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Honest conversations with the engineering leaders, CTOs, founders, and engineers building real software with real teams. No fluff, no hype — just the messy, human side of getting great products out the door.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (00:06)
All right, thank you so much for joining us today at this recording of built by humans podcast. We started this podcast some months ago and what we focus on is talking about the human side of things. We all understand it takes technology. takes a lot of things to build great technology products. They build any product, but what's often under evaluated, under valued, I would say is the human factor.
It's the people, it's the team, it's the communication between the teams. It's everything that's sort of in the background. And that's what we're focusing on. I run a company called Mirigas. We are a service company in space of team augmentation. We help our clients hire talent in Latin America and Eastern Europe and fully focusing again on writing, know, finding the right fit, finding the right people for specific need of a company.
That said, I'm gonna turn the microphone over to you. Please introduce yourself, tell us about you, tell us what you do, who you are, etc.
Bhumi (01:05)
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me, Jenya. Hi, everyone. I'm Bumi. Right now, now lead GRC IT and security teams. I have helped build teams which blend technical skill set with a little bit of empathy and open communication. Like we were talking about, that's the core of what we do.
Rytle is a global leader in digital fleet transformation, where we provide a platform that combines intelligence inside orchestration automation that helps our customers run their fleet better. And it solves complex digital fleet operation problems. By integrating real-time data,
In addition to the intelligent workflows and AI, we empower our customers to run their operations more sustainably, profitably, and securely. And for us, it goes beyond technology. So what we want to do here at RightCell is
empower people with information, elevate collaboration, and create a workspace where both innovation and human connections can thrive. So that is at a nutshell. I have my, after getting my engineering degrees in India and then my master's in business and technology, so combining the two worlds together at IU.
I set out my journey with governance, risk and compliance, the GRC world, where I learned a lot where it's not just about technology that can solve a problem. Technology can empower humans, but humans and technology, they work together to solve a business problem. And that's how the two worlds get together.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (03:01)
Absolutely. And I'm so glad you're touching on that. So before running this business, I ran engineering teams and I often had to tell people, I'm in the customer service business because this is where technology and humans, technology and business come together. Even companies I worked for, the engineering teams were internal, meaning we didn't have external customers. It was all internal customers, but the end product was external.
Bhumi (03:08)
Mm-hmm.
Yep. Yep.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (03:26)
And I was telling all my engineers, don't forget, you have a customer. It could be a project manager, could be a product manager, could be somebody from another team, a salesperson, whoever it is, but that's the customer. And that's a very important thing to sort of remember constantly as you're doing this. But I have a question for you. So you work in compliance security, right? It's a very heavily...
Bhumi (03:44)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (03:52)
Compliance heavy industry and it's very procedural for good reasons. There's some processes that are for bad reasons. This one's actually for good reasons. How do you combine the security first mindset, people that come in into engineering teams and there, a lot of them by nature are used to break it and then fix it. Move fast, break things and then figure it out.
Bhumi (04:09)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (04:17)
So how do we
Bhumi (04:17)
Yeah?
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (04:18)
combine that compliance with this mindset?
Bhumi (04:21)
Yeah, so I mean, a great question and one that I live by every single day, because, again, security, it's also people oriented, because people are the weak links. Like if you think about all of the recent, you know, famous data breaches, like you would see a little line where it it started with humans. So just technology, just people, just one team cannot make a company or a product secure.
it is a collaboration of everybody together. So when we have new people, so there's a philosophy and right soul that our interview process is very different from any other company. We actually work together for three or four days with the candidates before we make a hiring decision. So it's you actually can understand the real world problems that we are facing, the procedures that we go through.
the reasons why we go through things. it's not just, I'm an expert here and that's the expertise and skillset I need and then fantastic, we'll work together. It's about, how do we work together? How does things drive with each other? Do you like us? And then, it's always a two-way street. So trust, which is the core to what I do from compliance perspective, that's where it all starts.
So when somebody is coming in, and I was an engineer, right? That's my background. So I've been in a place and funny story, the way I went into doing engineering and computer science was breaking my dad's first computer that he ever got home. So I've been there, that.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (05:55)
Dinner will!
