USA Trip 2023 - Reflections - Part 1

Today is my last day in USA as part of my business trip to Informatica HQ. The past two and a half weeks have been some of my best days in this year. Although I had many business trips in the past, this particular one has been the most memorable and this is something that I will cherish for a long time. And as this trip comes to an end, it makes sense for me to pen down my reflections – in the hope of cementing my memories for a long time to come.

This year started off a little rough – with my health and my family health taking a toll. Once we recovered, we suffered a personal loss that made an even bigger impact. What’s more, we had to go through a lot of hardship due to some issues in our apartment. On the work front, I was handed the ownership of a very critical component in our product about which I had very little awareness. An interesting twist here is the opportunity I got to attend our company’s annual conference in Las Vegas and present our work to customers and partners. This experience itself deserves a separate post, which I plan to write sometime soon.

Soon after the Vegas conference, we had to gear up for our next major release work, which was due in October. I, along with my maverick team of 3 – had no clue on what we were signing up for. This assignment provided me a great opportunity to build a team from scratch, all the while juggling between project prep and skill development. What started as a few simple requirements quickly grew into 4 major features. The math here is simple – 4 engineers, 4 features; right? No. The fourth one on the team was me – and I had to play the role of architect, developer and coach. So it was design, reviews, coaching and coordinating with other teams during the day while writing the code for my feature in the evenings and weekends. This went on for 4 months – from June to September. I was totally worked up and stressed and then the US trip came along my way.

A month ago, when my manager asked me if I was willing to travel to the US for support activities, I signed up – this time again not knowing what to expect. Maybe this is a pattern with me, but I digress. The only relief that I got about the trip was knowing that I was accompanied by 2 other engineers – who were veterans in the upgrade support. So, gathering my strength from these other 2 brave souls, I marched on. The next month went on in a snap and before I realized, I was at the swanky new T2 airport at 6:15 AM, waiting to board my flight to the USA.

I have a few friends living in California and I had informed one of them about my travel plans. Little did I know that he would later play an important role in creating amazing memories during my stay in the US. So, the day after we landed in US, I informed my friend and he offered to drop by my hotel and take me out. And that was the beginning of my journey of memories. We went out to have some good Indian/Pakistani food for brunch and then headed out to visit some places around. We visited Pulgas Water Temple, Point Bonita light house in San Fransisco then headed to the Stanford University (yes, THE Stanford University). This was also my first time driving a car in the USA. And guess which one I drove? A swanky new Tesla Model Y! Being a geek, you can only imagine the excitement I had when I drove one of the most advanced artifacts of technology in the automotive industry. Also, for the first time in my life, I experienced fully autonomous self-driving system in a passenger car. I was totally blown away by the driving chops of the Tesla’s autonomous driving system. The precision and accuracy with which it navigated the paths – be it hilly roads or freeways or the busy streets of San Francisco, this was beyond my imagination. I just could not help but appreciate how far humanity has come in terms of technological advancement.

After the wonderful experience of driving a Tesla, we reached our colleague’s home. There we were treated to a delicious Indian dinner - rajma curry with roti. Could I have asked for a better start to the trip?