Isha’s journey is nothing short of impressive. She’s been passionate about computers since the age of 7, which explains her incredible skills today. But what truly stands out is how she managed to ace her JEE preparation in just 6 months—outperforming many who had spent years preparing. While she’s undoubtedly brilliant, her smart approach to making up for lost time played a key role. Dive into Isha’s story, from being a student in Delhi to getting into IIIT Delhi, interning at Google, and becoming a software developer in London.
WORK
Role at the company
Software Engineer
Working at
Bloomberg
Location
London, UK
EDUCATION
Studied from
IIITD, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology
Graduated with
B.Tech Computer Science
Subjects in 12th
Physics
Maths
Chemistry
Physical Education
A lot of people, who are not software engineers, tend to think that you just look at your black-colored screen and type something all day. Is that true?
Haha😂 no, not really. It's more than that. You have projects and you code to implement those projects. But, there's so much more than that. There are a lot of meetings. Most of them are “design discussions”, meaning you are given a project, and you have to spend some time thinking how you’re going to implement the project. Then, you put forward that design to the team, they discuss the possible things you might have missed. And then you discuss someone else's project as well. It's much more collaborative than just sitting by yourself coding everyday. I would say it's 40 percent collabration and 60 percent coding.
Ah got it! Can you explain what do you when you’re “coding”? What do you work on?
Sure. I work on a software that makes it easy for anyone to add new features to apps people are using every day! Let me give you a similar example. Let’s say you work at WhatsApp, and you are adding a filter to see all ‘unread’ messages. You make some changes in the “code” so that cool feature can be used. You can now make it available for everyone to use but what if, there's some bug which you overlooked? The bug could be that the users aren’t able to open any of their messages. You know how sometimes your WhatsApp stops working? That’s because of a bug. We don't want this to ever happen right? That’s where my team comes in. Using our software, people will get new features without any bugs. I recently added a “sign off button” to the software recently. It means that now anyone who wants to send out a new feature, has to get it approved from their manager first. An important piece of the whole puzzle. That’s what I do, but in the finance world.
oh wow, that’s specific but so powerful! The stakes are high but it sounds fun. Let’s go back in time, did you always want to be a software engineer? How did you know you wanted that?
Oh, that's a long story. I remember when I was 5 or 6 years old. I did not have PC at home, but my neighbours did. I would go to their house and paint on the PC. Obviously as a kid I would make the worst paintings. Once, I created a chessboard on MS Paint using eraser tool haha! But I would love it. As I grew older every summer I would do a computer course. I learned Photoshop, Logo 360, and so many softwares growing up. I was a kid who loved arts and softwares dearly. My mom & dad got me a computer a few years later. And in school we used to have those computer classes where they would teach a new softwares every year. I would download those softwares myself and would practice. I aced the exams and every year, I would know more than the curriculum. Up until 8th-9th class, I thought I would be a graphic designer. It has both art and software. But by 9th I realised I was not the best at it. I lost a few inter school competitions. A little heartbroken but still strong, I decided to pursue software engineering as a career. It has softwares and I found my art outlet in other hobbies, like nail painting.
You said you enjoyed arts as well, can you tell what were your favourite subjects in school?
Let me start with what I hated. I disliked Bio, and Social studies. UGH. But I liked Maths, Computer, German, and Art classes. And Physics and Chemistry were the okay subjects for me. Not great but not the worst.
What did you pick in 11th class? Walk us through your JEE prep as well.
In 11th I enrolled in online JEE classes, but I never took them seriously for 1.5 years. I realised 6-7 months before the exams when I gave my mock tests and got really bad marks. If keep this up, I was not going to get any college! So I changed things. I started studying more, started working smartly. I couldn’t beat someone's 2 years of hard work. But I could be smart. I did a lot of past papers. Focused on only the important topics. Got 1:1 classes with best teachers. This started working. I started seeing improvements week by week, until… I cracked it!
That's inspiring. You did not give up that a lot of kids who would have. And you did take things in your hand. It turned out pretty great, you got a very good rank. How did you decide on going to IIITD?
I had 2 options for college - NSIT and IIIT D. NSIT would have been the obvious choice because it has a better college rank compared to IIIT D. But again, I wanted to make sure. I connected with the college seniors, people I knew and they I am not teh one who does things traditionally. I choose IIIT D cause I saw the curriculum was more relevant for work. You know, think ahead.
So you aren't the one with the herd mentality. How was Uni for you. Did you enjoy the curriculum.
Oh yes. It has got one of the best courses in India for a Computer Science degree. Very relevant for the industry. Also, you'd get a decent coding culture to land a good job/ internship if you study well.
Sweet. How was college like then? Tell us your journey year by year
Sure. 1st year of college I did not know competitive coding but I knew Web Development. I had a sir who pushed me to try for GSOC(Google summer of code) and I tried. I cleared GSOC, worked in it for a few months. Then, the summer of 1st year I realised a lot of people in my batch had started competitive programming. I loved Development work more, but decided to learn CP still. I had a Google Step program as my motivation studied for it, got it. Got a return intern offer. Did my internship again with Google, then got a placement offer. I was happy with it, but just thought I would try for a few international companies. I interviewed for 5 international companies, got one offer. And joined Bloomberg in London.
Thank you for sharing — we'll post your story on our website and if anybody has more questions, they will schedule a call with you.
