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Honest conversations with the engineering leaders, CTOs, founders, and engineers building real software with real teams. No fluff, no hype β just the messy, human side of getting great products out the door.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (00:06)
Ram, thank you so much for being here. I'm glad you were able to join. We're doing this podcast. It's really informal conversation where we talk about technology teams. I call this business of software where it's not so much about technology specifics, but how the magic of software happens. Talk about teams, talk about distributed teams, talk about sort of all the different things and hiring.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (00:25)
Mm-hmm.
about all the different things and hiring,
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (00:33)
in today's day and age. And obviously, you know,
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (00:33)
and this and that.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (00:35)
we always touch on technology. This day's AI takes the front seat in that conversation, but we will see. We'll see how that goes. Tell us a bit about you.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (00:38)
Definitely. Yeah. Okay, definitely. I
thank you so much, first of all, Xenia, for having me here. Much, much appreciated. Yeah, I I'm pretty much excited, you know, what's going to happen and what's coming in. So myself, I'm an engineer by profession. I have been an engineer for, you more than 10, 10 plus years right now. Been almost in the field, almost like 15 years, I would say.
So pretty much I have been within engineering within different departments all around my course of my career. Pretty much predominantly my area of expertise is within manufacturing. know, a lot of work in different industries as well in semiconductor or in automotive mainly right now in medical and of course tech here and there as well. So I have been around and I'm currently in program management. So, you where you
You learn a lot where you see a lot of people, a lot of people management and more than that, it's just getting to know people and also hiring, what not, what is right, what is wrong, getting to know others perspective. That's pretty much my everyday routine. That's pretty much me, would say. Long story short.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (01:43)
Cool.
So technology to program product, that's a pretty interesting transformation and it certainly gives you a perspective from different sides. one thing that, and you said people management, so one thing that I wanna touch on and this topic sort of got old and now is a topic again. So we all used to work in the office. Everybody was in the same office. Now, funny for me,
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (01:50)
That's for sure. That's for sure, yep.
That's Yeah.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (02:09)
I have
not been to a physical office working since 2014. So it's not been 11 years since I've literally stepped into a physical office to do any kind of work. Yes. I mean, I have an office, but it's my home office. That's where I do all the work. Then COVID came. Let's not talk about that. We all know what happened. Everybody went home, right? Everybody started working remotely.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (02:17)
Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Correct. Yep.
Yep. Yep. Correct. β
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (02:35)
Then everybody sort of in the way came back at the same time. Didn't come back. We're seeing a bunch of big guys, Google, Meta. Nope, everybody's going to be in the office. It sort of brings a
memory for me. I used to live in San Francisco and commuted to San Jose, which was a 50 mile drive. me about an hour, an hour and a half back then. wasn't as bad as it's now.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (02:56)
Yeah, easy, that's
true. Yeah
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (03:04)
I had to ask for permission to work from home. Right. It was like, do you mind if I work from home tomorrow? Because the assumption was, yeah, I'm talking about 95, 96, like long time ago. And today, you know, when I see this at, you know, announcements from big guys, everybody's got to be in office or look for another job. How do you feel about it? What do you think?
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (03:06)
Okay β Interesting yeah back then Yep β
I mean the dynamics has changed definitely right like I mean I'm if you ask me like I'm an old school for sure I would love to be in the office and I would love to you know just talk to people it can be even teams or it can be even you know you know going to the desk or something
But when it comes to nowadays getting this hybrid or even work from home, completely remote culture, that's totally different. And also when even CEOs and top presidents and everyone from different companies, not even the biggies, tech leaders or something, even the other companies, they are right now in a position where...
You used to be in this position, right? Like you used to work from office. Like why are you just, know, just a matter of five years, what happened to you guys, right? So definitely there is a mind shift, I would say. But at the same time, to your question, people are hesitant to actually, you know, take a job if it's not, if they are not being flexible, right? I would just put it in a way that, you if they are not flexible, right? Even if it can be anything, right? I need work from home.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (04:26)
Absolutely. Yeah.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (04:33)
It's kind of becoming a mandate in most of the job descriptions that I'm seeing. Yeah, easy. Yeah.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (04:37)
Yeah, absolutely.
