My guest today is a good friend and colleague - and not to forget with whom I was a co-author for a book, Paramu Kurumathur.

In this episode, Paramu discusses how his recent development work evolved from small Google Apps Script utilities copied and adapted from online examples to building AI-connected applications via APIs to tools like Gemini and ChatGPT, including enabling Q&A over his book content.

He describes surprises from “conversing” with his books—especially that LLMs retain details he has forgotten—while noting key risks such as hallucinations and the need for precise prompts. He explains learning Cursor with guidance from our colleague, Raja, discovering that it can generate code, and rapidly producing a proof of concept that maps citizens to the Government welfare schemes using PDFs, Chroma DB, sentence transformers, and queues—work that took about a week instead of months.

The conversation contrasts older development eras with today’s dependency-heavy environments, argues many SDLC intermediate steps are compressed, and highlights transferable mid-career skills in requirements and problem translation, alongside concerns about limited debugging and testing depth.

The timestamps are approximate and do not include the time for the intro. Add about 90 seconds to locate the section

00:00 Welcome and Setup

01:16 Rediscovering Coding via Apps Script

02:02 Connecting Scripts to LLM APIs

03:21 Talking to Your Own Book

05:32 Hallucinations and Prompt Control

06:50 Learning Cursor and Building a POC

09:09 Old School Dev vs Modern Tooling

12:00 AI Changes the SDLC

13:36 Testing and Trusting AI Output

15:10 Debugging Gaps and Assumptions

16:34 Setting AI Standards

17:20 Mid Career Transfer Skills

18:48 Prompting Without Hallucinations

20:21 Courses vs Learning by Doing

23:25 Overcoming First Step Fear

25:24 LLM Limits in Astronomy

28:24 Cursor for Reliable Code

29:37 Anybody Can Code Now

31:13 Next Projects and Wrap Up

My guest today is Evan J. Schwartz, the COO of AMCS Group North America, a global leader in sustainable cloud technology. He also serves as an Adjunct Professor and Board Advisor at Jacksonville University, mentoring graduate students in AI, cybersecurity, and technical project management.

Evan traces his technology origin from early-1980s bulletin board systems to founding a company that built graphic multiplayer BBS games and a scripted graphics language,

that he says predated HTML, reaching 33 titles across a global BBS market before the internet rapidly displaced it around 1995.

He then shifted from internet gaming into business software, automating insurance workflows and later working in commodity and “reverse logistics” industries including forestry, natural gas, and waste/recycling at AMCS, citing route optimization across 770,000 trucks that saves 17–20 gallons of diesel per truck.

He discusses why ERP adoption is hard, advocating game-design-style gradual introduction, putting people first, and having product teams do end-user jobs.

He emphasizes vendor relationships over feature requests, AI governance and risk frameworks, a “person + AI” stewardship model, and evolving education/career paths toward broad skills, clear communication, domain knowledge, and knowing what “good” looks like.

The timestamps are approximate and do not include the time for the intro. Add about 90 seconds to locate the section

00:00 Welcome and Setup

00:31 Early Computing Origins

01:20 Building BBS Games

03:02 Internet Shift to Business

05:01 Reverse Logistics Mission

06:34 ERP and AI Adoption

08:31 Gaming Lessons for ERP

11:03 People First Strategy

13:00 Empathy by Doing the Job

17:29 Vendor Trust and Roadmaps

21:31 Universities vs AI Change

24:58 Training Architects Without Coding

26:03 AI as Faster Camera

26:58 Stewardship Over Replacement

28:34 Why Hallucinations Happen

29:52 Capstones in One Class

30:37 Excel to AI Migration

33:08 M&A Governance Interop

35:45 EU AI Act Reality Check

37:56 Culture Shapes Adoption

40:31 Interstellar Waiting Trap

41:53 Career Skills for Stewards

44:41 Quiet Failure Risk

45:57 Protect Time and Values

48:52 Closing Thanks

Evan J. Schwartz is the COO of AMCS Group North America, a global leader in sustainable cloud technology. With 35+ years of experience in resource-intensive industries like waste, recycling, and natural gas, he drives digital transformation through AI and data science. Formerly AMCS’s Chief Enterprise Architect, Evan is also an adjunct professor at Jacksonville University, mentoring future IT leaders. A Forbes Technology Council member and sought-after speaker, he advocates for AI-driven sustainability and ethical tech. His bestselling book, People, Places, and Things, cements his expertise in seamless ERP implementation.

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:

Website: https://www.evanjschwartz.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-schwartz-live/

My guest today is Chaitra Partha Rao, Vice President at Daimler Truck Innovation Center India – Manufacturing , Sales & Aftersales.

Chaitra shares how her childhood aspirations to become a neurosurgeon shifted to commerce due to cost constraints, eventually leading her into IT through an internship at a medical diagnostics firm automating stores processes.

