Niroop Belgaumkar is an Associate Product Manager on Prodigal’s Platform team, which works to collect our customer data, process it, and deliver it back to them in the format they need.

He got his Bachelor's degree from the University of Waterloo in Canada, where he triple majored in multiple disciplines of math, minored in economics, and took a number of computer science courses (I know - we’re tired just thinking about it, too!).

After completing some software engineering internships in the United States, he headed back to India and joined us at Prodigal.

Where are you located?

Pune, India, but I travel to the Mumbai and Bangalore Prodigal offices frequently.

Why Prodigal?

It was really the interview process. I had to write a product requirement document and I had a lot of fun detailing it out. I think I was supposed to spend only a day or two, but I ended up giving it four days because it was so interesting.

And then my next conversation with Sangram {co-founder and CTO Sangram Raje) actually sealed it because he asked me a technical question. It was very interesting and then we worked together to come to a solution. So I just knew, ‘I want to work with this person.’

Initially my decision was based on that. “I'll get to work with smart people like Sangram.” And then I checked out a couple of other people on LinkedIn and thought, “Okay, this is where I want to be. This is the kind of crowd I want to be working with.”

When I’m not working, you can find me…

I have got to pick it up again, but I used to take drum lessons every Saturday morning. I just love that you get to use all your limbs: both your hands, both your legs at the same time. The amount of coordination which is required is insane. And the fact that your beat keeps the music going - everyone takes a cue from your beat.

I also play badminton and football.

I have made sure even on the weekdays I take at least an hour and a half for the gym. If you look at my calendar I have blocked 1 pm to 2:30 pm for gym time. I do powerlifting, basically. My favorite lift is a toss-up between deadlifts and squats. It keeps changing depending on where I'm gaining strength.

What would your co-workers be surprised to know about you?

I party very rarely, but when I do, I party hard. I’m the one with a champagne bottle and I'm spraying it on everybody else.

What’s your favorite Prodigal value?

There's two of them. One is, “We are radically candid.” And the second one is “We are specific.”

One thing I noticed over here when I came, I used to talk with a lot of intuition but no backing of data. And after talking to Sangram a lot of times, I realized, ‘Oh that's how I should be thinking.’

The second is, “We are radically candid.” I think it was my first all-hands meeting and somebody asked a question.

Shantanu [co-founder and CEO Shantanu Gangal] answered. And then I just unmuted myself and said, “Oh I have some other idea.” I was not even one month into the company, and I did that.

I just love that if you have an idea, you can openly talk about it and you can tell the other person why you don't agree with them without fearing that they will take it personally.

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Want to work with Niroop and the other humans of Prodigal as we pioneer consumer finance intelligence? We’re hiring!

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