So what's your take on engagement, people management interactions? You mentioned you're an old school guy. I'm an old school guy. I like interaction. I like talking to people. I like the casual, know, water cooler conversation, going for lunch, things that probably young kids don't even understand what we're talking about. But what's your take now that we've moved to
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (04:46)
You mentioned your old school diet. I'm an old school diet.
Yeah. Exactly. Yup.
β yeah.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (05:05)
remote world, how are you handling it? And I'm happy to share what we do and how we do this, but I'd love to hear what you do.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (05:13)
I mean, people are being flexible right now. I cannot expect people to come and talk to me or if I go and talk to them, say for example, a person is actually working from home. If I just wanted to have some conversation of what's happening, what's happening with you, what's hitting the project and everything. So I don't usually do formal conversations. I do a lot of casual conversations where I try to get things done as well. That's how you actually get things done when you're being a manager and kind of a people's person too.
But but I cannot expect in in this kind of generation where you can be casual or you can just you know Take five or ten minutes break and just give me a call if you are remote, right? Like they would be having their own time like they would be having their family time or they would be having some conversation with their friends or something So it's it's definitely difficult. I would say But it's it's it's becoming a I think for old-school guys like me or you You just have to get adapted to it
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (05:48)
Mm-hmm.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (06:03)
I would say in that way, right?
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (06:04)
Absolutely.
I can share what we've done. So my company, we are 100 % remote. And what I mean by 100 % remote, we do not have a single person in the office. We now have two people in the same country, but before, didn't even have two people in the same country. It's fully remote. Everybody, what's that? Yeah, yeah. And remember, the old days, you're sitting like.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (06:07)
So my company is of our own separate models.
And you didn't have an office too, right? Got it. And you didn't have an office too, correct? It's all correct, of course. Right, OK.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (06:31)
not don't think cubicles, right? Everybody's in the same room, startups, and all of a sudden somebody, you know, will take a piece of paper, throw it somebody and five minutes later, you know, the balls are flying around and people are having fun. So that you can't replicate. Obviously, you just cannot. But we've done the closest we could. Not intentionally. We've never like it was never anybody's mind. Let's do this. We chat.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (06:34)
Yup. Yup.
Correct. Yeah.
Of course β
Mm-hmm.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (06:59)
Right? We have a group chat where everybody's on and we just talk, right? Hey, somebody will make a joke and somebody will send a funny picture and somebody will talk about the weekend and the family. And today was my daughter's graduation. So I'm like, yeah, hey guys, I'm running to my daughter's like today actually was my daughter's Right? So, hey, this is what we're doing. And that, yes, it's different because it's not verbal.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (07:01)
Nice. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.
Correct. Nice. Of course. Oh, that's good. Uh-huh.
mhm
mhm yup
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (07:26)
It's not the visual, but
it still can connect people, right? It creates that touch. then, so we have a rule. Any conversation is on Zoom only, on video, right? We use Zoom, but whatever, the video only, because you want to see the person, you want to look them in the eyes, you want to do this. Does sometimes happen, like I'll be in the car driving. Sure, like I am driving, I'm not going to turn on the video today, but 99 % of conversations are on video. β I have people working for me I've never met in real life, ever.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (07:30)
And of course, yeah. β
Sure. Right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Correct.
That's good. Yeah.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (07:55)
I've never seen them like real life. mean, obviously, yeah.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (07:57)
Yes, yeah, yeah, of course
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (07:59)
So I think that creates a very interesting dynamic. And yes, for us old school guys, it gets even more interesting. Yeah.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (08:02)
And yes, for us, most of you guys, it works. It's even more interesting, trust me, with
all these Teams chat and our group chat or Zoom chat, Microsoft, whatever it is. It's becoming more and more popular. And at the same time, it's nice too. Sometimes it's nice, know, if someone is having a bad day or something like that, or if someone wants to talk about a team or something, they just send a gift for, so they just send a sticker or something, right, like a team. So which actually makes the whole group
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (08:28)
Mm-hmm.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (08:31)
you know, come and have a look at it. We have a separate teams for separate groups. mean, separate groups, teams chat for each and every teams, right? Like I have separate, separate teams for different groups or different projects group where we share, like you said, like personal things or it can be professional things, know, joking at each other. So those kinds of things are becoming a norm, which is kind of making the teams stick together, which is more than, you know, sometimes it's more than, you know, one-on-one.
