmi Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Madurai.
Computers have always interested me. I really got the spirit and the urge when I failed in one of my first term examination in the Computer class in Standard 7. I was not awarded a rank even though I was second in the class with all the other subject scores put together. I started programming when I was 12 years old, very late in today's world, in BASIC. Before entering the university at 16, I learnt the tools - FoxPro, Lotus, PASCAL, C, Visual Basic, Power Builder and Sybase. During my days at the university, I learnt C++, Assembly language, Visual C++ and COM. I also gathered significant experience developing for Windows.
My College studies helped me a lot in gaining substantial interest in the growing field of electronics. Thus, I developed a passion for small hardware projects. Eventually I grew interested in embedded systems, computer architecture and optimising compilers. Digital signal processing and image processing are some of my other fields of interest which I did not pursue in my further studies! I am always indebted to my professors and my department in Anna University for teaching me the fundamentals in engineering.
I was offered a Software Engineer role at Honeywell India Software Operations through my University's On-Campus recruitment program. I later declined the offer to take-up a job as an Embedded Software Engineer in a start-up company, Inventa Infomatics Pvt. Ltd, where I was able to use all my skills, designing and testing sytems; And from embedded software/firmware development for microcontrollers to writing Windows desktop application programs. I also had the oppurtunity of working on Real-time Linux for a while. I was working in the company from April 1, 2000 till November 15, 2000.
I later moved to Hewlett-Packard Singapore Pvt. Ltd. to work in the research and development of business inkjet printers in the Business Printing Division. How I got there is an interesting story of a guy visiting HP's website to take a look at their home desktop PCs only to accidently click and visit their Jobs section and eventually end up working for the company after a couple of telephone interviews. Just as I believed then, I continue to believe that HP makes well engineered products. I had been with the company since November 27, 2000 until January 16, 2007. I was a firmware engineer for close to 4 years working on a number of things (right from bootstrapping the board, system infrastructure software, performance monitoring and some parts of the core printer application) before becoming an ASIC design engineer in August, 2004. Not many companies provide such an opportunity to work on various areas and rotate jobs! It was a very rewarding experience at HP, both technically and from the perspective of learning a few things about the big business game. About that, I met some wonderful people there. I still have a dream of starting a company and hopefully take it big!! (too ambitious you think??) But whatever I do in the future, I believe that the 'Rules of the garage' will always guide me in being true to myself and to the society were I operate.
How will life be if all kinds of changes come in a person's life together? Well, interesting! I joined the Singapore subsidiary of SigmaTel Inc on January 18, 2007 just before my wedding on January 29, 2007. Since then, the company had changed hands and is now part of Conexant. Conexant is not a small company; but it gives you the feeling of a startup at an advanced stage. I currently participate in firmware development (mainly in firmware architecture for MFPs and advanced connectivity solutions). I also participate in some pre-sales activities.
In Singapore, I had the opportunity to study Master of Computing (part-time) at National University of Singapore (NUS, in short). I mainly wanted to focus on computer architecture and optimising compilers. I also had the opportunity to learn some music.