Why I Joined Imply

Hi, my name is Akshat and I joined Imply on April 1, 2024, as a Software Engineer in the Apache Druid team.

My background

During my undergraduate studies in Computer Science and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Patna, I explored a diverse range of domains.  After graduating in 2021, I joined Yugabyte as an engineer on the YugabyteDB Managed team, which was their DBaaS offering. While I didn’t work directly on the core database, I quickly became interested in this technology—so I sought out a role that provided an opportunity to work with databases and distributed systems.

Fast forward to 2024, and I am very grateful that I got a chance to join the Druid team at Imply! 

While I have a long list of reasons to join the core database team at Imply, let’s talk about the major ones.

The product – Apache Druid

After reviewing the high-level technical overview video of Apache Druid and learning about how the world’s leading companies use Apache Druid, I immediately saw the immense potential in the product. Data is exponentially growing, and leveraging this resource is becoming increasingly important for extracting real-time analytical insights. As an Apache Druid engineer, I have the chance to do impactful work in this exciting field.

Incredible learning opportunity

Working on a high-performance, real-time analytics database with a distributed architecture like Apache Druid aligns perfectly with my interests. Previously I had been reading blogs and books on databases and distributed systems, but this role gives me the opportunity to apply my knowledge practically.

Handling a critical system like a database presents unique challenges. It requires careful design to ensure correctness in concurrent operations while maintaining high performance. Additionally, it brings me closer to the operating system layer, reducing layers of abstraction, which I find exciting.

I look forward to the exciting challenges to come!

Team

Needless to say, the team plays the most important role in the overall working experience.

I had a really smooth and enjoyable interview experience. I am extremely grateful that my interviewers heavily favored my curiosity and enthusiasm for databases—and overlooked the fact that I did not have any past professional experience working on databases.

The Apache Druid team consists of a small group of highly-focused individuals who are getting things done at a rapid pace. Also, the majority of the core database team is based out of India, hence I knew that I would get to own some high-impact projects. The talent density is incredibly high, which also includes multiple Apache committers and Project Management Committee (PMC) members in the team.

These factors align with the kind of environment I enjoy working in, and I’ve already learned so much from everyone in the little time I’ve been here!

Open Source

From my first open source experience, the Google Summer of Code 2018, to organizing the NJACK Winter of Code, I have loved working with the open source community! The spirit of collaboration and knowledge sharing is humbling. Most of the team’s work is in open source, and I cannot be more excited to work on an open source database like Apache Druid.

Joining Imply

I’ve been at Imply for around 2 months now. I had a very smooth and structured onboarding.

It’s been a tremendous learning experience. Everyone is incredibly humble, approachable, and always up for helping me with my questions. The code reviews are really exhaustive, which I really enjoy. I’ve already delivered a small feature, as well as given a demo on the same—which is certainly thanks to the support of a lot of people.

I’m really grateful to the team for giving me the opportunity to work on a really exciting product with some really amazing people. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here so far, and I am looking forward to a wonderful journey ahead! 

Thank you for reading!