Sunil Kumar Sajjan
COO
Divum
Sunil Kumar Sajjan is a member of:
- Expert
The Journey : Early Days to How I Got Here
For about 6 Years since 1999 I have been with Texas Instruments in various roles like front end Electronic Design Automation (EDA), Post Silicon Verification and Validation and finally in Customer Support, I then Joined Montalvo Systems a Start-up in chip design as a Tools Manager. There, I was responsible for building the team and infrastructure from scratch for the Diagnostics team; this is where I had like 6X learning and was introduced to start-up culture. About a year later, I joined AMD and was in various Tech and Management roles responsible for India Design Center (IDC) Infrastructure as a section manager. I then joined Divum Corporate Services as a COO and since April 2011 I am with Divum, exploring endless opportunities and possibilities.
Decisions that mattered
Choosing the right domain and not settling in with what you know or what you are good at is very crucial, it was not easy to leave the comfort and assurance of MNC and join a self funded start-up, it’s a risk vs. reward game. If you work hard and play hard, you stand a good chance to shine.
The Turning Points
Moving from a Start-up like Montalvo to MNC like AMD was one where I kind of felt that I can do much more, and the other is from AMD to Divum as the Domain changed & for the first time I was exposed to services industry, all along until Divum I have been in R&D.
Two Years Down the Line
Doing What I love, something with hardware software and automobile, I am working on the B Plan and on more market research and analysis & funding right now.
Work and Role: Then and Now
You Name it and we do it, previously had a defined KRA (Key Results Area) and known risks and tasks, now it’s more like do whatever it takes to get this done & see how we can get it done than to reason why this cannot be done. I am on the other side of the Wall now (if I can say so). Selecting the right people, Managing Client expectations, Rewards & Retention, resource argumentation are things that I now deal with.
Yes it’s a constantly evolving world, we plan for something but life will have deviations, we need to be quick to make course corrections and be adaptive.
Trends to Watch Out For
Mobile is gaining more and more importance day by day; I guess as early starters we have a good lead start and strong OEM partnerships.
Especially I am personally exited about M2M and would like to contribute for solutions in either Counter Terrorism or Traffic related Issues
Must Focus Areas in Mobile Domain
M2M, Medical, E-Commerce & Education
Do We Need Certifications?
I haven't done any Mobile related certifications, but yes about a decade ago have done many like Diploma in Computer Hardware from Aptec, Networking from CDAC & ElNet3L, DSP from IEEE etc. I joined my first job after my 3 year full time Diploma in ELNS & Communication & BE from RVCE Bangalore, Did part-time MS in Micro ELNS from BITS, while at TI, did my Management course from IIMC while at AMD. This was more like eye openers!! Especially in the IIMC EPBM program, it's more like the professors have a spoon and stir inside your head!!
Books/ Websites I Recommend
There are many but mostly platform specific, would recommend online workshops that are held by OEM's and a good place. To quickly start the examples that come with SDK's are great so is open source community and so many samples floating around.