There were two things Shubhabrata Naha knew for a fact when he graduated with a BTech in Computer Science from the Institute of Engineering & Management in Kolkata — he wanted to build things from scratch and he wanted to work in a startup. While both of these came true when he joined his first job at a startup in Kolkata soon after college, the desire to scale up personally, the itch to work with a team that wanted to grow as much as he did, and a company that wanted to go from X to 10X left him restless. But not for too long.

In March 2017, Shubhabrata joined Meesho’s tech team as a backend software development engineer. Everything he dreamed of in a job, from the ability to create new systems to learning exponentially on the job and working with a dynamic team that had the united goal of Company>Team>Individual, came true here. And, it has been nearly four years for Shubhabrata at Meesho but the magic is still alive.

Read on to learn more about Shubhobrata’s Life at Meesho:

As someone with an inclination for reasoning and logic, I decided on engineering as my future early on, and by the second year of college, I knew enough about this vast subject to realise that coding was my calling. In the years that followed, I developed multiple websites and apps from scratch and found infinite joy in building things from zero to one. I knew that MNCs with their systems already in place would not offer me this opportunity and so, I set my mind on joining a startup after graduation.

Despite getting several offers to join MNCs, I joined SeenIt, a Kolkata-based start-up that offered fashion tech solutions, through campus placement. I worked there for over one and a half years, but because the company was not scaling the way that I had hoped it would, I decided to move out to Bangalore and join a different startup. Around this time I heard about Meesho, and had discussions with both Sanjeev [Barnwal; CTO and Co Founder] and Vidit [Aatrey; CEO and Co Founder].

Signing up to scale up

I was extremely impressed with their vision and their plans for Meesho, and when I spoke with Sanjeev I knew for a fact that this was a person I wanted to work with. Even though our conversations were telephonic, I could glean that he had built a great work culture in the tech team. I felt that Meesho had more of an open environment where along with being goal-oriented, the team would also take care of each other. I was also aware that Meesho was one of three startups that YCombinator had invested in 2017, which meant that the company’s business model was sustainable and had immense potential.

And so, I joined Meesho in March 2017 as a backend engineer and all my expectations came true, especially in the next one year. I grew exponentially during this period, thanks to the various experiments we conducted and the innovations we undertook. Some of them worked out splendidly, while others gave us opportunities to learn and grow. At the time of my joining Meesho was running on the old business model, and all of us worked really hard to ensure that the sales would gradually improve — which it did in a few months’ time and we were ecstatic. I knew then that I was in the right place.

Over the last four years, the company and its business model has evolved quite a bit. Back in the day, Sanjeev and I were in charge of all backend activities, while Rajendra [Singh Choudhary; SDE — IV] handled the front-end, and Android team consisted of Vibin [Reddy; SDE- IV] and Pavan [Patil; SDE-IV]. The exposure that I had in that first year is unmatched today.

Nothing compares to taking projects from 0 to 1 in a dynamic startup. Everything you build is the base for everything that is to come.

The formula for success

Our formula for success and growth is Speed Over Perfection + Think 10X. My personal goal is to find the perfect balance of these two Meesho core values in every project I take up. I am convinced that this is the only way to scale the way we do at Meesho.

One of the biggest projects I have been a part of at Meesho was building a system for payout for our app. We built it step-by-step in different parts, and to date, we are using those very basics we built four years ago. Currently, our company gets infinitely more orders than it used to back then, and yet we are using the same system to manage orders three years ago. This is only possible because of Thinking 10X and creating a strong base.

While we had a very basic Android app, in the beginning, we used to track all our management and logistics manually. So, another huge project we took on was the post-order management system, where we opted for Speed Over Perfection because scaling seemed like an unrealistic option for this feature. This doesn’t mean we aren’t Thinking 10X at all, because when we know that a system has to be redesigned, we maintain a backlog. Alternatively, when we know that Thinking 10x would be cost-effective, we would build to scale from day 1. I could not stress the importance of this delicate balance enough.

Total ownership and trust

Another huge part of what makes Meesho’s tech team incomparable is the work culture. Since I spoke to Sanjeev before joining the company I have known that Meesho has great respect for its employees. Since day one there has been no micromanaging here. Sanjeev would always know what I am working on, but he has always given me the freedom and trusted me to work the way I wanted to. The sense of ownership here is extremely high.

Over time, when I became a team lead, and the team grew, one of the biggest challenges we had to solve was communication. In the tech team, we have to restructure processes regularly and miscommunication of the smallest degree can really delay things. Having a feedback loop open and building on that constantly really helped with this but more importantly, I learned from my own managers how to get better at it.

Since the lockdown began I have missed interacting with my team and seeing them in person during meetings, and I am certainly looking forward to getting back in the office. The silver lining is that I am able to log in for work earlier thanks to the lack of commute time.

Product Manager Ekagar Gupta on Meesho’s hypergrowth from X to 50X

Nilamber Singh on thinking holistically for automation

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