She describes observing early requirement-gathering and MVP-style delivery, learning the importance of user empathy, and contrasts it with a later failure where a $15M trading interface was rejected because designers didn’t listen to analysts.

Her career spans core banking, Fidelity-style investing, equity trading transformation (including crypto/digital assets focus in 2015–2017), and automotive/trucking, emphasizing designing for human touchpoints even amid AI trends.

She discusses patience versus outcome-chasing, staying focused via “recalculating” and timeboxing, scaling systems using “day in the life” simulations, cross-cultural user commonalities, cautious optimism about synthetic data, guidance for women returning from career breaks, and grounding routines like yoga, reflection, cooking, and music.

The timestamps are approximate and do not include the time for the intro. Add about 90 seconds to locate the section

00:00 Welcome and Setup

00:42 From Medicine to Commerce

02:37 First IT Breakthrough

05:41 Curiosity Meets Automation

10:56 User Empathy in Practice

16:33 Human Touch vs AI

18:39 Patience and Ambition

22:04 Staying Focused Timeboxing

26:07 Commute Predictability Hacks

26:37 Banking vs Trading Reality

28:10 Learning Traders Language

31:27 Designing for Scale Patterns

36:38 Cross Culture User Insights

40:12 AI Synthetic Personas Limits

44:27 Returning After Career Break

49:12 Staying Grounded Daily Routine

51:13 Closing Reflections Thanks

Chaitra is a seasoned leader with 26 years of experience in IT traversing through Fintech & Automotive domains. Her formative leadership experience stems from working for Fidelity Investments , a company that shaped who she is while putting it to practice and being able to coach and nurture A teams is an opportunity that she experiences with her current organization.

She has played various roles that have taken her through learning paths that have been challenging as well as fulfilling in the areas of technology, process and team building.

She calls herself as ‘still a work-in-progress’, curious learner who takes one day at a time , enjoying it to the maximum and helping coach leaders and teams to bring their best.

She may be reached on: chaitrasreesha@gmail.com

My guest today is Tyler Wells, co-founder of Brain Grid.

Tyler recounts 25+ years in software, from an early IBM XT to work across military communications, startups, Skype/Microsoft, and seven and a half years at Twilio building video and SRE organizations, before founding Propel Data (which didn’t find product-market fit) and then Brain Grid.

He describes an experiment-driven approach to building high-performance systems by defining hypotheses, creating a “steel thread” MVP, and prioritizing observability for 2:00 AM incidents.

He discusses how AI coding shifts focus from typing code to architecture, documentation, critical thinking, and red-teaming plans, while warning that agents need guidance on separation of concerns and DRY to avoid refactor side effects. Brain Grid emerged from using Cursor agents during Propel’s wind-down and aims to generate detailed specs, acceptance criteria, and validation loops so agents implement features reliably, with attention to token efficiency.

He also covers co-founder traits, chaos engineering, compliance challenges for solopreneurs, career advice, and staying grounded through exercise, cooking, and family.

Tyler Wells is the Co-founder and CTO at BrainGrid, BrainGrid is one of the first platforms built specifically to replace the missing product management role in AI-native software development.

He is currently building BrainGrid — helping engineering teams ship faster with AI-assisted requirements breakdown and task management. We're focused on bridging the gap between product ideas and implementation-ready work.

His Background: He has spent 25+ years building systems where failure isn't an option—from satellite communications at Hughes Space to real-time video at global scale. I led the team that built Facebook's first video calling feature powered by Skype, then spent 7+ years at Twilio building their Video Platform (WebRTC) and leading SRE/Observability across the company.

My guest today is L.A. Balamurugan, known as Bala. With extensive experience in software development, he now plays the role of a delivery coach.

In this conversation filled with nuggets from his experience, Bala shares his career journey from a computer science degree in the early 1990s to roles at HCL, Perot Systems in the US, and Manugistics.

After earning a master’s in information systems and software engineering from George Mason University, he joined HP Labs in Bangalore as an R&D project/program manager on HP OpenView and became involved in early Agile/Scrum adoption and scaling.

He later launched a boutique consulting firm and co-founded BookMyTrainings.com (a training marketplace), grew it with angel funding, and expanded into payment collection and L&D program management before COVID led to winding it down.

He then spent about seven years as an Agile coach and recently published a startup-focused book, "What I Wish I Knew Before Starting Up," covering founder blind spots, idea alignment, co-founder choices, and emotional resilience.

