My story @ Appsecco
It has a been an interesting 1 month at Appsecco and I want to share my experience of the whole process of deciding to move here and the 1st month of work.
Pre-joining story
I was in this phase of life of being in my comfort zone for a while and that’s when it stuck to me that I can’t let this go on for too long and need to do something about it. So, I decided to reach out to my community friends if they were aware of any job openings in their organization or any other organization for “security project manager” role. I didn’t hear back from anyone for at least couple of months and wasn’t worried as I was hopeful of finding an interesting job soon and then one fine Monday, Akash reached out to me asking if I would be interested to work at Appsecco for the Security project manager role. I was on cloud nine and honestly didn’t know how to react to that. Like me and working at Appsecco with the dream team. Even in my wildest dreams, I never imagined this to happen to me. It took a while to process this was really happening to me. I was way too excited. So yeah folks, Life has its ways of surprising you!
Throwback to community days
I have known Akash from Null community and worked with him closely while starting infosecgirls initiative alongside Apoorva and he has been my mentor too. I have learnt so much from him and since then, I have been a big fan of his ideologies and his working ways. So, the excitement of Appsecco job offer was obvious right?
Back to pre-joining story
We decided to meet the next day for formal discussion on the job role. Akash walked me through the job description, what is expected out of me and provided me a high-level description of growing in this career path. I was clearly excited imagining about the learning I will have from all them here, but I still wanted to take time to think about working for a smaller sized organisation because I have never worked in one before. So, I took a week’s time to decide and made a final call on taking this role by the beaches of Goa (Oh! I went on a quick trip that week) and later confirmed the same to Akash.
Once I received the offer letter, I broke the news to my previous employer and started serving my notice period. When the festive month arrived, I was invited to the Diwali party of Appsecco. Like everyone else, I was given the Diwali gifts (Bose speakers and sweets :D) although I was yet to join. That was the nicest thing ever. I was really moved by that gesture. Akash then recommended me to read the book “Phoenix Project”. I started reading the book a week before joining and I must say that book is mind blowing. I am not even exaggerating. That book gives you so much perspective of running IT business and how important it is to have strategies in place for a successful business.
Joining day and first month
Finally, the day of joining was here. I reached office and received my work laptop. Akash, Riyaz & Gwilym gave me an overview of Appsecco process from security and business perspective. I made a list of questions had and noted them down after a recommendation from Akash & Gwilym to get everyone’s perspective on team’s understanding of the process. So, I think that explains my role here is to take care of project management tasks, client management and help Appsecco with process streamlining to make everyone’s work easy. I did have a 1–1 meeting with everyone to get an understanding and gather some analysis from that. I also had an opportunity to meet with one of our clients to understand client expectations and Appsecco’s experience in making their journey a smooth one with us. Something I love about Appsecco is their no-nonsense approach towards getting work done, be it with internal or external stakeholders.
I presented my analysis to Gwilym and Akash last week. They liked it, provided me few inputs & interesting business insights. I must say in the last one-month business has been making so much sense to me than ever before and I am loving it.
Fun at Appsecco
I am part of fun committee at Appsecco, hence I get to plan the fun events at work. We have Friday lunches & fun activities as part of employee engagement. We are also playing secret Santa secret this week and quite excited about it!
My co-workers
I have colleagues who make workplace interesting & fun. I knew most of them before joining through null community. Listening to Riddhi & Riyaz’s bad jokes is usually the highlight of my day, people who know me know how much I love bad jokes. Madhu Akula keeps teaching us the cool (‘kul’) stuff and he also helped me with finding a customised title, “Security Storyteller”. Isn’t that cool? About that, Appsecco employees have the privilege of choosing a customised title for themselves in addition to the formal designation. If you see me posting fancy pictures on our Friday outings on my social media, Sunesh’s photography skill is what you should be adoring. Then we have Abhishek, the hilarious guy who is always so high on enthusiasm even on Monday mornings and on the other hand, Bharath is the least talkative guy amongst us.
My first month has been quite an interesting one and I am excited about my journey ahead.
