I'm Arnav Gupta, Director of Engineering at Jio Cinema. Ask me anything!
Hi Grapevine, I'm Arnav, Director of Engg at Jio Cinema. I previously exited my startup to Scaler. Some of you may know me from ScalerPod. I've also led engineering teams at Zomato & Target. Here to chat with you about my journey in startups, leading engineering teams, and products at scale, among other things. Ask me your question. I'll be back at 8 pm and begin answering!
ValidWreck52
Stealth
9 months ago
How much do you make in a year?
Ever since getting a car I am inclined to reply to this with the words of famous Yo Yo Honey Singh
"Hello, uncle, namaste, chalo kaam kee baath pe aathe hain"
"ab aap ye puuchhenge ki "aap kithne paise kamaate hain?""
"bas jitna aapakee beti ek maheene mein udaati hain"
"ek hafte mein meri gaadi utana tel khaatee hai"
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Why is jiocinema so effin horrible to use on Samsung tvs ? Just fix this shit already.
Hey @championswimmer
I’m @salt
Had a quick question:
As a famous personality on X.com, do you also have an alt account on Grapevine?
But in seriousness,
Att what moment in a company’s evolution, does engineering things the right way take precedence over engineering things the fast way?
CoolWinner
Student
9 months ago
I don't think he can have an alt account as one phone can have only one account... Unless he has two numbers 😅
A1: yes I do, ofcourse :)
A2: It obviously "depends" - but I would say it starts to matter when your products focus starts to emphasize retaining users as much as it emphasizes acquiring users. Usually as you hit PMF, and you start having few thousand users coming to your app/website every week, the retain-vs-acquire battle takes an even foothold, and doing things the right way becomes important from then
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Are you married? If not do you have a girlfriend? What are your thoughts on arrange marriage vs love marriage?
Not 'married', but I live with my partner for 2+ years now. Will get married one of these days because it does help legally on stuff like bank/insurance nominee, work visa / dependent visa, etc etc.
About the second part - you need to understand who you are, and what you want, and then find someone with whom you can share that. Other people (parents/friends/some algo on some app) cannot do that for you - if you're lucky you'll end up with someone whom you can live with for the rest of your life, but most likely you'll just sign up for a lot of pain and suffering and blame others for it.
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Hey Arnav, good to meet you.
Wanted to ask - how did the idea behind podcasts and being active on Twitter come about. Most devs are usually in the background.
What made you personally get into this?
Two things
Just as Arnav: I was a bit tired of the fact that all "tech" content in Indian ecosystem is mainly about how to get into tech. And not much about how to grow late stage tech careers or how to build and run tech teams (not just how to write code yourself, but how to grow a team that builds great systems). And I wanted to start such conversations in the ecosystem
as Arnav, Head of Product & Strategy, Scaler: We needed to have conversations with leaders of the tech ecosystem so that engineering leaders know more (and respect more) Scaler - and thus consider Scaler as a viable place to hire engineers from when they hire people in their teams
Both professional and personal interests came together, and the podcast started. Thanks for watching them :)
SoftwareDeveloper
Stealth
9 months ago
As Arnav, Head of Product & Strategy at Scaler, you did fantastic work. Nowadays I listen your podcast daily and I must it is very inspiring and insightful for people like us.
zebra
Stealth
9 months ago
Is there any particular reason that you have not moved abroad out of India? Like silicon valley or so? I'm aware of your takes on India, hence this question.
Have had opportunities in India that have catapulted my growth and learning to levels that were not possible with the kind of opportunities I had gotten to move outside.
Zomato, Target, Scaler and JioCinema have all been pivotal in learning crucial skills and also helped me grow in really varied ways (in terms of engineering skills, team building ability, product knowledge and business understanding)
I do feel long term I want to move out - the direction the social fabric of the country is taking is not much to my liking. Also better quality of life and infrastructure in some places that are on my shortlist.
When it comes to retail GCCs in India, Walmart is the most famous one. Even Lowe's is known as well. But Target doesn't seem like that. What's your take on this? Also, would you please share about your experience at Target, when compared to Zomato/Scaler or Viacom18?