Yeah.
Bhumi (05:59)
So having fallen through all this, and then there was also another story where why I did masters and did not, you know, was okay with the first job that I got out of my bachelor's was the same thing. The product manager gave us engineers a list of things to do and a deadline. And I never understood why. I never understood where does it fit in? What's the big picture? So was like, I need to learn business to figure out if this person
a great person, a great human being is coming up with this, there has to be some logic behind it, some rationale behind it. So that's when I was like, okay, let's go to business school and let's try to understand how all that fits together. so ⁓ going back to your question, so when somebody comes in, right, and then it's, it's, again, it's a startup environment, we have to work fast, we have to run fast, we have to feel fast, we have to improve fast.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (06:40)
Yeah.
Bhumi (06:51)
So that's the philosophy, but at the same time, there are some core high risk areas where we cannot cut corners. It's the very from security first mindset, the very first thing that everybody in engineering is being told during their implementation orientation when we meet them is, hey, treat this as if your data is on this platform. How would you like yourself, your data to be seen in the world? Where would you think it's okay? It's not.
And it helps both ways from UI perspective. Hey, I am the first user. I want to use this. How does it work? Will I use it or will I get bored because I have three more clicks to go? And then from data perspective, it's my data. What can somebody do with me? What would be the impact? When you just change that mindset where they understand the impact to end user, not as a third person, but as a first person, they get the idea.
And one thing that people don't understand about compliance is when things go wrong, the most important thing behind all of these procedures, all of these controls, all of these techniques is to help you as an engineer to go faster. It has to create value. If it's just a check the box exercise, hey, sign here, but it didn't add any value, I personally don't watch for those controls.
it has to add value to the work that you're doing. If you're testing and it's a control that, hey, it has to be tested rigorously, then you're not getting your pager duty calls as often if you did not do that test. So it has to add some value to the operations. And that's how, like, having building this environment, this awareness, bringing everything together, that's how people understand. And then it sits in their mind that, hey, this is how we should approach things.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (08:23)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Right. Question, do you, and this is because obviously business warren, but I'm very curious. Do you have all the employees or do you use contractors? they all US based, local, international? How does that work? Because I have some thoughts and questions on that and just trying to figure that out.
Bhumi (08:54)
Yeah, sure. Yeah,
so we are global and we have offices, of course, in the Bay Area. We have offices in India. We have offices, smaller offices all around Europe. So Germany, France, being the two main, we have one in Spain. So we have people spread out because again, going back to the philosophy of, you know, empowering our customers with the data.
with better processes and working together with them as partners, we try to have some presence where our customers are. So we are a very global company.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (09:28)
Mm-hmm.
And when it comes to security, do you find, or security processes, do you find a difference in people's mentality, the employees, workers mentality, how they approach the problem, how they adjust the process, like sort of the difference between being in, let's say, Europe, India, or in the US.
Bhumi (09:40)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. So yes, there are, it is not more so the cultural part of it, but it's the background and the work that you have been. So if you have somebody who has always been in startups and then comes here, they have a different mindset. If you are in a bank, which is highly regulated,
and with all of these controls and then you come in, you have a different approach. So it's more so on the exposure that you have been at. If you're again, a research scientist, then it is very different whether you are coming from, and this is more going towards not Rights Health, but the healthcare tech company that I was at before. If you are in a regulated space, it is different. But if you're a poor technology where I want to just move fast and do things,
and get my problem solved, it's different. So it's not so much geographically or culturally, it's more on the experiences that you have collected throughout your journey.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (10:52)
So absolutely. And this is one thing that we do all the time. So we talk to a client and client comes in and they go, we're an early startup. We have five people on the team. looking for somebody. We're not going to offer them candidates that spend the last 20 years working at a bank or multiple banks because the environment is different. And vice versa, somebody comes in and says, we're 200 people company. We're looking for somebody to plug in into an existing 10 people team.
We're probably not going to offer them somebody who spent last 10 years and five people startups for exactly the same reason, The opposite result, same reasons. And yet we do see a difference. So we work in two primary regions, Eastern Europe, Europe, Europe. It was sort of Eastern Europe and because of unfortunately the war and things that are happening, it became Europe because so many people have relocated. So it's Europe and Latin America.
