Life at VMware Pune

Last month marked completion of my 4 years tenure at VMware. And I must say that it has been an exciting and rewarding journey all throughout this time in our Pune office. At VMware getting opportunity to work on products which are leading or transforming industries is the norm. However I feel extra fortunate to be part of the NSBU R&D team here. In the last 4 years the NSX product line developed by NSBU has seen tremendous customer adoption and is considered as the new growth engine for VMware by the senior leadership in Palo Alto. Again, I feel proud that the NSX Edge VPN software developed by my team is an integral part of the backbone that enables cloud hybridity for our customers since the launch of VMC services (VMware Cloud on AWS). Another thing that impresses me most about working at VMware is how much innovation happens in-house. I had earlier written about Innovation at VMware and the list of innovation opportunities keeps on growing...

Borathon India 2016 Winners

Keeping the interesting innovation and challenging work stuff aside, there is a lot happening at VMware all the time. And I am happy to be involved in a lot of great stuff that happens here other than the daily work. The two aspects that I wish to highlight here are Service Learning and Employee Engagement.

I have been a firm believer of Giving Back to the society having engaged in social service activities for more that 15 years with the Art of Living Foundation. And I am glad that VMware's motives align well with those of mine. I have never seen more emphasis on Technology - Force for Good in my entire career with the for-profit corporate world. See the latest news about VMware achieving carbon neutrality 2 years ahead of the targeted goal!

Last week I participated in an Open Source Global Borathon (VMware's version of a Hackathon) whereby folks from various offices of VMware formed teams and contributed to open source projects of their choice - with no benefit for VMware in it.
Employees are also encouraged to participate in technology events outside of VMware such as the Smart India Hackathon organized by Government of India and Grass Hopper India events for women technologists to give back to the society using their professional skills. Not to forget that this year's India edition of Borathon was based on the theme of Sustainability!

The Service Learning scene at VMware Pune is ever budding. Every year we are actively engaged with half a dozen non-profits selected by the employees during the annual Foundation Day. This year we have Akshar Bharti, Being Volunteer, IDEA Foundation, Seva Sahayog amongst the most active engagements, and in the past we have had great partnerships with Akanksha, CASP, NFBM, SEDT, etc. As a core member of the VMware Foundation team I act as POC for a couple of non-profits viz. Akshar Bharti and IAHV. There are quarterly service learning events organized on-campus with non-profits like Akshar Bharti and NFBM to provide employees with in-house service learning opportunities during office hours. The other one-off in-house activities include school-kit assembly, solar-lamp assembly, scientific toy-making workshops, all of which are then delivered to needy students in and around Pune. We also have books and clothes donation drives in our office on a regular basis. And then there are outdoor service learning events such as tree plantations and conducting classroom training in nearby schools happening once in a while.

Service Learning Activity at VMware Pune with Akshar Bharati 

Apart from these there is a fund-raising expo with our panel non-profits during Diwali every year. And every year the employees contribute generously to gift all the office staff a Diwali present. On the CSR front, every year company funds social projects of a few non-profits of the employees' choice, and every once in a while employees are given an opportunity to nominate a non-profit of their choice for a grant from company. I'm delighted to share that this year I was able to complete 40 hours of service learning, and as a result was given the opportunity to recommend $1000 grant to a non-profit of my choice! Who says IT engineers are busy coding all the time and have no time and concern for the social good?

VMware Pune Foundation Team during Diwali Charity Drive 

VMware Pune team is an extremely talented pool of engineers. No wonder, as they are handpicked from the best of educational institutions in the country and lateral-hired from top companies such as Cis.. you get it :-) In the extra-curricular department, we have an active football team and not so active cricket team and a slightly dormant music band as well! We have a bunch of sports events happening throughout the year organized completely by our employees. This year I tried my luck in the badminton competition, was a member of the winning football team, and organized a chess tournament in our office. Thanks to VMware's fitness program many employees attend Yoga sessions sponsored by the company within office or at the Prana Yoga Studio within the office building.

Inauguration Match of Chess Tournament 2018

There is also an enthusiastic VMware trekking group, and every year I go on treks and run in local marathons with my team mates. Our team outings to nearby adventure parks are always loaded with high energy and fun. All events at VMware are amazingly well organized thanks to the super energetic admin Sophiya and the ever supporting site head Nitesh who are equally well supported by all the directors and mangers in Pune. In October this year we had a great event to celebrate the 20th anniversary of VMware and 10th anniversary of our Pune office. The stories shared by some of the early employees of VMware Pune during the history quiz in this event provided some interesting trivia. To wrap it up I think that VMware is a great place to work and the list of reasons abound :-)

Our Team @ 20th Anniversary Celebrations