About

“I’m an open book, but you’ve got to know how to read me.”

Hi there! I’m Rob.
I also go by Robin or Robinson.
Welcome to my personal website and blog.

Who am I?

I view myself as a thinker and a teacher. I love to ask big questions about life and the universe and try to find my own answers or relate to books and movies. I constantly have the feeling that there is much to learn, and I’ve only scratched the surface. I am an optimist. I believe in serendipity. Surprisingly blissful things have happened in my life when I least expected them.

I think life throws similar scenarios at us so that we get a chance to do better next time. Everything - days, months, years, birthdays, anniversaries, festivals - happen in cycles, and we get to relive similar moments as wiser people with time. People that we’re meant to deal with - friends or foes, keep coming in and out of our orbit even when we don’t expect because we still have things to share and learn together.

I’m grateful for having been surrounded by people and places that brought out the best in me. If you knew me many years back and find me changed with better abilities and more knowledge than before, thank the people I’ve had the chance to be with. I also feel fortunate for being alive at this point in time in the history of mankind. It is arguably the best era so far.

What do I do?

I’m a Software Professional working in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, United States.

I’ve been fortunate to get multiple opportunities to work on mission-critical systems in the past couple of decades which I’ve spent building systems at scale - systems that processed billions of records, web pages that got over 100 million hits per day, APIs that had over a couple of billion calls per day, systems that handled monetary transactions of millions of users and so forth. I’ve worked both as a backend engineer and engineering manager. However, the past decade has been mostly in Engineering Leadership.

I’m drawn towards projects that are challenging and have tough timelines. I’ve worked on projects that were new ideas and huge re-architecture projects of legacy systems. I love the responsibility that comes with the ownership of a system that is 24/7 and the quick-thinking that is needed to resolve ad-hoc issues that impact customers. I’ve enjoyed working in small, close-knit teams that focused on achieving a large singular goal. I like to streamline things - be it modularizing codebases, or organizing teams to reduce ambiguity.

My career has mostly been on e-commerce, payment systems and cybersecurity. I love to learn new things and read books on a variety of topics. I also love to teach and believe that to be my natural talent, with everything else being acquired over the course of my life. I always welcome any opportunity to teach on the side if time permits and hope to do more of it at a later stage.

Hobbies

Other than software development, I love traveling - mainly to historic landmarks, reading (poetry, classics, sci-fi, technical and semi-technical books). I also love walking long distances and hiking. I’ve run a few half marathons and am looking forward to running a full sometime in the future.

Writing

This website is a collection of my writings on several topics, ranging from books read, places traveled, technologies learnt, and some notes on software. I’ve thought whether I should focus on just one topic - say notes on books read, or on places traveled. Or whether the site should be a professional portfolio. But I’ve decided against those and write the thoughts as-is like I’m talking to a friend. So, all the opinions are like casual conversations.

Also, I write everything with the view that it is a draft that I could come back and modify later. I do go back and edit posts when I can. That is one reason for calling the site as ‘Notes’, hoping that with time, it could become PKM system with interconnected links.

Website

The current site is a static site generated using Hugo. The site has taken different shapes over the years. The content has been in Blogger, Wordpress, Google Sites, etc. So the site is also an avenue to try some new technology for me.

Iterations

Why not Blogger, Wordpress, etc. ?

  • A static site is faster.
  • I don’t intend to run ads or do any kind of tracking.
  • Many of the platforms may have a fine print that says they own the content.
  • Easier to migrate to new themes or platforms.
  • I don’t need the bells and whistles of a CMS platform yet.
  • Easier to write using markdown.

Disclaimer

The thoughts and notes on the site are mine and do not reflect any of my employers or friends.

©2024, Robinson Raju, All Rights Reserved