From Operations Lead to Junior Software Engineer: My Unexpected but Fulfilling Career Pivot

A few months back, I made one of the biggest decisions of my professional life—I resigned from my job as an Operations Lead to pursue something I always felt a pull toward: software development.

Taking the Leap

Leaving my previous role was not an easy decision. But deep inside, I knew it was time to challenge myself. I enrolled in a full-stack development course focused on Python. That step changed everything.It reignited my curiosity, and gave me the push I needed to dive into the world of software engineering.

First Break at Hamon Technologies

Shortly after my course, I joined a two-month training program at Hamon Technologies. The
environment, filled with problem-solving and real-time exposure, made me realize I wanted to stay. Fortunately, I was selected as an intern and got the opportunity to work on an internal project.
There was just one catch—the tech stack was based on Go (Golang), a language I hadn’t touched before.

Learning Golang and Joining the Project

I quickly buckled down, learned Golang basics in a week, and relocated to Calicut. This wasn’t just a CRUD application. The architecture, the business logic, and the scope were exciting and deeply challenging.

I began by writing APIs and slowly understood real-world project folder structures and engineering practices. Over time, I developed a solid grasp of Golang and the system we were building.Thanks to my team and manager.

The Real Kick: Automating the Architecture

One day, I was given a task to automate the setup of our entire architecture—three backend services and one frontend. Excited and eager, I made my first mistake: I underestimated the complexity and promised to deliver it in two days without fully understanding the scope.
As I dug deeper, I realized I needed more time and requested it. This task became a turning point. I learned Terraform and how to publish infrastructure on AWS and Azure. I even developed a CLI tool to initiate the process. It was intense, but it gave me a deep understanding of infrastructure and deployment workflows.
The best part ? That setup is still being used and has stood strong over time. A proud moment.

Sleepless Nights and Demo Days

Demos started rolling in. Those were sleepless but incredibly fun nights with the team, coding together and pushing ourselves. Soon after,I became permanent employee in the company also I returned to Trivandrum and experienced working remotely—another first for me.
While building APIs and refactoring code, I received one of the most exciting tasks so far : building EDA Studio.

Building EDA Studio From Scratch

EDA Studio is a platform to compile and execute EDA tools like Verilog. I had to build this from the ground up, alone at first. It was both exciting and intimidating. But by the end of the first day, I had a structured backend with demo-ready APIs. Later, a teammate joined and we finished the platform together—right down to waveform outputs and results visualization.
Another successful milestone.

Lessons in Focus and Clarity

During this time, the Calicut team was migrating code and strategies to newer standards. I lost touch with the ongoing context—a mistake I’ve taken to heart. It’s a reminder of the importance of staying synced with the team and the work.

More Exposure: Ansible, Linux, and Clusters

I was then assigned a task to work on our computing clusters. Ansible was just a name to me before this, but now I was using it. I learned how Golang interacts with Linux through exec commands, how automation works, and how systems behave under the hood.

Analytics and the First Client Visit

My next task involved building the analytics backend for our dashboard. Just as I was deep into that, our team headed to Bangalore to support our first client. A few days later, I was called in too. I jumped at the chance, but unfortunately, due to personal circumstances, I couldn’t honor my availability. That was a tough but important lesson—how and when to say yes or no.
In Bangalore, I helped build analytics tools for client management. This gave me exposure not just to technical requirements, but also to managing deliverables, timelines, and presentations—valuable skills in the IT world.

The Project: HPC Infra

Throughout this journey, I’ve been part of a project called HPC Infra.
HPC Infra is a platform built with the vision to enhance productivity for clients needing high-
performance computing—especially in the EDA industry. It supports job execution, real-time monitoring, and efficient run-time management. The goal is to improve productivity by up to 300%. Being a part of this innovation has been both humbling and inspiring.

Final Thoughts

This journey—from operations lead to software engineer—has been anything but linear. It’s filled with mistakes, learnings, sleepless nights, and tiny wins that build up over time. I’m still learning, still failing forward, and most importantly, still showing up every day to do better than yesterday.
Here’s to more mistakes, more growth, and more code.