Anubha Kushwaha

It was 4:36 PM at the Amazon India office when Ajay, a senior SDE, saw a ping from the new grad, Riya. “Hey Ajay, the order tracking service is failing after my refactor. Could you help me debug?” Ajay’s first instinct was that tiny sting of “my code” pride. He’d written the original order tracking service during the Prime Day rush. He’d lost weekends getting every edge case right. Now, someone was making changes. He remembered the old days at Infosys, too, how his seniors would scoff anytime a “newbie” wanted to touch legacy code. He nearly typed out: “Why were you even touching that module?!!” But he stopped himself.  Instead, he hopped on the call. Riya already looked nervous on the Zoom. Ajay didn’t scold. He asked a few clarifying questions, let her walk him through the bug, and together, they found a missing check that broke the flow for certain orders. 40 mins later, the fix was deployed and the service was restored. Before signing off, Riya said, almost whispering, “Sorry if I messed up your code. I thought it would make the new feature easier.” Ajay smiled, remembering all the times his own code was refactored at Amazon, and how hard it was not to take it personally. So he told her, “If nobody ever changed the code, Amazon would still be using scripts from 2010. Every improvement starts with a little discomfort.” Next day, they sat together, cleaned up the changes, and even improved the onboarding docs for the next developer. Later, in the team Slack, Ajay posted: “If someone is confident enough to touch your code, it’s a win. Refactoring is how we ship at scale. Don’t get too attached.” If you’re a software engineer, remember: You will always feel a bit possessive about your code. But the real impact is letting go, so others can make it even better. That’s how the best companies evolve. And how engineers grow, too.

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In the last 15 years of my career, I’ve worked as a software engineer across Google, Paytm, Amazon, and multiple startups.  Here are the most impactful lessons I’ve learned that will help you become a better developer and perform better in your career:  1//  Good Code Can’t Fix a Bad Product   ↳ You can write the cleanest, most optimized code ↳ But if the product doesn’t solve a real problem, it won’t matter.   ↳ Understand the business impact behind what you build.  2//  Be the Most Helpful Person on the Team   ↳ The best engineers aren’t just technically strong, they enable others to do their best work.   ↳ Help teammates debug issues, improve designs, and write better code. It pays off.  3//  Look for Simple Solutions to Complex Problems   ↳ Complexity is easy. Simplicity is hard.   ↳ The best engineers know that less code = fewer bugs.  4//  Success is Probability—Show Up More Often   ↳ A big part of success is just being present, trying, and iterating.   ↳ The more you put yourself out there, the luckier you get.   5// Ask Why? More Often—It Creates Clarity   ↳ Most technical problems are not about the best solution—they’re about the right problem to solve.   ↳ Keep asking why until you truly understand the root issue.  6//  There Is No Best Tech Stack—It’s All Trade-offs   ↳ Every tool, framework, and architecture decision comes with pros and cons.   ↳ The best engineers make informed decisions, not emotional ones.  7// You Are Rewarded for Creating Value, Not Just Writing Code   ↳ You don’t get promoted for just writing more code.   ↳ You get promoted for solving real problems, improving systems, and making the team better.   8// Writing is How You Clarify Your Thinking   ↳ Engineers who write well communicate better, influence better, and get promoted faster.   ↳ Start by writing better PR descriptions, design docs, and technical explanations.  9// Understand the Business, Not Just the Tech   ↳ The best engineers don’t just focus on code—they understand why the business needs it.   ↳ Learn how your company makes money and how your work impacts that.  10// Find a Mentor or Coach—Don’t Struggle Alone   ↳ The fastest way to grow is to learn from someone ahead of you.   ↳ Don’t wait, reach out to senior engineers, ask questions, and get feedback.   11// Imposter Syndrome Never Goes Away—Keep Learning   ↳ Even the best engineers feel like they don’t know enough.   ↳ The difference? They keep learning, keep building, and don’t let fear stop them.  Your career is built through small, consistent improvements over years.   Apply these 11 principles, and you’ll move ahead…  

