Vishesh Jindal is an infrastructure engineer at Blinkit (formerly Grofers). He joined us in June 2015 as a fresher in the consumer backend team, and he later moved to the infra team, where he works on building platforms for other developers. He is also our in-house Postgres expert.
Share your Blinkit (formerly Grofers) journey so far.
I joined Blinkit (formerly Grofers) right after college and worked as a backend developer. Although we were using Postgres extensively at that time and I wasn't good at it, it pushed me to learn more. I took a deep interest in finding issues with our setup, which helped me build expertise in managing Postgres over time.
This expertise further encouraged me to join the DevOps team. I have been part of this team for quite some time now, and it has helped me gain insights into the working of different types of systems.
Overall, I feel quite lucky that I joined Blinkit (formerly Grofers) in the early days because the kind of exposure I got in such a short span of time might not have been possible at most other companies.
What do you love most about the work you and your team do?
Being part of the DevOps team, you get to build platforms and services for developers. But that’s not all. The work we do (as a team) still impacts the end customer indirectly, and that is a good feeling.
What are the greater challenges that the Devops team is tackling at Blinkit (formerly Grofers)?
Hiring. We are constantly looking for talented people to help us scale the way we want to.
What are you most proud of from your time here?
Friends I’ve made over the years here. Blinkit (formerly Grofers) has some of the nicest people you will find in our ecosystem.
What's your advice to engineers who wish to join Blinkit (formerly Grofers)?
One of my priorities has been learning new things and scaling systems as I grow in this space. I feel, if you too have similar tendencies, Blinkit (formerly Grofers) would be an excellent place for you to work.
Could you tell us about your learnings from the projects you've worked on so far?
I occasionally write blog posts to share my learnings at our official blog Lambda. The latest one I wrote talked about how one can reduce data transfer costs in multi-region AWS setups. Do read them to get a peek into the kind of work my team and I do.
What are your views on the role Blinkit (formerly Grofers) play in instant delivery?
Instant delivery seems like a natural thing to do as we are in the right place and the right time to push the envelope of making things superfast. I am glad that we successfully took up the challenge. Had we not done it, someone else would have.
Who are your role models in your field of expertise?
I really don’t have any. I learn from everyone around me.
What are some of the skills that a good manager should have?
I have seen people who are just afraid of their managers for no particular reason. I believe it's really important for a manager to ensure they are approachable and easy to talk to.
What is your perspective of looking at problems being a senior engineer?
No matter what you do, problems will keep on coming. People make mistakes as well, and a lot of people try to punish people for mistakes instead of fixing the root cause. I genuinely believe that it'd be a far better approach to build processes to minimize problems.
How do you view your contribution to an org that is focused on changing online shopping in India?
Being a DevOps engineer, I don’t directly work on the product that gets shipped, and I view my role as more of an enabler for developers so that they can quickly and reliably ship features. Additionally, I also help people optimize systems by enabling them to adopt DevOps as a culture.
Share your best memory at Blinkit (formerly Grofers) so far.
There are a lot of memories here. Little things like meetings and greetings can turn into fond memories. I also miss the parties that we used to have before the lockdown.
How do you spend your time when you are not working?
The general stuff – movies, TV shows, anime and talks.