Before joining Target, I didn't know they had an Indian office. The first person under whom I interned in life many years ago was Director of Engineeinr of the mobile team at Target in India, and he wanted me to come join his team when he learnt about me leaving Zomato. ( I did eventually let him down a bit as I left Target quickly - because the pace of work and scope of ownership the India team got was not something I was comfortable with )
Target has great employee-friendly policies - will never forget how they took care of everyone in US as well as India during COVID. It is a 100 year old company it regards itself as the corporate guardian of Minneapolis - literally takes care of the city like its own - and that culture shows up everywhere, even in the India office.
Engineering was also great - there were many ex Google / Facebook / Apple people - setting up lofty standards.
100% CI existed. Huge % of frontend code was e2e test covered.
Accessibility, analytics, security - everything was taken seriously - I would definitely recommend working here.
The data platform team was pretty well known for producing cutting edge stuff!
How is the Live sport total viewing metric measured in JioCinema?
Because like me, most of us noticed the T20 series viewership was way higher than the World Cup final views on HotStar
zebra
Stealth
9 months ago
With remote being prevalent among young techies, what's your advice on how one can optimise to make the best out of it? (Do not want this question to be taken as office vs remote but rather how to make the best use of remote)
What are the social communities on discord, Twitter, telegram or so on that young techies should be a part of? Please do share your suggestions!
On Discord there is "The Engineering Org" (slightly senior) and "The Real Dev Squad" (slightly junior) which are good servers where engineers hang out and build stuff.
If you have a remote job, I'll say maximise on life - go to the gym, cycle 2-3 times a week, go out to pubs with friends and sing at the karaoke, go to board game meetups, go to dance classes - meet new friends (possibly with different professions).
You claim to be anti-establishment and try to derive benefits from the same ecosystem. How you see the two sides of same coin?
It is the people who are part of the system only that need to speak out to change the system.
"don't like the system? why be a part of it" - isn't how things change.
Are you there to change it or make it more stronger? 🧐
Will they stop funding the establishment basis your
inputs?
Rather a simple question, but how did your alias ‘championswimmer’ come about?
Corpdaaku
Student
9 months ago
Bhai ki LinkedIn dekh le
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zebra
Stealth
9 months ago
What's your net worth?
Haven't yet been able to spend Rs. 1cr in a single transaction ....
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6769576549235621888/
zebra
Stealth
9 months ago
How much money do you need to have to spend that 1cr at a go? 😅 Is it 10% or 1% or 5%?
How do you pick which personal projects to work on? And which project are you the most proud of?
Last question: How's the jag holding up?
Really no such objective measure - just what feels like will keep me awake till 3am for the next few weeks.
Sometimes it is also need based - trying my hand out on some Go projects because I have never done prod-level Go before, and now at work we use it a lot - so want to be sharp in it.
Most proud of
https://www.npmjs.com/package/vuex-persist
https://www.npmjs.com/package/vuex-module-decorators
both are used by 10k+ websites across the world ☺️
Jag's fine, 10+ long road trips already.
Tell us more about your thoughts on the current startup ecosystem in India and the Indian market in general. Do you think India is a great place to be a dev in the long run?
Both loaded as well as generalised question.
I think there are some extremely cutting edge, and extremely niche engineering opportunities in Silicon Valley (and somewhat Guangzhou) that simply are not available in India. I mean no one is developing the next 3nm chip in India. No one is making AI-specific application processors in India. No large scale AI models are being made out of India. No major operating system or mobile computing device R&D happens in India.
India does handle a lot of scale in consumer apps though. Flipkart, Zomato, Ola, PayTM, (self plug, yes JioCinema), Inmobi, are all deliverying consumer experiences at a scale many companies from US/EU/SG have not seen or will ever see - and thus there are engineering challenges that have to be solved for that.
In terms of FAANG/MNCs - what I have mostly seen is that not even EU roles get to do the meatiest of the innovative work - that still needs you to be in a US west-coast office to get to do that. Large companies keep new stuff close to their chest, and doing it at HQ makes sense.
Hey folks, logging out for now! Tried to answer as many questions as I could. Will try to see if I can catch a moment to get back and answer some of the others :)
Thanks for coming and some of the questions were really good! Hope I could satisfy most of you with the answers!
Have a nice day, and also a great new year ahead folks! 🚀🚀🚀
zebra
Stealth
9 months ago
What are the top 5 things you look for when you're hiring someone beginning from screening the applicant till the final offer letter?
And on the contrary, what are the top 5 things that turn you away from an applicant?
