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Shamsundar Dileep / Tobi / Software Engineer I'm a Software Engineer at NextStyle, LLC. With the rest of my team, I deliver the technology platform that powers Tobi, from the customers shopping our website to our photographers uploading catalog shoots. I got my Bachelor's degree in Computer Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin (Hook 'em). While I was in Texas I worked on airline reservation systems, IBM mainframes, and database tools. After a few years I decided to load up the pacer and drive out to San Francisco to find a bigger challenge. At Tobi, I found the opportunity to help build a business using cutting edge tools, all while looking oh so good in my Cabral tee. Where were you born? Houston, TX Where were you raised? South H-town - inside the loop Who do you think had the most influence on your life and why? I can't truthfully pick a single person who's most influenced me, just as you couldn't pick a single brick that's most influenced a house. I'm constantly encountering new people, places, cultures, and ideas that challenge what I think I know about myself and about life. It's this cycle between hubris and catharsis that really make me who I am. What do you think about your upbringing or life experiences led you to working at a Start-up? I've always been a free spirit, which caused plenty of grief to my conservative parents but worked out just fine for me in the long run. I work best with as little constraints as possible - at large companies this is difficult as I have to work within (and sometimes against) established processes. At a start-up, we're the ones defining the process. I have the freedom to explore creative solutions to problems that are often completely original. If you had to describe your day to day in the office in 3 sentences how would you? Writing more code in an hour than a whole room full of monkeys (really, really, smart monkeys - like in Futurama). Searching every corner of the city, no matter how grimy or cracked-out, for The Perfect Taco.Developing innovative and ground-breaking shit-talking methodologies at the ping-pong table. What valuable lessons have learned in working at NextInternet? It wasn't until I started working at Tobi that I really learned the difference between a job and a career. Tobi isn't just a 9-5 to me - it's become a part of my life in many ways. When I joined there were about a dozen people in a dark room with the windows open to fight the summer heat (AC? yeah right) and stuffing inventory in the shower stall. Now we're 50+ strong with a proper warehouse and cushy downtown office. When I look at what we've accomplished - and we're just getting started - I see a lot of myself in that, which goes way beyond a timecard and paycheck. If you had to tell a new employee of NextInternet what to expect in their first two weeks what would it be? I think we're unique in the amount of passion, talent, and energy that we've been able to capture in a single room. Most of us really go above and beyond what's required because we believe that we're doing something great - that we're going to show people something they've never seen before. That kind of positive energy is pretty infectious and work rarely feels like a drag. Have you worked with any members of staff before at other companies? No What types of companies have you worked with before? (small, large, etc.) I started my career at a large company and worked at progressively smaller ones. My first job was with a Fortune 500 tech company that was started in the 1960s, currently with 9,000 employees worldwide. After that I moved on to a medium-sized, privately-held company with about 350 employees, mostly in the US. After landing at Tobi (about 20 employees when I joined), I could tell within my first week that I had found the right fit.
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