evolution of an "interview"

Few weeks back I managed to get something good written about me and get it published... the best thing is that I got it published on paper on the b'day....This is the accusation from my "dear" sister..lol

The funniest thing that happened was that I was told it might appear just on paper and I was thinking it will not reach too many people. When I gave the answers to the questions provided by email I was not at all worried. But on a Friday night quiet uncharacteristic of me to be working, but on that day i was at my office desk, when Gura sent me a link without even a "hi". I clicked on it to find the "interview" appearing on the link. Goodness gracious me, it has reached the "feared" guy ;) living in the land of rising sun even before I knew about it. I had a fair amount of answering to my friends and a hell of a lot of feedback ranging from a few good ones to a lot of funny ones. To most I promised that I will put up my exact answers here for them to read after the interst in this joke dies off. So as promised my answers appears here,

1. Tell me about your background?
(Where you are from, family background) I was born in Jaffna and brought up in the beautiful city of Kandy and currently working in Colombo. My father is a retired teacher and my mother is the “home maker”. I was born as the last in the family with three siblings. People at home are my greatest sources of energy. I had a blessed childhood with the care and security of my parents and a life within the Trinity College school compound itself, since we lived in the quarters. I had always been lucky to have parents, brother, sister, teachers, neighbors, friends and now at hSenid my colleagues, who believe in my ability, at times even more than the self belief I have about me.

2. What was your child hood dream?
(Describe about your ambition as a child)
As a child my dreams and ambitions were circumspect, but limited to the stereotypical careers like engineer, doctor and lawyer. But funnily as a child I never saw myself doing anything with computers, probably because I didn’t know what are the things that can be achieved in this domain and secondly thought that others around me were much better than me, when it comes to handling machines.

While being a child I wished I traveled the world like Ian Wright, the host of the discovery channel program known as lonely planet! Watching this program and fantasying about traveling like him was a routine activity of me and my sister.

3. Why did you choose Information Technology as your future?
(Describe the reasons behind selecting IT as a career path)
Soon after I completed my advanced level exams I started to experiment with web development and got captivated by the joy of seeing at work the pieces of code that I wrote, this excitement was the single biggest influencing factor in taking IT as my career path. The other thing that influenced me to take to IT, was the fact that I was fascinated by reading about the humble beginnings that the big players like yahoo and google has had and I was convinced that this is a field that we do not have to be dependant on having any ancestral inheritance and its more of a level playing field even with the developed world. Our success will mostly depend on what we do in present and not much on what others had done on the past.

Another reason might have been that I knew for fact that in this field you can be mostly dressed in casual clothing and would have the least amount of formalities. (Just kidding)

4. What is the impact IT has made on you?
(Note the changes, a brief comparison of your past and present)
Straight out of university I joined hSenid Mobile Solutions as an Associate Software Engineer. On paper I had a degree specializing in Computer Science from the Faculty of Science, University of Peradeniya and was a CIMA passed finalist. I was eager to apply the things that I had learnt from both Computer Science and Management and see them at use.

hSenid provided me with a good ground for me to put the things that I learnt to practice. I was pushed out of my comfort zone and was given challenges on a continuing basis. Currently I lead the Business Solutions Division. As a team we are primarily responsible for understanding the business requirements of our customers and proposing technical solutions. The usual tasks shall be like requirement gathering, feasibility studies, scoping, presentations, technical clarifications, demonstrations and of course a lot of traveling.

At the same time I was made into a MySQL expert at hSenid and currently a certified MySQL Cluster DBA and an authorized MySQL instructor. This gave me an interesting opportunity to conduct trainings on MySQL on a regular basis. This provided me with an opportunity to train students from more than 10 countries and at most times the students were older than myself and even had a few people with industry experience as much as my age to join my trainings. I was humbled by the attitude shown by them and made me realize that how much knowledge is valued and respected. Further at hSenid Mobile working on open source technologies gives me a sense of eternal satisfaction.

As part of my job I had got an opportunity to realize a childhood dream of mine, which is to travel the world. Looking into my passport the other day I realized I had traveled out of the country 15 times during the last 18 months and been to 5 different countries already and have scheduled business engagements in two more countries during the next month.

In short the experience at hSenid Mobile Solutions, which is a truly Sri Lankan multi national company had been exciting and it has given me a wider audience to perform in front of. I am very much thankful for the support and guidance I get from Dinesh(CEO), Harsha(CTO), Jerome(Senior Manager – Product development) and Ruchith (CTO, hSenid Malaysia) with respect to my career.

5. Why should I select Information Technology as my future?
(Describe why you think it is best for me to study, learn IT and work in IT)
If you are irresistibly attracted by the things that can be done by computers, has a thirst to learn and ready to take on challenges then this is the industry for you. IT is an industry with a global potential which is large enough to take in people with varied skills to play different roles and also has enough opportunities for individuals to carve out a niche for themselves. As our CTO Harsha said at a recent presentation for a group of university students “you do not have to be already the ‘Best’ in the batch, class or group, all you need to be is good enough and be committed to learn and practice it for a considerable amount of time to become the best ultimately!”.


The writer did a great job by putting it all together and making it read like a real interview. As it appears here,
http://prwire.blog.com/5189113/