Anshul is an Electrical Engineering Graduate from MNIT Jaipur (‘16) who currently works as the Lead Product Engineer at Prodigal. He has been part of some incredible startups before joining Prodigal, and continues to bring his entrepreneurial flair to the team.

Where did you grow up, and where are you based now?

I was born and brought up in Assam, having lived in Guwahati for the most part of my childhood. After completing my schooling, I moved to Jaipur to pursue my engineering degree.
I moved to Bangalore post graduation and have been living here ever since.

What's your educational background, and what were your previous work experiences before joining Prodigal?

I completed my B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from NIT Jaipur.
I’ve worked in two other early stage startups before Prodigal. My first stint was with Sensara - a video tech startup where I got an opportunity to learn multiple technologies and work across multiple functions. I spent close to 5 years there before moving to SALT, a fintech startup, as a founding engineer. Spent 3 years building exciting consumer finance products before moving to Prodigal

What attracted you to join Prodigal, and how has your role evolved since you started?

Joining Prodigal was very serendipitous. I wasn’t looking for a change but got an inbound from Shobhita, the Head of Engineering here. Post that, I started doing some research on the company and the team and was thrilled with both the problem that Prodigal was addressing, and the folks here. I have always tried to surround myself with people who make me want to push my limits and aim to achieve more, and Prodigal’s environment seemed just right for that.

Can you share a significant project or achievement you're proud of during your time here?

I’ve been fortunate to have gotten a chance to work on a variety of projects here at Prodigal. Right from building cool features on existing product offerings to building entirely new products from scratch.
The project that stands out has to be ProCollect where I was responsible for designing and architecting the system from the ground-up which could serve customer requests while adhering to a tight SLA, both from an uptime and latency perspective. What was beautiful to see was when our customers decided to pipe more accounts through our services and the ProCollect system was able to scale to support 10x the traffic it was getting, without breaking a sweat (or the bank)

What are your favorite hobbies or activities outside of work?

I love playing squash and swimming. I’ve also been trying to get into calisthenics.
In addition to these, I love napping with my cat during my free time. 😀

Do you have any personal projects or passions you're currently pursuing?

I’ve always been interested in graphic design and more recently have been exploring Generative AI tools and workflows to create images/videos using AI.
I run a page (@digiscape.ai) on Instagram and whenever I find time I try to create content for it and also learn about what new technologies are being developed in this space.

Which of Prodigal's values resonates with you the most, and why?

The value that resonates the most with me is “Specificity”. Effective communication is critical, especially for teams spread across geographies, and backing our opinions with data helps everyone in the team make informed decisions.

Is there an interesting fact about yourself that your colleagues might not know?

Me and my wife got selected to make the official music video for Ed Sheeran’s “Head > Heels” song. Without any prior video production experience, we turned it around in under a month, passing various quality checks by Warner Music UK and Atlantic Records UK

I’m also a huge live music enthusiast - genre no bar. I’ve traveled long distances, spent hours in queues, and splurged on premium tickets just to get the best concert experience.

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