Bhumi (11:23)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (11:43)
And
Bhumi (11:43)
Mm-hmm.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (11:43)
in my past, I worked a lot with Asia, in India, just, you know, I was, I was a hiring manager. I ran engineering teams for 20, 30 years almost. Um, there are cultural differences. And again, they're not, a lot of people say, which one's better? I see people come in, what's, what's better? Latin America or Europe? And I go, there is no answer. What's better.
What do you need? And each one has its advantages and disadvantages. And let's figure out what you need. And I can tell you for your specific case, this might be better and this may not be. And for somebody else, the answer is completely opposite. And so it's the same thing as everywhere else. Now, you just said that you see the background they're coming from, which I absolutely agree with. But you're saying cultural differences are not that much. And yet, there are cultural differences between regions.
Bhumi (12:30)
Yeah, I was focusing more so on purely security mindset when I was answering that question. So overall, the human side, of course there are cultural differences. There are different ways in which people work and which people act. But I was like really focused when I was answering that. Like if I just put the security blinders in, is there cultural differences when it comes to pure security of compliance? So that's where I was coming from.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (12:35)
Okay, I see.
Got it, got it. So going back to that, when you, I'm actually going to start with very simple. So you said you do this three days, four days, work side by side with the person. Do you see a lot of pushback from candidates on doing that? how do they receive that? And yeah.
Bhumi (13:16)
So we
have seen a variety. Some people love it. And again, it's a very novel concept. So we spend time explaining it to them. We also tell them that, hey, if you are reaching this place where we want to work with you, we're going to pay you for those four days. You are not doing this a favor. And when you come in, you are going to be part of the team. We discuss real problems that we're facing that day, what we're going to solve. So it's
It's also coming from a fresh perspective. We do expect you to ask a lot of questions where the other team members in the room, they already have the background. You don't. So just consider that as your first day at work, you are here to contribute. What would you do? So there are some people who don't like the idea and that's absolutely fine. Sometimes scheduling takes a while because they are in a current role.
They cannot just take some time off when we ask. So we work with them and figure out, and again, the advantage of, or disadvantage, whatever you call it, of being in a startup is that flexibility is key. So we have teams, if they're really like a candidate, they'll come work over the weekend. And they'll be like, yeah, this is what we were going to talk about next. Let's just do it now. And so there are times when we say Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (14:08)
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
Mm-hmm.
Okay. Interesting.
Bhumi (14:34)
we work like that, or if there's a long weekend coming. And again, we have been lucky with people who have the same drive, the same mission, you know, goal-oriented, this is what we want to do, we want to move the world better. Let's just do it together.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (14:48)
Yeah, it's interesting. I love hearing this. I probably want to do the same thing. I don't know like practically if I could, but I get that. And I think you're doing one of the best tests for a future employee on how they handle it. We had an interesting situation. It wasn't a situation, it was just something funny. We had a candidate, he had a scheduled interview with the client.
And the client, literally, know, the day before, even maybe the morning off, asked for a schedule. They had something, they asked for a schedule and fine, it happens all the time. And they came in and they sent, you know, some time available time slots and all of them were in the afternoon Pacific time. So like 1, 2 PM. This candidate was from somewhere, Latin America, I can't remember where, and so they're like four hours ahead. And the response was, nope.
Bhumi (15:17)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (15:39)
can do it after 2 PM because that's after my work time. And we're like, we're done. It's not even about can we reschedule and find a different time. We probably could. But we're done. If you're not flexible to find, and we're talking about a 30, 45 minute conversation. We're not talking about working three days side by side. If you're not flexible enough in that, then we're done.
So interesting that different people have different way to show who they are and what you're doing, I think is amazing.
Bhumi (16:03)
No, it has worked for us. It has also worked for candidates when they come and work and they are used to a certain structure, a certain way of doing things. And you come to the startup world and you see the chaos and they're like, my God, that's too much. can't handle it. Or, my God, I love this. I was so bored in my previous job. When can I start? So we have seen both sides and it helps both ways. They can also understand where they are in their personal life, professional life, career wise.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (16:13)
Right.
