How Did You Get Your Start?

Both of my parents work in tech. They founded an IT consulting company out of D.C., so I grew up seeing how much creativity and possibility exists in the field firsthand.

My dad went to one of the top engineering schools in India and always emphasized education, curiosity, and being a go-getter.

I pursued computer science at UVA, and in my second year, I applied to any opportunity I could find.

Most people apply directly to roles called “Software Engineer.” But I realized there were plenty of other positions that involved software engineering work — they just had different titles. Roles like Mobile Application Developer, Cloud Engineer, or Solutions Architect still let you build and problem-solve using code.

I ended up getting an internship at Amazon Web Services in Seattle, learning how large-scale software systems operate and what it's like to work on products used by millions of users.

The next year, I attended the Grace Hopper conference, met software engineers at Salesforce, and ended up interning there as well in San Francisco.

As for Apple, I had a friend I met through my Amazon internship whose roommate was working there, so I asked her for a referral, and got the job in New York City.