Believe in your hustle, not luck
Every morning when I wake up, I ask myself, have I done enough with my life so far?
I moved to Australia 5 years ago and these 5 years of my life has been the best years of my life. I have achieved a lot professionally, personally and financially. But what I want to share today is the amount of hard work that goes behind it. Most things that look rosey from outside doesn’t come easily. There is no short cut.
I was lucky enough to move to Australia with part time job. At the same time my husband lost his job so he did customer service job and I was working part time. That was a tough time. We had less money for our monthly expenses. It was definitely not a pleasant time but it definitely taught us to respect each other, support each other and be with each other in tough and good times. Every good and bad phase of life teaches us a lesson. Isn’t it! We both, in our minds, decided that we will work so hard that this phase doesn’t come again.
I have worked with two of the best companies in Australia and I am extremely grateful of that. However my career changing moment was when I joined Isobar. I was interviewed by my company’s APAC Innovation Director Erik Hallander and Executive Technical Director Tom Ashmor. I don’t know what they saw in me but I know right at that moment this job is going to be great. I joined at a time when mobile team at Isobar was small. I could go to Kara Bombell (my immediate manager) or Erik (who is executive) anytime and ask anything I have to ask. That lead me to have Erik and Kara as my mentors. I had not seen concept of mentorship before. I came to know about it after I met these two legends.
I got opportunities to work on technologies like Android apps, backend web APIs, Virtual reality, Augmented reality and chatbots. After working on Android since last 9 years it was hard for me to even understand syntax of Elixir. Learning new languages has been a roller coaster experience. Sometimes I went home feeling highly unsatisfied or satisfied. Isn’t life is like that too? Sometimes we go through bad times and envy others lives but we forget good/bad times shall pass.
Meanwhile I got few opportunities to talk at events as a panelist with other women in technology. That was an eye opener for me that we need more women talking about technology in public and in conferences. I came across the fact that there are way less women in technology and the ones that are there are not talking about technologies in public. This made me realise we need to motivate younger generation of girls, who see us as an example, and we need to inspire them to get into technology.
It’s not easy to stand up in front of crowd and talk about anything. I had to work hard, day and night to write down what I am talking about and why I am talking about that. Erik used to spend time helping me write my speech (even at 11pm sometimes). At first I was terrible at it then over period of time I got better at it. I started submitting my talks at few tech events, conferences and meetups. Researching more about my topics, reading more and more articles, writing content etc was one part of presentation. After that comes even tougher part. Actually presenting it!
I studied in Gujarati medium (my native language) and worked in my state most times so never really communicated in English. When I started talking at conferences it was harder for me, as I had fear of talking in front of so many people, talking in a language that I am not best at and delivering a talk which is impactful. I used to present in front of Erik & Kara literally 5–10 times, they will note down critics and comments, and I again present with those comments in mind. Once I remember Erik had counted me saying “aaam” 67 times in 20 mins talk. I am also grateful for my mobile team for listening to my final practice talk before I go to present at the events.
I really wanted to do it. Really wanted to come out of my shell and do things that I didn’t even think of doing when I was in India. I got opportunities and I grabbed them with both my hands. I have learnt one thing in life, never let go anything that comes your way. It may require lot of hard work but you know you will learn out of it.
Meanwhile when all these things were happening in my life, I also wanted to teach kids coding as I can see (like others) future is very technology heavy. I went to Erik and asked I want to start my small organization to teach kids. Erik suggested me to join existing organizations and see if anything fits with the vision I have. I did volunteering for nearly 1.5 years but none of them suited the vision I had. Vision of teaching every kid for free. That resulted in me starting my own not-for-profit organization which is currently funded by me called “Young Coders.” I have an amazing team of 25 volunteers and in the past 4 months we have already taught around 100 kids coding and the basics of computers.
Recently I was shortlisted for B&T most influential women in technology. As a developer I had never thought I will be shortlisted for something like this. Thanks to Isobar for seeing potential in me and nominating me. First time ever I went to a college in Australia (Melbourne Polytechnic) and gave a speech about technology to students of Business. I felt proud of myself that even though I didn’t study in one of the abroad colleges I am standing here, giving a talk about something that I am passionate about.
Since childhood, I wanted to become a CTO of Google. That is still my dream and I am working really hard towards it. One day I got a call from a startup and they wanted me to become their CTO on part time basis. My dream has become partially true, my hard work is starting to pay off.
I moved to Australia about 5 years ago and during these years I have learnt to step up, stop complaining about things and make my own path. I work hard — my every minute is important for me. I believe in making positive impact in society through what I do. I work full time, run Young Coders, prepare for my talks, write articles, work as a CTO in a start up, run my fashion blog, run two YouTube channels “AWomenThatCodes” & “abc2style” and spend time with my amazing husband, dog, friends and family.
I asked Erik once why does he help me so much and he said, “Kruti, You have asked me for help, not many people do that.”. If you are one of those people who are passionate about what you do, find the right people around you and don’t hesitate in asking for help. Do it with all your heart and results will be always amazing.
I hope my story inspires you to work hard, motivates you to do the things that you love and also help the people around you. Working hard never gets unnoticed and that’s why I said in the title, “Believe in your hustle, not luck”.
