"Don't think about money for the first four years," Awesome Startup Employee of United Mobile Apps

As a part of our ‘Awesome Startup Employee Series', we bring to you the star developer from one of the upcoming tech startups in India, United Mobile Apps. Co-Founded by Sriram V Iyer and Arun Samudrala, UMA recently raised funding and is moving aggressively. Here, we catch up with Siddharth Ramaguru who has been a strong pillar for UMA.

Loyalty is a highly sought after and examples of loyalty are rare in the IT industry. The commitment for an average employee is driven by the size of the pay-cheque and the fear of the pink slip. Jumping between companies is commonplace in this industry and definitely more so in the startup ecosystem. This series showcases employees who have not only made the courageous decision to work for a startup, but also shown great character in believing the startup’s work and staying on with one outfit for long.

United Mobile Apps, is a company that works in the field of mobile technology, broadband and wireless technology and employee number 004 is Siddharth aka Siddu. He is a computer science engineer of the class of 2008, he is quick to point out, “I really wasn’t good at academics (as with most startup superstars), but I loved to code and I had some knowledge in it.” He is now an Android developer at UMA and is a lead engineer in their Kepplr Project.

Despite having been placed in Satyam, Siddu chose to work with the small startup based off Bangalore’s electronic city which was a team of 3 people.

Startup all the way!

As a part of the project, Siddu worked onsite with Broadcom on behalf of UMA and spend over a year and a half working with

them. He openly admits “after working at a startup, the corporate life can be a little constrained and the learning in such an environment is limited. I put in more all-nighters in startups but there was more freedom in the kind of work that I did. There are too many procedures at corporates!”He is a strong advocate of working in startups and often advices his juniors “don’t think about money for the first 4 years of your employment. This time should be dedicated to become strong in your subjects and startups provide the best opportunity for that.”

The on the job nature of learning is the best form of learning according to him, and says “I learnt a lot more when I coded rather than when I read theoretically.”

Although he admits that the corporate life provides more comforts, he still prefers working in a startup.

Are you free flying soul as well? Join a startup today!