Yeah.
Bhumi (16:31)
what they want to do, is this the right fit or not? And then, and it helps us also where we adding somebody to an existing team where everybody will have to work together and whether it works or not. So I think this has worked so far.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (16:45)
One thing that I love this podcast and recordings for is I get to learn at every single one. And my brain is already thinking, how do you incorporate this? Like, how do you do this? Because I love the idea. But I want to sort of ask, and we're coming to the end of the time we have, and security, right? Everybody's worried about that. And today we live in a world where you sort of expect that you'll get hacked. Last year, just about a year ago, my bank
Bhumi (16:55)
Thank you.
Yep. Yep.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (17:13)
got hacked to the point where we don't know details, but I pretty much know what happened and we can all guess what happened. None of us had access to the bank, to funds, to anything for about two weeks. And can you imagine, right? You've got your money in the bank and you can't access your funds for two weeks. Not a fun times, but that's a reality. So my equation, since you're an expert in this, you live that world.
Bhumi (17:13)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (17:37)
Everybody talks about secure by design, right? We are talking about how this is number one and everything. Do you think it's real? Do you think it's coming? And in an AI world where AI is on both sides, the bad actors, the good actors, it's all there. Where do you think we're going? Where do you think we're going to end up?
Bhumi (17:50)
Mm-hmm.
So
yeah, so in my perspective, it's a balance. Like you cannot build a fort where you cannot trade, right? You can have a fancy fort, there's no way to go in or go out, you're completely secure. But then there's no trade happening. So when you have to do that, you have to create a balance. And that's where the risk-based approach comes in. And again, it's like,
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (18:06)
Mm-hmm.
Bhumi (18:21)
whenever you are designing something, I use this metaphor of an onion, you have to have different layers. You can have a core, but you need multiple layers. And then in today's day and world, you're absolutely right. It's not about if you're gonna have an incident. It's like, then you're going to have an incident. So you try to build all the controls, all the layers of the onions as well as you can, but you also have to be prepared for when
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (18:40)
Mm-hmm.
Bhumi (18:49)
something happens? How are you going to manage it? How are you going to tackle it? What all things you have at your disposal at that point? Have you have you done this exercise of simulating where, hey, something happened? What do do now? Are your people scrambling to figure out what is the next step do I take? Where they know, okay, let's do these five things, then these 10 things and the 15 things, something will click. so the timeframe from
days, two weeks, two months, it all depends on a little bit of preparedness. So you have to be prepared that it's going to happen. You cannot say, I've built a perfect fort. Nothing's going to happen. If you don't want to do business, great, nothing's going to happen. But if you want to have the doors and windows, something's going to happen at some point in time.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (19:21)
Right.
Right.
Absolutely. I can tell you I'm old enough where my life started on paper, right? Before computers, literally everything was on paper. And today I have friends that make fun of me, but I have two hard drives that are, you know, USB hard drives. They're completely offline. And every so often I'll go and back up everything from my personal data and company data. And that drive goes into a safe deposit box in the bank.
Bhumi (19:43)
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (20:07)
And the other one comes out, comes home and you know, sometime later, same process. you know, so it's everywhere. I'd say about once a month, once, twice every other month it gets done. And then to make it even more fun of me, all the critical financial data, I have papers printed out with, you know, like
bank accounts and stuff and it's sitting in a safe and you know, just it's paper. I can go look up and go, this is my account number, I know what it is. So yeah, that's.
Bhumi (20:37)
Yeah, yeah, no, it's
all those different things where everything works together at the end of the day. And you know exactly what to do, when to do. That preparedness definitely helps.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (20:47)
Right.
Well, thank you so much. This was an incredibly interesting conversation, very different from a lot of conversations I have because, you know, it's a different space. Thank you.
Bhumi (20:54)
Of
Okay.
Yeah, thank you for having me. Really appreciate it. I enjoyed the conversation too and I like how impromptu it is.
Zhenya Rozinskiy - Mirigos (21:08)
We try.