principles I believe in

In the middle of my evening walk I had this sudden thought: who am I as an engineer/person? What do I believe in as an engineer? Am I evolving and improving as a person and an engineer in the right direction? So I decided to write what I believe in at this point (will add stuff incrementally) and I want to see how it evolves over time. I am hopeful that every once in a while when I revisit this across years I find some of it not resonating anymore and I would replace it with the updated version. I have 0 interest to impress anyone. I don’t actually care what others think about me so its unfiltered.

sep 2026 update: This is my first week in Columbia, and I had a 3-hour-long ethics and integrity session conducted by the legend Helio Fred Garcia. I am usually the kind of person who doesn’t enjoy any non-technical lecture, but this was one of the best 3 hours I spent in a while. In one segment, he talks about how he had his own ethics, like “the CEO shouldn’t lie to me, I won’t lie to the media, I won’t lie to the CEO.” But when the new CEO lied to him, and The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal asked him about it, and he found out the CEO had lied to him, he didn’t quit immediately. It took 3 hits to his reputation as a chief of communication, whose role is to gain trust with the media and the public, before he bit the bullet and quit. He did that, and the media folks were very very surprised, and he gained so much respect from them that it gave him a reputation that carried throughout his career. Now I am able to connect the dots. My main intention of originally starting to write this was for me to understand myself deeply and to help me keep track of it so that I can revisit it regularly. Basically a moral rule book which is always evolving and a work in progress. But after Prof. Fred’s lecture today, I understood that the right fit in work is very very important, and now employers could just read this and understand the person underneath, which acts as a culture check.

2026

• I care about the quality of code. the syntax, the style, the efficiency. My code is the place I visit every single day I want it to be good. it’s not just me who visits my place(code) but others have free access to my place (code) so the code has to be welcoming and easy for anyone to occupy my space. I truly believe code is read more than it is used :)
• As much as I care about code quality if I am at a crossroads between product vs code, I have to tilt towards product. food on all of our table first. someone is paying me I will never disappoint them.
• I will take time to estimate (still learning how),take a huge estimate but no matter what, I will get things done by the estimate.
• Empathy is important. I want the work to be done but there is always an empathetic way to extract work from others. I will go an extra mile to help people around me. It’s goodwill, it’s a good culture to cultivate and equally selfish that the help returns back.
• I can’t define what smart work is. I feel it’s a super skill that we attain after putting in crazy hours and burning our fingers. I can’t call a work as smart work if I don’t know what’s the equivalent hard work
• Hardwork! hardwork! hardwork! I don’t believe in anything other than hardwork. Everything other than working hard is not in my control and I have made peace with this fact.
• for me consistency is a subset of hard work. for me an ideal phase of life would be to have a good consistent routine to adhere. Helps build process. I fail miserably at this but I am trying to get better.adhere routine
• I will never burn the bridge. Every experience teaches something good or bad and I am grateful for the experience. I will never burn the bridge with anyone.
• money is important for me to survive. I live frugally and anything lesser than that is a hard no. Its okay if I miss out a crazy opportunity but I won’t starve.
• I hate micro management. I don’t want to be micro managed and I won’t micromanage anyone. A manager who doesn’t micromanage is the first step towards teaching what agency is. agency can be taught. It starts from the belief
• sleep is important for me. I am not going to save this world. I am just gonna write softwares that myself and people enjoy. Only when there is a wall can there be a painting. health is a priority.
• I try to be as unfiltered as possible. Consequences are very less being honest when compared to trying to be forcefully flattering. I feel it’s a balance and I am slowly learning the trade when and where to talk and how to talk but majority of the time I try to be straight forward.
• my current thinking behind building something new: I try to make products I use, we are not very unique so somewhere there will be people like me who want what I want and all I do is just make it available to them. I tried to build things following the latest buzz or trend and I don’t enjoy it.
• I try to track everything as much as possible. data helps me uncover the reality.
• I am not ashamed of making mistakes but I am ashamed of making the same mistake again. having mentor is very important to me because they help me make newer mistakes not the same mistakes they made.
• I have learnt everything from the internet so I wont gatekeep.I will give all of it back to the internet.
• I dont think about luck. I know luck is a important factor but I cant do anything about it. I move all the time and I firmly believe A moving man will eventually meet his luck.
• (update: june 14,2026) I should live below the means. living frugally gives me the freedom to not worry about the materialistic money. living frugally for me is about not thinking spending on comfort for all my essentials and thinking as much much possible (maybe delay for months) before buying non essentials. Part of this is not thinking twice before spending on food. health is important,taste is important, good food is important coz cooking is an art form and spending on art which doesnt make you ill is very important for me.
• (update: aug 18,2026) I will not shy away from using these two terms: sorry I was wrong,I don’t know .