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The Avg. Comp for Meta E5 Level in India is over 75 Lakhs+, including bonuses and stocks, it goes over 1Cr+, and this is just at the Sr. Software Engineer level. That is what Meta puts on the table if you can clear the process and it’s not too complicated:  - There are 2 DSA Rounds - There is 1 System Design Round - There is 1 Managerial / Behavioural Round Note: They’re also testing a new AI-based round, where you’re free to use AI but have to deliver a full functioning app in limited time. But they will grill you beyond what you can imagine, and that’s why you need bulletproof fundamentals, especially with DSA and System Design. If I were targeting Meta E5, these are the resources I would use to study up on my fundamentals: Before we get into resources, if you’re preparing for system design/coding interviews, our mock interview tool. You can use it for free here: https://lnkd.in/gpCn7t2T Plus at layrs.me , you can already study and improve your system design skills, you get: – 60+ interactive problems – AI-based interview to test yourself – Option to add your own problem – Real-time, first-principles feedback – A community that shows up for each other 1. APIs: https://lnkd.in/ezwnCGqS 2. API Gateways: https://lnkd.in/eqNrc77q 3. JWTs: https://lnkd.in/eAnfnzm7 4. Webhooks: https://lnkd.in/eF6gPzVJ 5. tRPC, gRPC, GraphQL, or REST: when to use what?: https://lnkd.in/eydTuVj3 6. Load Balancing: https://lnkd.in/ewTeu-58 7. Proxy vs Reverse Proxy: https://lnkd.in/enEy9QYD 8. CAP Theorem: https://lnkd.in/eePkq2kJ 10. Sharding: https://lnkd.in/e8Gyr4G2 (From 0:30 to 1:23:40) 11. Caching: https://lnkd.in/e8Gyr4G2 (Go to 1:39:08 ) 12. Scaling: https://lnkd.in/e8Gyr4G2 ( Go to 2:25:15 ) 13. Availability: https://lnkd.in/eEQ5MAnC 14. Services in System Design:https://lnkd.in/exyDGmSe 15. Databases in System Design: https://lnkd.in/eifbKsr6 16. Data Sharding and Partioning: https://lnkd.in/eVhzCnW5 17. Sync Vs Async: https://lnkd.in/ekrADFHy 18. REST: https://lnkd.in/eY2ACHFC 19. Algorithms in Distributed Systems: https://lnkd.in/eXiJ9_GV 20. SQL vs NoSQL: https://lnkd.in/entah3zc 21. ACID Transactions: https://lnkd.in/etXk_wa4 22. Consistent Hashing: https://lnkd.in/eYgXNHz4 23. CDC: https://lnkd.in/efeP3fXP 24. Caching: https://lnkd.in/eqDfvdvB 25. Caching Strategies: https://lnkd.in/eqFTdS_v 26. Cache Eviction Policies: https://lnkd.in/ewB5MZ7z 27. CDN: https://lnkd.in/eCSccEkz 28. Rate Limiting Algorithms: https://lnkd.in/etby2w5C 29. Message Queues: https://lnkd.in/eKQWVxqw 30. Bloom Filters: https://lnkd.in/eq6hN3Nn 31. Idempotency: https://lnkd.in/e-sB7a3w 32. Concurrency vs Parallelism: https://lnkd.in/eRpCq8KQ 33. Long Polling vs WebSockets: https://lnkd.in/eYZnk-93 34. Stateful vs Stateless Architecture: https://lnkd.in/egXhAmY4 35. Batch vs Stream Processing: https://lnkd.in/ez5v_suJ

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One of the defining signals from The Big Billion Days 2025 was inclusivity. In just 48 hours, visits grew 21% year-on-year, supported by GST 2.0 reforms. Flipkart reflected these reforms in festive offerings, which encouraged households to make bigger upgrades. Premium categories such as mobiles, TVs, and refrigerators grew ~26% YoY, showing how families chose the festive season to invest. What stood out was how this growth was distributed. Alongside strong participation from metros, cities like Indore, Surat, Bhubaneswar, Varanasi, and Ernakulam recorded impressive activity. Customers in these regions gained access to the same products and experiences as metro households, while sellers in these towns reached national demand. The festive economy expanded in both reach and depth. Inclusivity was visible in travel too. Cleartrip recorded 2.2X growth in users, 2X in flights, and 3.5X in hotels booked, with luxury stays leading the trend. This shows aspiration and celebration expressed through both shopping and journeys across geographies. The effect of this wider participation went far beyond transactions. Customers enjoyed greater choice, sellers scaled their businesses, logistics networks built capacity, and service providers across sectors grew alongside the wave. The Big Billion Days 2025 reflected inclusivity, aspiration, and affordability moving together. https://lnkd.in/g5-huegE

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🚀 सहज जीवन: probably the first open-source, collaborative, public, and live Marathi book, built transparently on GitHub. 🚀 The first part is a translation of Leo Babauta's "The Effortless Life" in Marathi, and the second part is open for contributions. I’ve already added a couple of chapters there myself. The idea is simple: anyone with useful insights about leading a good life can join and contribute. Contributions are voluntary, no money involved. 💡 Eligibility criteria for contributors: - Fluency in reading and writing Marathi - Basic GitHub literacy (fork, commit, PR). LaTeX expertise is not required - And yes, you must have read almost all of PuLa. That’s non-negotiable 😉 You can either refine the translation of the pending chapters or add fresh chapters of your own. Just fork the repo, add your changes, and send a PR. You can also  your add your name as co-author, thus build your own version of the book into a PDF, print it for yourself, and even publish it for wider circulation. I’m planning to self-publish a slightly updated version via Notion Press, which will naturally come with some costs. Feel free to do the same, the PDF is freely available in the repo. If you want to add a chapter, just place it at the end and submit a PR (Pull Request). If you are not comfortable with LaTeX or GitHub, you can share me the content via Google-Docs or email, I will add that on your behalf. 👉 If you’re interested in this whole “effort,” drop a comment below or message me your Gmail ID. I’ll schedule a short online meet or create a chat group to align next steps. IMO, this is not just a book, it’s a movement: bringing open-source culture to Marathi literature. Imagine being part of a collective that publishes a free, evolving, community-owned book! 📎 Repo name: yogeshhk/SahajJeevan (... on GitHub). 📑 Attaching the partial draft PDF here for a quick taste. (It’s a very rough draft, just to give you the idea.) जय महाराष्ट्र ✨

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