2023 of a Data Engineer At Rakuten, Bangalore, India — Sandy Inspires

2023 was an incredible year of both learning and fun!

Iskcon Temple— Bangalore

$whoami

I’m Santhosh Kumar (aka Sandy) working at Rakuten, Bangalore as a Data Engineer II.

History

The above is a very decent intro but let’s add some history, I started my internship with Cognizant way back in December 2019 as a .NET intern.

Asked my manager for a Python role and he gave me an interview shot. It was like “You asked, now prove you’re worth it!?”. I did crack all the three interviews (one internal and two client rounds).

Worked as a Data Engineer with Cognizant for two years, until 2022 December, joined Rakuten on January 2023.

Here you’re reading my 2023, please continue below,

Warning: It’s a huge blog post, please using Ctrl+down arrow or CMD + down arrow to read just the summary.

Hackathons

Microsoft

Buildfor2030 — Hero Award

2nd Prize Microsoft Entra Permissions Management Hackathon — $250

Intel

Intel Office, Bangalore — Top 10 Finalist

Linode + DEV Hackathon Runner-Up — $250

all 4 YOUth — 1st Runner Up — $6000

Virtual Presentation — 1st Runner Up — $6000 in prize

GitHub + DEV 2023 Hackathon Grand Prize Winner — $1500

Bunnyshell Stack Jam Hackathon — Honorable Mentions — $1000

Atlassian Codegeist Unleashed 2023 best responsible Al implementation — $2500

Conferences/Summits

Microsoft Future Ready Technology Summit — Conrad, Bangalore

Left: Met all the senior leader from Microsoft APAC; Right: Keynote by Sathya

DES’23

Radisson Blu, Bangalore

Involve ‘23

The Power Of Data Summit ‘23

The Taj, MG Road, Bangalore

Talks

Global AI bootcamp — Chennai

Global Azure Bangalore 2023

Microsoft Office, Bangalore

Low Code Automation Summit ‘23

Virtual Presentation at Microsoft office, London

Outside of Work

Iskcon Temple

Park Square Mall

Park Square Mall

Church Street

Team Dinner

Ibis Hotel, Bangalore

Family Time

Rasika's Restaurent Salem

Team Lunch

Chutney Chang Restaurant, Bangalore

Team Activity

Temple

UB City — College classmate & Roommate

MG Road

Nandhi Hills

Polar Bear

UB City — Shush!

Blue Tokai

Visiting my Uncle’s home

Buying Stuff for Team Offsite

Jayanagar

Vega City Mall

Taking Staff Data Engineer to UB City

UB City

Corner House

Christmas Mode

Catching Up with Biriyani

LuLu Mall

Church Day

Summary of 2023:

• 9 hackathons (7 wins)with ~$11,000 in cash prize
• 3 talks delivered (Microsoft office, London; Microsoft office, Bangalore; Tech Mahindra, Chennai)
• 4 conferences/summits attended (Taj, Conrad, The Den, Radisson Blu)
• Rakuten Best New Comer Award
• Rakuten Spot Award
• 3 volunteering done (RPC, Rakathon, RTC)
• 3 meetups attended (Microsoft, Google, Docker)
• 25+ outings (6 malls, 3 restaurants, 4 ice-cream shops)
• 2 college seniors marriages attended
• 12 celebrations
• 0 theatres visited

Read the part — II here to complete the journey you’ve started.

LinkedIn — Santhosh Kumar Dhanasekaran
Instagram — sandy_inspires
X — sandy_inspires

Santhosh Kumar’s LinkedIn Profile

Happy Learning!