From a Tuk to a Stage in Bangalore: Collecting My Orchestrate Award
By Saai Syvendra ·
A couple of weeks had gone by since the results dropped on June 2nd, and honestly, I was still floating somewhere up there. If you read the last one, you'll know how it ended: me in a tuk, hair a mess, finding out I'd somehow topped HackerRank Orchestrate. The adrenaline hadn't worn off so much as settled into a low hum. Life carried on, just with a bit of extra spring in it.
Then came another Ting! 😅 An email from Sanskruti: Aadil wanted to hop on a call to hear more about my experience. I figured it'd be one of those calls sharing our experiences and thoughts. And for the first five minutes, that's exactly what it was.
Then Aadil mentioned the HackerRank Innovator Awards, their flagship event, and said they'd love to fly me over for the 11th.
I asked, casually, "July 11th?"
"June."
It took a second to land. Not next month. But next Friday. And before I could even get to the sensible worries, visa and flights, my brain marched straight to the least glamorous place possible: my exams. I had two vivas and two exams stacked up over the coming two weeks.
Aadil, meanwhile, kept piling on the good news: an all-paid trip, and I'd be collecting my award on stage. Within the next 4 minutes, he'd walked me through the 3-day, 2-night trip, and what would be my 1st visit to India. That's it; the call ended.
I sat there for a moment, completely out of excitement, then went and told the people I love, voice barely holding together. Amma was speechless, shock and joy at once. Appa wore the same shock and joy, just with about a hundred questions attached.
A week to pull off the not-quite-possible
Here's roughly how it went.
Wednesday, applied for the visa. Monday, got the visa and booked the tickets. Following Wednesday, sat both vivas. Thursday, flew to Bangalore. Friday, collected the award. Saturday, flew back. Sunday, binged through all the lectures. Monday, sat the exams. And here I am at another Wednesday, putting the whole thing down, partly so I can look back on it one day, partly (let's be honest) because this is my little corner of the internet to do exactly that. 😅
If I'd stopped to properly think about all of that (the timing, the exams, the visa cutting it fine), I'm not sure I'd have said yes so quickly. But sometimes you just say yes and let the rest sort itself out.
Bangalore - The city of IT and traffic
I landed at 12:30, a good half hour ahead of schedule. Sanskruti had coordinated the whole journey, and Paasha was there to receive me at the airport, the man who'd go on to guide me through the famously merciless Bangalore traffic.
Straight to the Hyatt, and then straight to the HackerRank office. And this is where it started feeling unreal. Earlier this year I'd used HackerRank to get a SQL certification, and now I was standing inside their Bangalore office. That certificate was signed by Hari, their Co-founder/CTO, and now I was shaking his hand in person. Magical is the only word for it.
I got a small tour and met some genuinely wonderful people. I'd introduce myself ("Hi! I'm Saai!") and a few of them just smiled: "Of course we know who you are." A bit much for me to take in, in the best possible way.
Then I met Kanishkar, who'd lined up a little video shoot. You'll see that one when it comes out. 😉 They've got a proper in-house studio, which was lovely to see. The night wrapped up the way good nights do: chaai, dosa, katti rolls, and a fair bit more street food.
The big day
The next morning was a slow one. I roamed a bit, grabbed lunch at McDonald's (something that sadly ceases to exist back in SL 😢), and, having been thoroughly warned about the traffic, left early. So early that I reached the venue ahead of schedule.
The Ritz-Carlton was the venue, and a lovely place it was. The registration alone was something else: a handheld device, almost like a card reader with a camera, one scan and your name was printed and pasted onto a tag. First of its kind I've ever seen.
Small chats over smaller chaats, a few great minds to talk to, and then the ceremony began.
I'd taken a seat in an empty row; a gentleman came and sat a seat apart (hold that thought). Aadil took the stage with fire and pulled the whole room's energy up with him, and then came the keynote from Juan Herrera, President/CRO of HackerRank. He went straight for the elephant in the room: how AI is reshaping the tech landscape.
