[Awesome Startup Employee] Prateek Goel, core developer at ScaleArc, balances his role to perfection

“I noticed that the dynamic range between what an average person could accomplish and what the best person could accomplish was 50 or 100 to 1. Given that, you're well advised to go after the cream of the cream. A small team of A+ players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players.”

-Steve Jobs

The employees who have the right mix of passion, enthusiasm and skill are worth their weight in gold to their companies. There are those that go beyond the call of duty, simply because they love what they are doing. A small team with the right ammunition up their sleeves can take on the big guys and win.

Our awesome employee for this week is Prateek Goel of ScaleArc. He is nominated by the Founder and CTO of Scale Arc, Varun Singh.

Prateek Goel is a core developer at ScaleArc and was one of the earliest employees at the company.

“Being the first employee in the company, I definitely enjoyed more benefits than the grind. I would like to highlight the four patents that I have got through ScaleArc,” he says.

When Prateek joined ScaleArc his role was very challenging and required him to apply everything that he knew, and simultaneously learn new technologies.

“I will always remember doing night outs at ScaleArc which were super fun. The product we build is very unique and is highly complicated. I remember Naresh and I having long discussions with Varun/Uday to finalize ScaleArc architecture and to choose the right approach.

Life before ScaleArc

Prateek Goel did his schooling at a small town in Uttrakhand called Roorkee. His highest education is MS in ‘Advance Networking and Telecommunication’ from I2IT Pune in 2006. He got a campus placement offer in DishnetDSL ‘ETH’, Pune. Being a networking engineer, he got opportunities to work on Network Management systems, datacenter design, and configuring different network components.

During this time he got more inclined towards software engineering, network programming and designing networking protocols. Therefore, he joined Symantec as software engineer in October 2006. In Symantec, he worked with different databases and database security.

In 2009, he was looking for an opportunity to join a startup. He got this motivation from his friends and colleagues who had joined early stage startups after Symantec.That is when he got introduced to ScaleArc and it was perfect for him as the product they were building required knowledge of databases and network programming, areas in which Prateek had expertise in.

KRAs at Scale Arc

Prateek’s key responsibility area was to build the core platform for ScaleArc. This platform works as a proxy and is capable of handling millions of concurrent database connections simultaneously. He was acting as a product lead for the initial two and half years and his responsibilities included almost everything from management, designing, development and hiring for the product. From there, the company expanded in the US and India, and currently he is involved in research, requirement analysis, reverse-engineering protocols, designing, developing and mentoring a team of developers.

On the journey so far

The best part about working for Scale Arc, according to him is, “Its culture of working with a team of highly motivated and technically strong individuals. This is a culture where learning becomes an integral part of everything you do.”

Prateek also has an amazing bond with his founders. “They have total transparency with each other and a deep understanding of their employees’ capabilities,” he says.

The agony and ecstasy

Developing something from scratch is always a challenge; the challenge of selecting the right approach for your product and finishing the product within time, without compromising on quality.

“Sometimes I had to take important decisions without knowing all the parameters and conditions involved. In such cases, the safest approach is the best approach, and you have to trust your intuition,” says Prateek.

He remembers the time when one of their first customers was able to process more than a billion queries in a day through ScaleArc. It was a tremendous sense of achievement as an engineer.

ScaleArc started with a futuristic idea and was never afraid of the complications in achieving its goals despite all the opposition. “I think that is something that I have acquired here and it reflects in my day to day work. I am never afraid of signing up for any task full of risks and uncertainty.”

Company culture

Prateek thinks that his decision to join an early stage startup was not an easy one, but he believesthat this has proven to be a turning point in his career.

“A company’s culture is defined by its employees, the people you work with on a daily basis. In ScaleArc, you are always working with a team of highly motivated and technically strong individuals. In such an environment, innovations become natural and you never feel alone whenever you need any help. We also know how to party hard.”

According to him, at ScaleArc employees do not need to worry about any hierarchy and can focus exactly on what they want to do.

Maintaining work-life balance, taking calculated risks

Startups are always associated with risks, but in Prateek’s opinion a developer never losses anything in a startup, irrespective of its success or failure. It will help him or her understand the reality and how small steps in the right direction can get big results.

“I think work life balance is only a concept, and in present times you should be always available for your work and for your family 24X7 whenever needed.”

Watching a good movie or a TV series, having a nice dinner, gardening on weekends and visiting old friends are some of the things Prateek does to unwind.

On a closing note

“To be a part of any startup one should not be afraid of big commitments and to make it successful all one needs is the right attitude. So keep doing the great work with a positive attitude and success should follow you.

“Sometimes you end up spending more time with your colleagues than your family and that is when you realize their importance in life. They are always ready to help each other both professionally and personally. So please continue having amazing bonding between all the Scalearcians. To all the users of ScaleArc, I would like to say that this is just the beginning and more amazing things are on their way,” adds Prateek.