Okay let me try (might not be able to do 5 5 each properly)
Things I look for:
- curiosity - I ask for things they have built and then ask related questions to that, and if the tree of knowledge branching out stops to quickly in all directions, means they are not curious to know things beyong the bare minimum they needed
- ownership - hard to judge, easy to fake sure - but I look for hints of someone taking a project/task from start to finish with their own initiative
- teachability - more for seniors - I ask them to explain a concept or something they built to me - I love those who open up an iPad, draw diagrams, teach me like a proper teacher
Things I filter out:
- rigidity - when discussions solutions often when thrown constraints / limitations some folks cannot change their design/architecture choice and dig themselves into a hole because they cannot change their opinion on the face of contrary evidence
- jumping to conclusions quickly, assuming things without asking, and not keeping their mind open to future possibilities when designing solutions
- untidy code, bad variable naming, not running the code when writing it, not writing comments, log lines,
OnADietCoke
Stealth
9 months ago
Honest opinion, do you personally think Scalar is actually worth it and feels more like a scam considering the fee they charge is basically equivalent to getting a college degree (cheaper in some cases)?
It is worth it if you're unable to bring yourself to study for 1 year at a stretch.
The upskilling required to get into serious product engineering roles is not easy, it is quite a grind.
There are tons of things I have learnt on my own - and things I have been able to do on my own regularly.
Gym is not one of them. I have a personal trainer. I pay him 12k a month (which is not a small sum) - but without that I would not drag myself to the gym everyday.
After a few months, I know exactly what routine he will take me through every week and what exercises he'll make me do - but I still am enrolled with him because otherwise I might not continue.
If I have to live my last 10 years all over again - will I join Scaler to get a job in tech? No - that's something that I can and will do on my own
Will get I get a gym trainer? Yes much earlier in life than I did.
It depends on who you are. If you need it - then it is worth it. Most people recoup the money they spent on Scaler via their new salary in 6 months of their new job.
Hi Arnav big FAN!
Want to ask you about:
1) Is Flutter trying to make game development easy with SKIA engine, if yes why?
2) How do I choose between Flutter and React-Skia? What architecture or params do you look at in a framework in the early days and understand what is it truly solving for?
3) CodePush for Flutter is a tech limitation or a delayed feature?
4) As a product scales up and engineering starts to get complex, how do you balance your time with engineering and product thinking?
5) When choosing a self-hosting tool which licensing to be aware of? Can you mention your favourite tools
6) When and what factors to consider to switch from RN/Flutter to Native Apps with dedicated teams? How to decide if team needs bandwidth or experience?
7) How to do a POC of a new technology? Ex: Flutter for desktop platform games
JamieTarttDoDoDo
Stealth
9 months ago
All really good questions 👍
this.observe()
Indy
Stealth
9 months ago
Hi @championswimmer
At what age did you start saving money?
Do you recommend any platforms which can help people like me who have no idea on wealth creation , Stocks, MFS etc.. platforms I mean like where people ,RMs make plans based on your goals and retirement
I don't prefer giving financial advice to people I don't know, but if you still insist here's my simple formula.
First do nothing till your bank balance reaches 5L (in today's day and age that much liquid savings are necessary)
Then put the next 5L of your savings into FDs (your bank will have FDs - use the 2.5yr period gives max % return, and save 10-15k or whatever you can every month)
Then put next 5L you can save into an ELSS fund (regardless of you having space in your 80c bracket, ELSS funds grow pretty well)
Then put the next 5L you can save into Nifty 50 index fund.
Now after this for every Rs 2 of money you save, keep growing this 1:1:1:1 bucket with Re 1 and blow the other Re 1 into whatever random af investment you want (crypto, friend's startup seed fund, laxmi chut fund, whatever)
---
There are few better financial advisors than me who can probably give better advice - but most advice would probably be worse than this :D
Sapthinker
Stealth
9 months ago
Spelling mistake pls correct
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NiceWork
Student
9 months ago
Hi @championswimmer
Why do you prefer only hiring go devs? By limiting to only one tech stack, you risk the possibility of losing out on different opinions.
Is this about JioCinema hiring right now? We are hiring NodeJS devs and Python devs too, not just Go.
Our stack uses all these 3 languages (apart from client side apps which also use Kotlin, Swift etc)
NiceWork
Student
9 months ago
Yes, jio cinema hiring
Why not make the hiring stack agnostic?
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