Sometimes it's more than in-person conversation as well. So which is good. Which is good in one way. As far as there are some people interaction is all I care about. is good in one way and it is also going in a good path. Yup.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (08:56)
Okay.
Yep. Are
you guys international or is everybody in US? Like, OK. What? Where?
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (09:09)
Yes, a lot. A lot in international. Like I have worked
from teams. I mean, right now, working in Mexico, working in Japan, sometimes most of the time in China. In my past life, I used to work teams in Korea or Japan or Germany. During COVID times, I used to work with people in Germany, big time. And there used to be some language problems. A translator would be there in between. Yeah, all sorts of.
things and we used to have plans in Mexico, in Spain, everywhere. So I used to manage different teams, different time zones and you just got to know along and you need to know the time differences as well. So sometimes I go at midnight to work because the team in Japan, that's a 12 hour change. So when I have customers in different parts of the world, I used to work in different time zones.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (09:50)
Yeah.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (09:56)
So yeah, it's as much as it's fun, it's no fun.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (09:59)
How do you
manage cultural differences in the same team where people are used to different things? I've done some work with Japan, very different culturally than US, very different than Europe.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (10:09)
Very much, very much. I had
bosses from three different cultures, three different bosses. The first boss I had was a French, second one was Japan and third one was a Chinese, And everyone had different culture, different perspective. But the one thing that commonly that I got to know is, of course, I'm an Indian too. So you have different culture and I bring a different culture too. So the one thing that I actually brought into table is in a professional respect.
between different cultures and professionally you have to respect each other in terms of how you talk, what you talk as well. The way you address, especially when it comes to Japanese, they address differently. They address you instead of sir, they use son. So they have different different terminologies as well. But
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (10:40)
Of course.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (10:52)
usually when it's some kind of different culture, I get to know their culture as well. Like I try to ask questions, you what do do in your culture? Like if me and the other person is trying to go for a lunch or dinner or whatever it is, or one-on-one, I try to start casually, you know, what do you do in your workplace? Like how do you used to work back home? What is your, like you, I have heard this, that and everything from everywhere. Is it true? Like something kind of engaging to make them feel
fine and not awkward, to not share their culture as well and also not feel bad. So that's how I approach it.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (11:18)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
reminds me, was running
an engineering team before I had my own company, I was running an engineering team for a US company and we had a team in Ukraine and we had a team in India. having them being in the same meeting and communicating with each other was, you know, as opposite as you can possibly get. So the culture and you know the Indian culture, but the culture in Ukraine, no matter what you say, it doesn't matter what you're whether you're their boss, it doesn't matter.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (11:31)
okay.
Hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Right.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (11:54)
They will argue, right? They will argue. They will say, hey, I need you to do xyz. The first answer that comes out in the second, it cannot be done. And then there's going be 15 minutes of how it should be done, eventually getting to actually a really good response. Whether you have the Indian team, you never argue. You never undermine your boss. And you always say yes. That was, yeah. Yeah.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (12:10)
β It's more of a culture that is that is so true I have
I have a have a Romania as well in my team used to as well They are very direct right I mean of course Indians are sometimes they're direct sometimes most of the times they're not That person is very direct and I'll be like my god is he was he rude to me like I'd be like that right
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (12:28)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, no, exactly.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (12:33)
But no, once you get to know with that person, where I go with a drink or something with that person, he will be like the most best person that I have ever met. So it's just different. that's how when I say people management, you tend to learn different things from different people. Even if it's like Indian or different nationality or ethnic, even if there 10 people of the same ethnic group, they tend to behave differently. That's personality.
but different different like cultural setting it's it's it's very interesting to learn I would say yeah mm-hmm it's fun
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (13:02)
Yeah, absolutely. Very
interesting. So I want to touch on hiring. And I want to touch on hiring from two angles. One is, again, international, culture, remote. It used to be somebody comes in the office, and you can sort of assess their personality.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (13:06)
That's good.
