HappyFunPeople: Rohan Dey
HappyFunPeople is a series where we talk with HFCers about their life experience, what motivates them, and what it’s like to work at HFC. Rohan was one of HFC’s first engineering hires and he continues to be a positive force on all of his projects.
“What makes me excited is to work on projects where I can build something new”
Robb: The story that I’ve heard from Ben and Will is that in the early days of HFC, you were critical to the early projects and recruiting. That really helped scale the company from a much smaller version to more what it is today.
Rohan: Yeah, that’s kind of true. I think I’m an introvert but I’m friendly. I like to be around people. So I know a lot of people and because of my profession, most of them are developers. So Ben and Will wanted to hire more devs at that time. So that helped — my network helped. And also, with those initial projects, I was doubling on two or three projects at a time. So I was putting in a lot more hours than what I do right now, but yeah, initially, it was a bit crazy in terms of getting people and also in terms of delivering those projects.
Robb: Things are a bit different now. So I want to rewind a little bit and hear more about you — your background and how you got into technology. What was your childhood like?
Rohan: I grew up in Delhi. All my life, I’ve been in New Delhi — my education, my jobs all around and finally landing in HFC which actually provides a remote job. So all my life I’ve been in New Delhi. I completed my Bachelor’s in Electronics. After that I wanted to do MBA, but I’d become interested in computers, so I completed my master’s in computer science. And by that time I lost interest in further education. So the dream of doing an MBA actually stopped there and I looked for a job. Even during my first job, I was not sure if I was going to be a programmer, but then, I started to pick up programming and I realized that I was good at it. So from there on, it’s been 16 years coding and I’m still coding now.
Robb: But going back, did you have exposure to people in technology in your life when you were growing up? Were there early indicators that you were going to go in that direction?
Rohan: No. I think when I did my Master’s in computers it was in 2002, and at that time there were very few people who actually had computers in their home. So, it was only a professional thing here in India. Even most of the banks did not actually have computers. So just at that time, I think it was around 2000, that all the banks started to get computers and all the people working in banks were not very familiar with how to operate those machines.
Robb: That’s incredible.
Rohan: Yeah. So it was more of a professional thing. So people would see computers only in offices. But then, just when I actually got my job in 2005, after that, the whole boom happened and everyone started to actually have computers in their homes. So it’s a common thing now here.
Robb: So you said you grew up in Delhi. Well, what was that like? It sounds like you’re maybe a few years older than I am, but growing up in a big city undergoing so much change, that must have been interesting.
Rohan: Yeah. Then it was less crowded than it is right now. There were more open spaces. And I loved sports and playing sports. I have never been an exceptionally good athlete but I love playing all kinds of sports. While in school I played volleyball. I played cricket, football — football as in soccer — and other games like badminton. Education has always been a priority here in India, especially in middle class families. So parents always insisted on getting the right education so that you can actually get a good job. So that’s the motto which actually has been there for 30–40 years in India and it’s still a thing. So sports was there, but education was something that was always there in the back of the mind. That actually made me realize that education is something that should be the focus in life over sports. So sports took a back seat. Also, growing up we played those Atari video games, though I never had one. But one of my rich friends had that. And spending a few hours over his house over the weekend was total fun, playing those games.
Robb: So that was an early exposure to computers, basically — through Atari.
Rohan: You’re right.
Robb: I had that friend too, though for me it was Nintendo. And what were your parents doing or what kind of work did they do?
Rohan: My mom was a homemaker all her life and my father worked in a production company. They had metal working machines and various kinds of printing machines and he was a supervisor there. So he worked there in the same company for around, I think, 25 years or so.
Robb: And do you have a lot of brothers and sisters or is it a small family?
Rohan: A small family. I have one sister, one elder sister.
Robb: I’m going to ask you for photos –
Rohan: Yeah, sure. I’ll send some to you.
Robb: — Of Delhi in the 80s and your family.
Rohan: Sure.
Robb: So let’s talk about HFC and how you came to know Ben and Will.
Rohan: So Ben actually had come to India in 2008 to get one of his projects done from an Indian service company, Global Logic, and I was one of the developers there. So the project was called WorkStreamer. I worked on it for three or four months and during that time, Ben actually visited India twice, and I met him. We got connected through Facebook, and then in 2011 Ben had created another small side project along with Will and he messaged all his friends to try out this application and forward it to other friends. It was, I think, a kind of dating app. I sent it to a few friends of mine and copied Ben. Within a few hours, Ben replied that he was looking for developers, senior developers. And I asked him, “do you consider me a senior developer?” And he said, “Sure, yes.” And then the conversation started and he introduced me to Will. So I have met Ben personally, but not Will. So I hope I get to meet Will someday and the rest of the HFC team sometime in the future.
