I am Nishita, a native of Mumbai (or Bombay as previously known), having just stepped out into professional life last year. And I lead the Business Development team for Engati, a new age chatbot platform at Quinbay.
Graduating from college as I completed my bachelorette in Engineering was both exhilarating and scary.
I was happy at the opportunity to now finally be able to try my skills and make a small cacoon for myself in professional life. To go and seek out things that I would love to do and feel happy about moving the dial to better the world. To make a difference and to have the world make space for me. To step out from my comfort zones.
Quite apprehensive too about what I wanted to do professionally. The sense of value worth where my skills would fit in. The choices that I had in front of me and choosing wrong at such a critical stage of life would surely be a matter of that one decision which would make me happy or contribute to misery for the rest of my life.
I was selected and chose Quinbay, a new age group of people with radical, change world thoughts.
So what does Quinbay really do? Here is the official tag line
Headquartered in Bangalore, having a presence in Mumbai, Singapore, Amsterdam, and USA, ‘Quinbay’ is a future tech platform building company for tech-savvy, dynamic and passionate people, looking to create the future with technology
But its a lot more than that. For me personally. It's the one place that allows me to be fearless. It lets me explore, try out, fail, get up, learn, keep moving, while people cheer me on for my moments of success. And Quinbay now has a lot of people to cheer too, about 400
With just one year out of college, it has given me leadership responsibilities, to build a team, to own something of my own. To really hone my skills by practicing them daily.
The most beautiful part, it lets me be 'ME' and helps me advance to a better place every day, in a lot of ways. How do you ask? Here is what really helps set the journey.
1. Work made fun
Happy employees are more productive, learn and innovate better and lead to happy customers. Quinbay embraces this. It lets people be themselves. If you have ideas, you can always pitch them and you will be heard and in most cases even by the co-founders and given the opportunity to implement them.
No cubicles, no dedicated desks, no walls - just the way I like it. Just open space which gives me the flexibility to either sit on a bean bag, a couch or a chair, with headphones on and to bring about my best in whatever way is comfortable to you. I thrive as I imbibe in the culture that has been created, where people are approachable, helpful and recognise that we millennials look at the world in our own way - not stuffed up in a cubicle but relaxed on a bean bag, in shorts and sandals - comfortable with our surroundings today, and confident of tomorrow.
It also builds the right environment for ‘work friendships’ across our various offices. And the opportunity to participate in monthly fun and social events, whether it is the yearly summer overnight camping and hiking trips or the dance into the wee hours year-end parties, or running a blood donation drive or collecting books and toys for underprivileged kids. It's a bond I have with the Quinbay family, it's where I belong.
2. Own your task/ Responsibility and Growth
I was born to engage with people. I love the social aspect of things. Growing up in Mumbai provided me opportunities to interact and start conversations with strangers. I love to figure out how people think and react.
Quinbay saw the potential and gave me the opportunity. Heck, it even created an office presence for me when I had to move back to Mumbai from Bangalore for personal reasons. I was even given the freedom to build my own team. Of committed radicals like me.
I was always encouraged to take the initiative. All you need is to have the passion, drive and hunger to acquire knowledge, persist in your dreams, apply your learnings, think different and be yourself.
In my role as the lead of business development for a global product, it gives me a golden opportunity to learn distinctive things, interact with customers all over the world, 108 countries and counting, craft innovative edgy marketing plans and strategies and own the results. It’s like every millennial's fantasy.
It also gives me the strength and confidence professionally and sets me up for success. As I observe and compare with my peer group who graduated from college with me just last year. I feel blessed.
3. Transparent leadership and team building
The leadership here is highly approachable, transparent and provides feedback. To work with a very smart, talented crowd, leadership here is lined up to make you succeed. Team building, orientation, collaboration, shared goals and success. Important aspects that leaders here focus on. There is a common bond.
A cross-functional approach between various teams gets better results. Quinbay has this art right. Leaders and co-founders are open and candid about all aspects of the business within their teams. Quinbay believes in reaching out to employees to discuss the thought process behind decisions taken. Something that my friends from college do not get to experience. I work on a daily basis with our CEO directly. Which is a learning opportunity I will not get anywhere else even after many years working!!
Leaders here hold your back. They integrate you with new employees quicker, transmit the culture and values and build a feeling of the network through various connection opportunities.
At Quinbay, there are various opportunities to connect over slack, WhatsApp, video conference, chat, phone calls and in person over daily team huddles, monthly company huddles, learning sessions, industry talks, hackathons or just chill Friday nights
The culture encourages the art of asking questions, which is critical to innovation, where we can discuss any thoughts we have, ideas, become more acquainted with people from other teams, confront anonymously any issue they are facing which drives the organization as an open book amongst its employees. The CodieCon hackathons held 2 to 3 times a year are also fun coding parties where everyone participates. Collaboration and asking questions are core tenets of the culture and people thrive in this intellectual freedom when reinforced with thoughts of experience and the energy of youth.
4. Learn from Top-notch professionals
Which companies give a 23-year-old an opportunity to sit and discuss the company future with senior management with decades of experience, graduated from some of the top universities and innovative product companies globally?
Quinbay surely does. If you have the urge to learn and grow. My biggest highs?
Setting up a team, marketing plans, inbound marketing approaches, conversion techniques, figuring out how to communicate with someone calling me from Ukraine or Peru and getting accolades from Customers about the Engati platform and how we won the deal since we were the best engineered, the most flexible and informed, capable, the most responsive and customer-centric.
This 4-year old organisation is a bundle of high energy, dynamic and smart people. Very successful too having created companies, led global organisations and strategies, and worked with the best in the world. And they are all accessible and open to share experiences.
Working with them opens a bridge of learning. People are multi-talented, in business, marketing, product, engineering, automation, high-tech and become extraordinary coaches for people like me.
5. Work with the latest tech AI/ML
Quinbay only works on the latest and groundbreaking technologies. It gives you an opportunity to learn about Artificial intelligence, NLP, machine learning technologies and Deep Learning products and platforms and how it's going to change the world. The world of tomorrow is all about automation, be it conversational interactions with chatbots driven by linguistic NLP, automation platforms that lead robotic process automation or the Future of Work itself like peopleHum.
In a short time since I have joined Quinbay, I have seen Engati shooting up to become the top 4 platforms globally. A high you cannot describe in words.
Looking back at the sprint marathon I have run, I can surely say, I could not have imagined I would be here so soon, my head full of ideas and the sense of excitement at the opportunity that awaits me, to do better and to learn tons more. To live life to the fullest. Since I have discovered home, its a place special for me and it makes me want to be better.
It's something I will not trade for anything in my life.
Excited? Join us, today.