Yep.
Correct.
Mhm. Yup. Yeah, yeah. Of course.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (13:24)
I'm not talking about technical skills, right? Assessing technical skills, whether you do it in
office or remote, it's exactly the same. It doesn't matter. But you can see, is this the person I really want to be in the same room with for a certain period of time? Much more difficult to do that on Zoom or on any kind of video. And at the same time, the other aspect, hiring technology.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (13:35)
I agree.
That's true. That's right.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (13:44)
used to be, right, I was a hiring manager for many years. Now I'm sort of a hiring manager, but I'm hiring, right? That's what my company does. We're hiring people day in, day out. But you look at the resume, you try to understand that resume, it takes you some time, then you talk to the person, then you do a technical interview, then you talk to the person again, and then you pray, right? You hope it works out.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (14:05)
Correct.
Correct.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (14:07)
Now there's lots of tools that help you out to do that. Obviously, AI is being essential to it, but even not AI, right? I'm talking about different tools. What do you guys do? How do you handle that? How do you manage that?
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (14:14)
different tools here.
So hiring process, like every company that I used to work and also the company that I'm working with, they have a set of process, like steps that we used to follow for any hiring process. There was one where AI was in place, like when you're actually kind of screening it out, screening out some resumes or anything for that matter. But again, when it comes to hiring for technology, hiring for talents, I would say, I would call it in knowledge perspective.
Most of the time it has been one on one. When it comes to me or when it comes to my superior asking me to interview someone, I would love to have them in person most of the time. But at the same time, we need to accommodate different time zones, different structure and also their schedules and my schedule. So Zoom or Teams is not a problem for me. But again, to actually hire for talent, I would definitely prefer in person.
But again, with the growing technology, with the growing tools that we have, it actually makes easier, I would say. Sometimes it makes easier, or most of the time it makes it easier because when you just input some inputs on the AI tools, say for example, we wanted to hire this person or we want to hire this position for a person who knows this, this, this. If I give that input to that particular AI, so whenever me and that person is having a conversation,
it automatically jot down or summarizes it. OK, this person is good at this. This person is good at that. β What do you say? So it actually gives me the work that I used to do in Excel spreadsheet. So I used to do it in a spreadsheet where I used to have top KPIs, the indicators for every person that I'm interviewing, that OK, this person is lacking on this. This person is good on this, blah, blah. Based on the precision or based on the job responsibility, this person would be good. But now,
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (15:36)
Mm-hmm.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (15:59)
there is something that can do this for me to make my decision faster. So I would say it helps out in a different way. It reduces our work, that's for sure. But at the same time, we have to double check before we make an informed decision, I would say.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (16:15)
you seeing the flip side of that where candidates are also using tools and AI and
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (16:21)
That's for sure.
yeah. The thing is, since we have seen hiring managers, you have been in that position. I'm in that position, too. So hiring managers know if a resume is being AI rammerly checked, you have typed sentences by your own or something. They kind of figured it out, I think so.
Me with my colleague, we used to see some resumes and we see that, OK, no, is not something that I can, I see it's validated or something. It's been validated through CharGPTU, something like that, some AI tool. It can be anything. So I think that notion is getting changed, I would say. When this AI tool was kind of introduced maybe five or eight years ago, it was a big thing, I would say, at least five years ago, right after COVID.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (16:48)
Yeah, yeah.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (17:02)
it became very popular to generate resumes through AI. Even now it is getting very popular as well. But I think that flip side is definitely sad. But at the same time, people are getting smart to actually know if this resume is actually valid or not. They have tools to actually validate if this resume is from a tool or not.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (17:08)
Yeah. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. We're
definitely seeing the resumes being AI generated, which is not that big of a problem. Like that's OK. It just gets them an interview. But we are seeing AI prompting them for answers. And we've actually seen several deepfakes already.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (17:29)
Mm-hmm.