I got an offer from HFC. They asked me to work on this side project I think, basically, to test my skills. Will was convinced after letting me work on a couple of modules and then he offered me this full-time role and I joined.
It was a bit of risk to join a US-based company remotely from India in 2011. At that time, HFC was not a big company, it was just starting up. So most of the people actually said that this was not a wise decision. But I think — I don’t know. It was a risk, but I just joined, I thought, “Let me try something different.”
Robb: Did you know anybody else that was doing that sort of remote work arrangement?
Rohan: No. I was not even aware of the term “remote” at that time. The way I thought was that when I was working in all these service companies in India, almost all the clients were in the US or in Europe. So I just thought, ““it does not matter whether I work for these clients through a service-based company or directly for these companies.” So I was just cutting out that middle layer of a service-based company and working directly for the US-based company.
So not much of a thought. I think if I had thought more about it, I would not have joined. (Laughs) I think it’s better to, at times, not think much about it. Also, I honestly believe Will and Ben are good people. It’s something that I’ve realized within a few months of actually working with them. So I think it was a good decision. And that actually really helped me convince other people to join HFC.
Robb: That’s good to hear. And I mean, it shows. I think some of the — there are other folks in team India, as we call it, who have been really critical to our success over the years — Vivek, Suman, Ravi, etc —they come through you also?
Rohan: Yeah.
Robb: It’s the Delhi mafia.
Rohan: Yeah. (Laughs)
Robb: You guys are a wrecking crew. So I’m interested in hearing about an early project and what that first experience was like as you were starting to experience remote working with Ben and Will — I mean, the fact that you knew Ben already, I think probably helped a lot but what were the early days like and how did that affect your home life? Was it good? Was it hard?
Rohan: I think it got much simpler because in Delhi it’s very hard to actually commute to a workplace — it takes a lot of time because of the traffic. So once I started working from home, I had a lot of time on my hands and I think if you don’t have a kid then it is much easier to do work from home. Though the scenario is different right now that I actually have a kid.
I think the good thing was with me and some others was that we were already managing projects by ourselves before. So in our previous companies we were doing all of the client calls. We were managing things. So that helped in the sense that we were able to take some load off of the rest of the HFC team. And I think even today HFC still has this philosophy — I think we prefer to have developers who are mature and take up things independently.
Robb: Yeah, that’s definitely been the model. It’s helpful if somebody’s already been through the process — has been in a leadership position or a management position, so they’re a lot more sympathetic to the business side of things as well as have the ability to execute. It just makes everything a lot easier. So even if you don’t have to flex those muscles, you’ve at least developed a sense of what it means to be on the other side.
Rohan: Right. Yeah.
Robb: Tell me about a fun project for you. If there’s one in particular that — I know they’re all perfectly enjoyable — but I’m curious if there are any standouts for you when you think back on 10 year?
Rohan: When I joined HFC I was a backend developer. At one point, Will simply dropped this project on me and said “you need to do the frontend also for this project.” At the time, I had little knowledge of HTML and CSS, and it actually had a very cool design. So I think that was a really good project in the sense that I was able to work on the frontend — though I was also doing a part of the backend as well. But that was the first fully-fledged project where I did the frontend. So that is a kind of a memorable thing for me.
I think it’s a good thing that happened to me as I actually started to pick up an interest in frontend. I enjoy CSS. I love Javascript. And the great thing is that the knowledge I acquired gave me the idea for my current side project that I’m working on, which is a tool to create HTML and CSS.
Robb: Tell me more about the side project.
Rohan: Would you like a demo?
Robb: Sure.
Rohan: Okay.
[ About 15 minutes pass where Rohan demos his side project, Aankaa, which is a tool that allows developers to generate HTML/CSS]
Robb: Very cool. I think a lot of us at HFC have side projects of various kinds because we tend to be tinkerers and entrepreneurs, creators. Very cool. So let me see. Where were we? We talked about fun projects. Tell me about a tough project or a really big challenge and what you took away from it, what you learned from it.
Rohan: I think that was a project I did with you. Pyne, I think?
Robb: Yeah. I remember Pyne. [Pyne was a social polling app]
Rohan: Yeah. So had this algorithm for showing the next question. And I actually had to — they had a lot of parameters, what should be the next question that has to appear after a user answers the previous question. So that actually had a lot of formulations and combinations to tackle. And the code base that we had at that time was taking lots of time to actually calculate the next question and it was not predicting the right question. So I actually — what I did was to move all those conditions to a lot of nested SQL queries and those single SQL queries took me like probably 8 or 10 hours make those work correctly. So I think that was something which was really challenging for me in terms of HFC projects.