00:00 Welcome and Setup

00:30 Early Career at HCL

01:53 Textile Systems Tech Stack

02:28 US Onsite Perot Systems

03:41 Supply Chain at Manugistics

05:20 Return to India and Masters

06:13 HP Labs and Agile Shift

08:10 Entrepreneurship Leap

08:57 Building BookMyTrainings

10:23 Payments and Revenue Model

11:52 SAFe Training and Coaching

13:43 COVID Impact and Book Writing

16:22 Learning New Domains Fast

19:03 Dual Hat PM and Scrum

22:48 Two Sided Marketplace Insights

25:03 Training Pain Points

26:05 Building Trust Platform

26:53 Win Win Marketplace

29:26 AI In Learning Paths

32:06 Agile Culture Vs Delivery

34:49 Writing Startup Book

40:08 Career Tips In AI Era

44:47 Co Founder Dilemma

47:24 Staying Grounded

49:56 Closing Thoughts

L. A. Balamurugan, or Bala, began his career as a computer science engineer, studying in India and later completing his Master’s in the USA. After sixteen years building software products and leading teams, he moved into entrepreneurship, founding multiple ventures including BookMyTrainings, a well known training marketplace in India. Following the pandemic and the closure of the startup, Bala now works as a Delivery Coach helping software teams deliver better products faster. His entrepreneurial journey inspired his book, What I Wish I Knew Before I Started: A Founder’s Guide to Understanding One’s Blind Spots and Equipping Before Venturing.

Bala’s Linkedin profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/labmurugan

Link to his book: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0GFNP7NTG

In this episode, I am in conversation with Rajesh Sharma, co-founder and chief product officer of ProHance. Rajesh covers a lot of ground starting from his move from Public Sector to SaaS Founder.

Rajesh describes his path from a modest middle-class upbringing in Shimla and a mechanical engineering degree to a stable career at HPCL, then a major career reset into software after quitting his public-sector job to take an IBM course and restarting as a trainee. He later co-founded JaMocha Tech (now ProHance) in 2009 with co-founder Kishore Reddy, backed early by angel investor Sudhir Sharma, aiming to build a world-class software product from India. After experimenting with multiple products and learning that market feedback matters more than expert opinions, they focused on ProHance, a horizontal work visibility and effectiveness platform, now with 250+ customers in 23 countries, ~200+ employees, and a private equity majority investor. He emphasizes the importance of complementary co-founders, supportive family, direct founder-customer feedback loops, profitability and frugality, outcome ownership, and adopting AI internally and in-product.

00:00 Welcome and Setup

01:00 Origin Story and Courage

02:10 From Shimla to Bangalore

04:22 Quitting HPCL for IT

07:06 Starting the Company

11:06 Why Team Matters

14:02 Family Support System

16:56 Finding Product Market Fit

18:45 Choosing the Winning Product

23:18 Selling a Horizontal SaaS

24:31 Business Meets Tech

25:48 Customer Value Mindset

27:36 Product Decisions and Risk

30:36 Start Small MVP

33:01 Founder Led Feedback Loop

35:28 Scaling Global Teams

36:05 Leaders From Customers

39:16 AI Adoption and Roadmap

46:03 Staying Grounded Values

50:21 Parting Advice Start Now

Rajesh Sharma is a first-generation entrepreneur and the co-founder of ProHance, a highly successful, self-funded, profitable SaaS startup built from the ground up in Bangalore, India.

Born and raised in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, Rajesh earned his degree in Mechanical Engineering from MNIT, Jaipur. He began his professional journey with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), one of India’s leading public sector oil and gas companies.

After over 12 years at HPCL, Rajesh identified the rising potential of the IT sector and made a strategic career transition in 2000, moving from a stable corporate role to the technology industry as a software engineer. He gained practical experience in software product development with companies including Network Solutions, International Decision Systems, and JSoft.

In 2009, Rajesh co-founded JaMocha Tech with Kishore Reddy (later renamed ProHance) where he leveraged his techno-functional expertise to build a profitable, debt-free SaaS enterprise. Today, ProHance stands as a global platform with over 200 enterprise customers and an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of around $18 million. In December 2023, ChrysCapital acquired a 75% stake in ProHance, fuelling its next phase of global expansion across regions such as the Philippines, Australia, and South America.

Throughout his career, he has consistently embraced roles beyond his core expertise, applying a hands-on, practical approach that combines on-the-job learning with sound judgment. This rare combination has shaped him into a leader with deep insight into both the business and technical aspects of running any enterprise.

Rajesh continues to be deeply involved with ProHance, now serving as its Chief Product Officer (CPO) after transitioning from his earlier role as COO. In this capacity, he continues to drive ProHance’s product vision, innovation, and technology roadmap—while mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs and builders navigating their own zero-to-one journeys.

