The Story: Amit Saha on becoming a Senior Software Engineer with AtlassianPosted over 2 years ago by Client Server

Amit Saha is a Senior Software Engineer at Atlassian. He tells us about his journey from being an SRE into software engineering, and how Client Server Australia helped him along the way.

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How did your tech journey start?

Computer Science was one of the subjects in my primary school, and I got hooked. Then, I just kept at it. My first job was in 2008 in India. I attempted to pursue an academic career, but came back to the software industry in 2012 when I started working again in Australia. Since then, I have worked for various companies, small and big. And it’s ongoing.

You were placed in a new role by Client Server, how is it going?

The current role was not via Client Server. However, I did work with them for a previous role. I really enjoyed working with David through the process. It was a role appropriate to what I was looking for at that point of time.

Where do you see your career progressing?

Tough question and one that’s hard to answer. I recently switched from a Site Reliability Engineering/DevOps role to a software engineering role – sort of going back to being a software engineer as that’s how I started my career. The team I am working with is working on exciting products that services within Atlassian rely on in production. So, I expect to get deeper into the space, and hopefully in the process, learn a lot more than I know today about computer networking and software engineering in general. I do see myself working towards a technical leadership role, rather than a people leadership role.

How was your experience working with Client Server?

I really enjoyed working with David and Client Server through the process. They gave me all the guidance I needed throughout the interview stages.

What does a day in the life of a Senior Developer look like?

For me these days, it’s writing code, usually in pairing sessions with other engineers, reviewing code, participating in design discussions with team members, thinking about the operational requirements of running the software in production, meetings with stake holders and internal customers.

What happens when something doesn't go well?

We perform a retrospective for non-incident events, and a post-incident review of production incidents. We attempt to follow the “Five Whys” technique where we keep asking “Why” until we get as close as possible to the root cause. Then, we aim to come up with improvement ideas based on our learnings, rinse and repeat.

What would your advice be for someone looking to get into technology?

I believe the key is getting started. I don’t have good advice for that. The key for me I feel is to keep going, keep learning, keep pursuing what really speaks to you – in terms of technology and the kind of environment you want to see yourself in. After I restarted my career in 2012, I felt like I stalled for several years, and then there was a momentum, and then I stalled again. Now, I feel like I have a momentum. Of course, hopefully you make the right decisions all the time, but that may not always be possible. So, feel free to reevaluate your decisions and restart if needed.

What would your advice be to yourself when you first started?

Give a role some time before deciding to change and also give it a lot of thought before making a big change in your career. Also, don’t ignore how much you are getting paid, especially in the context of market rates. Maybe you think you don’t deserve a certain salary, but the market does, so ask for it.