Robb: So you’ve been working from home for a long time. How was your home workspace kind of evolved as you’ve been working from home for a long time?
Rohan: I think even before joining HFC I had a small table where It had my machine just to play games and later on it turned into my workstation. I don’t need actually much of a space. Actually, just small table works for me. I don’t like big monitor. I just have my laptop, my mouse and a laptop stand. That’s it. And I’m good.
Robb: And you have a family now, right?
Rohan: Yes. So it becomes hard. My bedroom used to be my office… not anymore. So I actually do have to work at times on my dining table. I’ve accepted that right now.
Robb: Yeah, I think many people now are getting a taste of that.
Rohan: Yes. And I think it makes you less productive, but I think companies do understand this. It’s going to be hard actually managing working when having a kid in the house. It’s totally different once you actually have a kid.
Robb: Especially when childcare is shut down.
Rohan: Yeah.
Robb: I know that, at least in the States, the vaccinations are starting to happen in a big way. Are things still kind of shut down in India?
Rohan: No. It’s open here. Almost everything is open here. People are taking vaccinations. It’s mostly for healthcare workers right now and people who are above the age of 55, I think. So in a matter of three to four months I think even we will be eligible to take those shots. India actually is the largest manufacturer of vaccines in the world so that gives an advantage.
Robb: So, you’ve been at HFC for 10 years. That’s a long time, I think, for any job, but especially one where you haven’t even met most of your coworkers in person. What keeps you working at HFC?
Rohan: I’ve been planning to come to New York for the last 5–6 years but somehow it keeps getting pushed down on my list. One factor is that I prefer remote work. Also, after working for service-based companies, I realized how that whole structure works — if I do this, this, and this, I’ll be probably a director by this many years and a VP by this many years. These are things which don’t interest me.
Will and Ben are nice people and I think that translates to all the people who work for HFC. And all the managers that I have worked with, they all have been nice, patient. There are very few meetings in HFC. That may not be the case for you guys, but I tend to avoid meetings. If you can clarify anything over Slack, I prefer to do that. I have 30 or 40 minutes of calls per day and that’s it. So I get a good amount of time where I can put in my actual work. I think all these things combined together makes me happy at HFC.
Robb: Yeah, I think what you’re saying about avoiding meetings — that’s something that, even when I started, that was sort of impressed upon me how important it was to respect developers’ time. This is probably the longest call you’ve been on in a while.
Rohan: (Laughs) I agree!
Robb: Are there other things that you’re looking forward to either with regards to technology or things happening in Delhi or in your family life?What’s on deck that you’re excited about?
Rohan: So in terms of technology, I think we are trying to reinvent the wheel over too many times. So there was backbone JS. Then there was Angular, then React. I think almost all of these technologies are trying to solve the same thing. So these things don’t actually get me excited. I have done projects with Backbone, React, Vue, and a bit of Angular as well. I think I found my best medium in terms of technology in the form of Ruby on Rails — I still like to work on Ruby on Rails and React. I hope that there’s some other new technology comes up which actually gets me excited. What makes me excited is to work on projects where I can build something new — that is more fun.
In my personal life, I’m excited — I’ve planned my vacation after almost one and a half years. After the lockdown I’ll be on vacation on the first of April for four days. Then I’m planning my second vacation in the month of June and hopefully the next time is in the World Cup in Qatar, the FIFA World Cup. So I do plan to actually visit there for at least one match. (Laughs) That is something which I look forward to.
Robb: Wow, that would be cool.
Rohan: Yeah, I want to take my father there, actually. He’s 74 right now so I hope that next year I can take him.
Robb: And last question, what advice would you give someone who’s starting out HFC today?
Rohan: I think if anyone is working on HFC or any remote company, one thing that they need to do is to be very clear about communication. So if you’re working in an office, there is always someone who can actually see whether you’re working or not, whether you are available or not but if you’re working for a remote company, it’s really important that you always make your communication clear. And also, try to be available on a particular time zone, there has to be some overlap of time zone between the New York company and your time zone.
Robb: One thing that I think you’re good at is also establishing a relationship with the people that you’re working with and I think that can be a bit of a challenge for some folks that are working remotely but especially people that aren’t used to it — even when you haven’t met us in person.
Rohan: Yeah. I would love to meet every one of you. Hopefully. Let’s see if this pandemic thing gets over. I’ll try to come to New York.
Robb: I have been telling Ben and Will we should just do an offsite somewhere — like Greece or something.
Rohan: Yeah. Greece, Thailand or any other place. We can do that here. I’m totally in for that. Totally.
Robb: We’ve made the decision. And once we’ve published it, they can’t take it back!
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