Yup, that's true. Alright.
yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Hmm, really? OK. Interesting. Well, again, at the same time, even if you fake your resume or something like that, you're still going to, if at all, say for example, you're going to ask a question or something, you would definitely know if that person is faking it or not. That's easy. β
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (17:56)
β yeah. So
you know what we do, what we see is we still have a human doing an interview. And you know, we're seeing this, right? So I'm talking to you right now, right? And it's also weird, everybody sort of got used to it. Like I can't like my camera is just a little bit higher. So you know, I can look at the camera, but then I'm not looking at you. But when I'm looking at you, I'm looking at the camera. And so what we're seeing all of a sudden, right, the person starts looking like this. And they're answering like this, like, where are you looking?
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (18:05)
Right. Right, correct.
mhm yup correct correct
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (18:24)
Or they sit and you ask the question and then you see this. The eyes just start moving. You're reading. You're not that good. If you want to read, get a good teleprompter and read on the teleprompter. Not that way.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (18:24)
Yeah.
Yeah, right. Gotcha. Yeah, it's not moving. Yeah, you're really not casual. Yeah, correct. Okay. Yeah, I agree. That's for sure. Yeah.
I mean, nowadays the AI is even recording. mean, say for example, I'm actually running this podcast, like, you know, in speakers, and I have my phone or something, you know, running on the side. So and I can I can actually,
ask the tool to actually record your question. And it just gives me an answer. And I just have it near my laptop or something. So anything is possible, I think, nowadays. just, yeah, you just have to be, I don't know, smart enough just to know what is what, if it is really right or not. It's a different world. For sure, it's a different world. We are heading into a much more advanced world, I would say. It's not getting any going back. No.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (18:57)
Yeah.
It's a different world. It is a different world.
Yeah.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
I mean, I love AI. Personally, for my business and even for my life, I am pushing the limits even of what AI can do. I've learned to build virtual boards. I really use ChudGPT mostly, but it's my space.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (19:26)
Mmm.
Nice, Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (19:35)
partner in Discussions right now go hey, you know brainstorm ideas and you get some interesting input and output and creative critique Yeah, it's not afraid to offend you. So it actually tells you what it is
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (19:41)
Nice. Yeah.
Yep,
and companies actually do support and also encourage actually using the tool, right? So nowadays because AI has become everywhere, Microsoft has an AI, Google has an AI, so everything has an AI, like Copilot, Gemini, can be anything. So yeah, it's becoming on daily basis. Yeah. Sure.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (19:53)
Yeah.
I just sort of, I want to be conscious of your time, so we're going to end pretty soon. But something
that I did the other day, which blew my mind away, I asked ChatGPT. So I started a brand new conversation. And I said, based on everything you know about me, please describe me. And it gave me a description, which was very accurate. And then I said, OK.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (20:14)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm.
you
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (20:28)
expand
this to include not only work related, because it mostly gave work, not only work related, but just everything else. So it did. And then I said, OK, based on that, if I, my question was, if I were looking for a job, please describe the job I would be perfect for. It did that. Then I said, can you write job description for my job, right, for me? And then I said, can you tell me about my management style, about my interactions? So it did all of this.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (20:32)
You sure?
Yeah.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (20:56)
And I shared that without any modifications, like literally shared a link to that chart with some people that I advise, some people that work for me and they all went, what? Unbelievable. We wouldn't be able to say this better than it did. It is spot on in how you interact and how you talk and how you're perceived in how, what you expect and everything. And I was like, wow.
Ramkumar Kumbeswaran (21:06)
Hmm, really? Wow, yeah.
Yeah, that's mind blowing. mean, especially when you ask, like, know, tell me about myself. That is something. Interesting. Yeah. Very interesting, definitely. β All right. No worries. Yeah. Thanks for having me as well. I mean, it was definitely a fun conversation. And thanks for having me again. Appreciate it. Thank you. See you.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (21:20)
It's a machine then.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. Very interesting.
All right, Ram. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for your time. It was fun conversation.
All right, thank you.