One slide in particular stuck with me. It was about the What and the How. The what is the problem you're solving, like building a building. The how is how you contribute to it, like laying the bricks. The whats will mostly always be there; it's the hows that change over time. Even in tech, the what of the problem stays put, but the how you contribute (if that how happens to be writing code), well, that part may not last. A neat way to put something I'd been chewing on ever since Orchestrate.
The surprise
Then Anand Gopal, VP of Product Management, came up to walk through how HackerRank is tackling hiring in this new era, and then onto Orchestrate itself, and a few things they'd learned from running its very first edition.
Control went back to Juan, and he said he had a surprise. Hehe. I had a fairly good idea what it was. 😉
He gave a little intro of me, which meant the world, and welcomed me up. I walked on with the whole room clapping, and there I was, collecting the first award of the evening: champion of the very first edition of Orchestrate.
As I walked back down to my seat, people congratulated me along the way. A week earlier I'd been in a tuk with messy hair. Now I was walking off a stage in Bangalore with an award in my hands. I still can't quite explain the line connecting those two points, except that I never once sat down and planned it.
Winchester Mystery House
What followed was a panel on Hiring in the Agentic Era, industry leaders trading thoughts, experiences, and, by the end, their predictions on where the market is headed.
Then came a session by Guru Bhat, Sr. Director of Engineering, AI Foundations / Site Lead at Google Bangalore. He shared a slide that was equal parts funny and pointed: the Winchester Mystery House, his term for AI slop. A house with stairs that lead nowhere and doors that open onto walls; nobody quite sure what happens where.
The takeaway landed close to home: know your fundamentals, stay disciplined, and keep human understanding at the centre of it all. What scales and what's maintainable is going to keep being valued, because there are more than enough massive codebases out there already. It's the same reason certain old programming languages are still very much alive: the legacy systems need them. (If you read the last post, you'll know I have a soft spot for this argument. Use the chainsaw, sure, but learn the axe.)
Then came the company awards across five categories (Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Adobe, and Cognizant were among the winners), and the formal part of the evening closed with Hari sharing a few words. Oh, and that gentleman who'd sat a seat away from me? Turned out he was from LSEG, a name I knew well. Coincidence? Maybe. But guess what, his son's name is also Sai. 😅 Now that's an interesting coincidence.
The people
Then came dinner, and more conversations with more people.
I got to speak with one of the panellists, Rajan Chellappa, who handles talent acquisition at Citi India. It was genuinely moving to hear his experiences, how he's helped people find their passion, not just interviewed them for a role.
Over all the conversations, I covered passion, AI, cricket, physiotherapy, and a bit of everything. Good food, good company, and slowly the day came to a close.
Heading home
The next day was a ride around Bangalore with Paasha: a bit of shopping, weaving through the busy markets of Sivaji Nagar, and a whole lot of sitting in traffic on the way to the airport. And just like that, my first, surprise, short-but-sweet visit to India came to an end.
I'm deeply grateful to the HackerRank team for flying me over; it meant more than I can really put down here. And to Sanskruti, for coordinating every step and making the whole journey such a smooth, lovely one.
Here's the thing I keep coming back to. A couple of weeks earlier I'd been brushing my hair in a tuk, finding out I'd won. I never planned a single thing that came after. I just kept saying yes (to the contest, to the call, to a flight squeezed between two vivas), and somehow the pieces kept arranging themselves. There's a line from The Alchemist about how, when you truly want something, the whole universe conspires to help you get it. I used to read that as a nice sentiment. Lately I'm starting to think it might just be... true.
So if there's anything to take from all this: don't overthink it. Say yes, go out there, and do the thing. The universe seems to handle the logistics better than you'd expect. 😇
#HackerRank
#Orchestrate
#India
#Award
#Gratitude
