From Hiring People
to Shipping Code
The unexpected path of an HR professional who bet on himself — twice — and rediscovered his technical roots to build the tools he wished existed.
I used to spend my days talking to engineers — understanding their world, their challenges, their craft.
Now I write the code that powers how we hire them.
A B.Tech degree I thought I'd left behind. Two career risks that could've backfired. A curiosity that wouldn't quit. And a team generous enough to let me build.
14 Years in the Making
The Degree I Almost Forgot
B.Tech in Information Technology
Graduated from Kurukshetra University. But instead of becoming a developer, I walked straight into recruitment. For years, that technical foundation gathered dust.
Five Years in the Talent Trenches
New Era India — Management Trainee to Business Manager
Made calls. Got rejected. Learned to read people. Climbed from trainee to Business Manager. Worked with startup leadership, filled CXO positions, and built talent pipelines.
Walking Away to Learn Again
RISK #1 — Executive MBA at MDI Gurgaon
Left a Business Manager role to go back to school. People thought I was crazy. But MDI changed everything — R, Tableau, HR Analytics. I saw data as a language to think in.
Pressure Makes Diamonds
PeopleStrong — RPO for OYO Rooms
Working with OYO's CTO and Engineering VPs. Building dashboards. Teaching data structures to my team. I wasn't just talking to engineers anymore — I was starting to think like one.
The Domain Switch
RISK #2 — Joining Zomato
After 8 years in recruitment, I chose to start over. To dust off that B.Tech degree. Trading certainty for curiosity. Betting that the discomfort of not knowing would be worth it.
Learning by Shipping
Zomato — HR Tech Builder
Apps Script → JavaScript/React → Golang/AWS → AI. Built systems from scratch, learned from patient engineers, and became the person who builds the tools.
What the Risks Taught Me
Looking back, I see a pattern.
Left a stable job to go back to school.
Bet on learning.
Left a domain I'd mastered to start from scratch.
Bet on building.
“Both times, the math didn't make sense on paper. Both times, people questioned it. Both times, the discomfort was the signal, not the warning.”
The risks weren't reckless. They were calculated leaps toward the person I wanted to become.
The People Behind the Code
I didn't get here alone.
There was an engineering team at Zomato that never gatekept knowledge — who drew on whiteboards until concepts clicked, who reviewed my early code with patience, who treated every question as an opportunity to teach.
There was HR leadership that kept betting on curiosity over credentials — who saw a recruiter wanting to code and said, “Let's see what you build.”
This page exists because of them.
What I'm Building
Today, I own HR Tech products and infrastructure at Zomato.
Hiring
End-to-end recruitment workflows
Offers
Automated generation and management
Feedback
Structured performance inputs
Increments
Compensation review systems
ESOPs
Equity management at scale
7+ years at Zomato. Still learning. Still shipping. Still asking questions.
That's the point.
Careers aren't ladders. They're climbing walls — and sometimes the next handhold is behind you.
Sometimes the degree you “wasted” becomes your edge.
Sometimes going backward is the fastest way forward.
Sometimes the risk that doesn't make sense is the one that makes you.
If you're sitting in a role wondering whether to take that leap — the one that feels like starting over, the one that scares you a little — remember this:
“Comfort is a slow death for curiosity.”
Your past isn't a pivot away from. It's a foundation to build on.