Hi, I am Saurav Kothari!

I consider myself to be an engineer first, developer second; i.e, my goal is to solve problems and technology is one of the tools I utilize to solve them. Over the past years I have learnt that communication is a critical process and one of the strongest tools to solve or completely eliminate problems. As engineers we tend to dive into solving for what we think is a technical challenge but could very well be a non-problem that gets resolved by communication. Knowledge of the business domain is one of the strongest ways to build the right solution. Your users define the success of your product and at times an okay product which users love to use is better than an excellent product which no one likes.

As the advice goes, a successful company is built on People. Process. Product.

Getting to the right product is a long process, but the road to it need not be without progress. Oftentimes problems can be tackled by the right people, evolving into the right process which then gives way to the right product.

I am a huge fan of Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson and their book It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work. Doing too many things seldom results in the right thing. So many of the distractions we have are artifical that could do with some elimination.

I don't agree to everything he says but I firmly believe in Paul Graham's Maker's Schedule vs Manager's Schedule and can testify that my best work has been done after I have been able to devote long stretches of time to thinking of the right solution. Measure twice, cut once.

I have been a part of the engineering teams at Udaan, Honestbee and BrowserStack. More details about my experience in these places can be found here.