Contact info: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajesh-sharma-12298447

Host: Chitra Gurjar

• 4 decades and counting, always energized to do something, work is my DNA
• From post and telegraph to giving tuitions to creating her own agency to study
• An advocate for herself, nurturing her desire to serve
• Turning away “assured” job offers to join Defence Labs as a Scientist at CABS
• Moved onto a “lesser assurance” to join HP
• People and culture at the heart of her 3+decade stay at HP
• Challenging status quo, try and fail, Innovation has to be a part of one’s daily life
• Stay focused on problems that you are solving and layer tools and technology to solve your problem
• Focus on incremental delivery of value
• Holding a people vision through the course of her work
• Strong belief that “AI will improve the quality of jobs”
• Learning is a constant - continue to build
• Apply training and learning programs intentionally
• Working on a market analysis - next gen quoter
• Strong belief on impact of AI on Healthcare and Education
• Believing that coaching is something everyone should learn, enable people as answers lie within each one
• Working with a non-profit Daksham skills and Dreams Designs



Arundathi has been working in technology and leadership related roles for the last 40+ years. She

started her career as a Scientist at Defence R&D Organisation (DRDO), Ministry of Defence, India.

While at DRDO, she was involved in development of Radar transmitter and controller systems.

Arundathi joined Hewlett Packard in 1996 and during her 27+ year career in HP and HPE, she has

worked in multiple roles across various business units. Under her leadership, HP rolled out multiple

market leading internet services related products on HPUX. She was on one of the key leader

responsible for setting up Global IT teams offshore centre in India in 2004. She has managed a team

of 3000+ technologists delivering for IT, across multiple technologies and multiple business areas

enabling HP(E)’s business. She has successfully lead and delivered multiple IT transformation

projects. She has also lead the people transformation to move towards digital technologies in

alignment with the market trends and business needs. She has had a short stint of 2 years at EY as

the Engineering leader for India, in Client Technology, building on Product engineering and delivery

capability. In the recent past she was the Global Program Manager for HPE’s industry leading Next

Generation IT transformation program. She leads the Global Delivery Services organisation, which is

the internal the delivery engine for GIT. She is also the India leader for HPE’s Global IT.

Arundathi has led several initiatives in people transformation towards digital transformation,

customer centricity and employee engagement. She is passionate about building teams and leaders

who are future proof and future safe. She has a strong passion towards building women leaders in

technology and mentored and coached many women through focussed initiatives. She has also had

a stint as the chairperson at HP for Prevention of Sexual Harassment at workplace.

Arundathi has as Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electrical and Electronics from Government

College of Technology, Coimbatore and Master of Technology from Indian Institute of Technology,

Madras (IITM). She is a certified coach.

During her free time, Arundathi loves to teach, coach, travel and read.

In this episode of Software People Stories, Gayatri speaks with Muthusamy Vetrivel, Manager – Business Analytics at Saudi National Bank (formerly Saudi French Bank), about a career that spans over four decades of technological disruption.

Vetrivel’s journey is anything but conventional.

He began in the granite export business — negotiating documents and standing nervously at bank counters. That experience sparked curiosity: “What happens behind the counter?” That curiosity led him into banking.

In the mid-1980s, when computers first entered Indian banks, he was among a select group trained in programming through Aptech — at a time when unions resisted “computers” and they were rebranded as Advanced Ledger Posting Machines (ALPM).

From:

• Assembly language and MS-DOS
• 20 MB storage limits
• 286 machines and floppy disks
• Writing modules for savings and current accounts

To:

• Oracle databases
• LAN networks
• Core banking migrations
• And today — analyzing 5 million customer records in seconds

Vetrivel has lived through every wave of banking transformation.

Now in Riyadh, he leads Business Analytics — studying customer behavior, spending patterns, and helping the bank design better financial products while staying compliant with regulations governed by the Saudi Central Bank.

Beyond banking, he serves as a community leader with the Riyadh Tamil Sangam — supporting migrant workers, coordinating repatriation flights during COVID, promoting Tamil literacy, and building recognized Tamil-speaking Toastmasters clubs globally.

His philosophy is simple:

Be sincere.

Be honest.

Contribute a little more than expected.

A rare combination of technical depth, regulatory understanding, business acumen, and grassroots community service — this episode is a masterclass in longevity, relevance, and purpose.

Muthusamy Vetrivel is a seasoned Banking and Data Analytics Specialist with over three decades of combined experience in both information technology and banking operations. He currently serves as Manager – Business Analytics at Saudi National Bank (formerly Banque Saudi Fransi), where he leads analytics initiatives that harness customer insights, large-scale data, and business intelligence to drive product design, customer understanding, and strategic decision-making.

Vetrivel’s career uniquely spans core banking systems, software project management, and data analysis, rooted in deep experience with legacy banking platforms and modern analytics environments. Over the years, he has witnessed firsthand the evolution of banking technology — from early MIS and core banking implementations to advanced analytics workflows processing millions of records.

Beyond his professional domain, Muthusamy is also known for community leadership, particularly through his involvement with expatriate cultural and support initiatives, mentoring, and building networks that bridge technical expertise with service and social impact.

Vetrivel can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mvetrivel/