Sign in to follow 's advice will appear in your account when you log in. Follow specific Community Members and never miss out on their views and insights. Build a group of Members who you want to listen to.

Email: Password:

Don't have SiliconIndia account? Sign up Forgot your password? Reset

Ask Abhiram Sampath for Advice

If your advice request is relevant to other Community members, our Editorial team may choose to send this request to all Experts to attract a wider range of answers and share them with the Community. Rest Assured, we will protect your privacy (unless you recommend otherwise).

Advice Request

Submit Cancel

Abhiram Sampath

Next Member >>

Abhiram Sampath

Quality Engineering Manager @ Landmark Group, Dubai

Landmark group

Abhiram Sampath is a member of:

My role model

I'm a huge fan of Steve Jobs. His video at Stanford University just teaches people to see failures as next opportunity to succeed. His life story, achievements and principles in life are a great inspiration for any person to continue seek for excellence. SJ's desire to provide the best simple UI/UX product and services have made way for the success of the Apple. His failures (getting fired from Apple) did not stop him from working hard or innovating to reach his goal and to serve more apple fans. Apple's Iphone, Ipad or Mac has just revolutionized the way we see products.

My important career decision

I joined Encora Inc (erstwhile Meritos services) when I had just 2 years of experience and this changed my career. I got an opportunity to work for a startup at a very young age. I worked for clients like Goodmail systems and Google from Meritos. After Meritos I worked for Yahoo Labs which changed the way we think about the web. I should thank both these companies to what i'm today.

Family Background

A simple family consisting of my dad, mom and elder brother. Dad is a retired bank manager, Mom is a home maker and Brother is a co-founder of product company in Bangalore called Consines technologies.

My advice

Love what you do, if not keep looking and dont settle in it. We have a very short life and live it like the way you want. We dont live for 200 years to live someone's else life first and then start looking for something we love. (This is Steve Job's advice)

All verticals in our industry (Development, QA, Ops etc..) have equal value. For e.g. I have seen people saying QA does not have prospect development has, this is complete crap.

My strongest Skill

My skillset is perfectly balanced between Development and QA. So whenever we see a bug in the product, I go a level deeper than others. There are few occasions where I can actually point the developer where the issue is.

Secondly, I usually dont lose cool. I have learnt to be patient in my most stressful times. I always believe "Words once spoken cannot be taken back". I think having patience in very much required in our industry as we move up the ladder.

Views about 'Tech product Introduction is weak among Indians'

Investments in the MAJOR reason. We have an amazing pool of technology and management talent in India. Investors dont trust you. They ask you for the product, transactions etc... before they decide to invest. Unlike US where investor trusts the entrepreneur on just a business plan and invests money.

When young chaps start a company they dont expect huge salaries, they expect salaries around 15-20K per month to feed themselves. You cannot depend on your parents for everything after you have graduated. This fact is mistaken in entrepreneurship community. I have seen people saying sacrifice money, time and slog it off, thats what makes you successful. I completely agree to this, but a basic salary for basic needs is very much required. This actually brings fear to lot of young entrepreneurs & they land in 9-6 job.

Secondly, SOCIETY. Parents, Friends & relatives bring in fear. They bring in fear that you might not get married if you do not have a stable income. They dont accept failures

Making job easier

I report to 2 managers here and both are kickass. This makes any persons job easier. Failure is seen as "lesson learnt". They trust me 100% on what I do and this gives immense pleasure to come to office and work.

Being different

Your degree has nothing to do with your work. What matters is your smartness and Knowledge. The only place where I'm different is not getting restless and losing patience for simple things in life and work. Losing cool just makes the relationship sour and the problem still lies.

Books recommended

1) Steve Jobs biography
2) One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com
3) Head first PHP [For people interested in PHP]
4) head first Python For people interested in Python]
5) Read blogs/articles/news from various business and tech sites.

Challenges faced in job

We live in an industry which ranges rapidly periodically. Keeping yourself updated in all the technologies is a major challenge. Having the latest info about technologies and product is key to succeed. You are always one step ahead of others.

Being in Quality Engineering we always get less time to certify the product, but still we the gate-keepers of the product under test. This is very stressful, but a satisfying job done after a successful release.

Current Trends

QA will no longer be just writing test cases and executing. It will be a coding oriented task. Domain expertise also matters a lot. QA is more of testing + development + product management. I feel that the market is getting very matured and only smart people can survive the wave.

Managing professional as well as personal life

I get my time everyday to read a book, watch cricket or cook for myself. I dont believe that people should work late night on a regular basis to accomplish a task.

If you see you employees spending more time than required in office you need look at the project plan or the employees performance.

Company and job profile

Hi I'm Abhiram Sampath and have been in this industry for 9+ years. I'm currently working as a Quality Engineering Manager at Landmark Group, Dubai. I'm responsible for complete quality engineering efforts (Manual, Automation, Tools Development, Security Testing etc...) for multiple web and mobile products. Landmark Group recently launched their e-commerce site www.landmarkshops.com.

Goals and Ambitions

Search and Web Application security are the 2 things that interests me a lot. I would like to do something here in next 5-6 years. I do not have immediate entrepreneurship ideas.