Shortlister Spotlight: Meet Niranjan Pujari, Senior Lead Engineer

Niranjan Pujari

Shortlister Spotlight: Meet Niranjan Pujari, Senior Lead Engineer

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At Shortlist, we love building our team almost as much as we love building yours! 

We have some pretty amazing people across our three offices who have a real passion for what they do and for the Shortlist mission.

The next instalment of Shortlister Spotlights (a Q&A series to get to know some of our team members) stars Niranjan Pujari, the Senior Lead Engineer from Hyderabad office!

A keen book lover and a history buff, he enjoys the challenge of solving problems and designing applications. Though he aspired to be an agriculturist the thrill of complex problem solving brought him to computer science and consequently to Shortlist and he has become an invaluable part of our team. 

Read on to know about his Shortlist journey!

Hi Niranjan! Tell us about your life at Shortlist. 

Currently, I am working as a senior lead engineer here at Shortlist.

I joined the team back in 2015 as an off-shore consultant and then moved to Hyderabad as a full-time employee in June 2016. My job involves designing an application, trying new technologies to solve problems, architectural decisions. It is a pretty challenging and interesting role for me, as I have to put on all my thinking hats to come up with innovative solutions for challenges while designing application. That is what makes my life here very adventurous. 😀

When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Growing up my dreams kept changing. At one point, I wanted to be a lawyer while at another, I wanted to be a cricketer. After finishing off my schooling, I wanted to be an agriculturist but I ended up as a software professional!

So what led you to a career in technology, and what were you looking for in your next career step when you found Shortlist?

As I mentioned earlier I wanted to be an agriculturist, but fate had some other plans! I did not get admission in agriculture college but ended up into a computer science course instead. That’s how my tech journey started and it never stopped.

I used to wonder what would give me that kick, drive me and then I realized it is the complex problem solving that gets me excited and drives me in my work. Shortlist came as a perfect opportunity, there was no thinking there for me. I simply jumped in!

How has your current role impacted you?

It’s not just my current role, my entire tenure at Shortlist has shaped me and been a great journey. As a team, we come across new challenges every day and this gives us opportunities to apply ourselves and brainstorm. It is the whole process- exchange of ideas, perspectives that makes you a different person altogether.

What’s your professional superpower?

I have two- analytical thinking and logical reasoning. 😎

What’s your favourite Shortlist memory?

There are so many of them, it is difficult to pick one. For me, the one which tops the list would be the India team retreat at Lonavala. It gave us the chance to interact with the broader Shortlist team including the leadership. Spending time with them, participating in team-building activities was an amazing experience.

And not to forget, Shortlist Premier League was one of the highlights of this retreat.

Niranjan & our CEO Paul in a discussion at the retreat

What are three words or phrases you would use to describe Team Shortlist?

Awesome, awesome and awesome. 😎

What’s your favourite Shortlist value? (Learn more about our values here!)

I find all our values to be very well-thought-out and super relevant in daily life. But if I have to pick a favourite I would choose “Find the adventure”. Life can get boring with routine and monotony, making it difficult to stay motivated. However, when you start finding adventure in your routine, it becomes interesting. I find motivation in my work every day at Shortlist.

Why is the Shortlist mission important to you?

Having experienced the difficulties earlier in finding the exact type of job that fits my personality first hand, Shortlist’s mission of bridging the gap between candidates & opportunities is important and resonates with me.

So Niranjan, tell us about your life outside of work?

Outside of work, I love reading books and enjoy watching movies. History, in particular, fascinates me, I look at it as a means of satisfying my curiosity. Other than that, Netflix is my latest crush these days. 😍

We like to give high fives to recognise when our team members do something awesome. Now is your chance to make a public high five to a fellow Shortlister:

There are quite a few people without whom my journey in Shortlist would have been very different. So here it goes:

Firstly, I would like to give a bigggggg high-five to our CTO Sudheer. I have known him for the last 7-8 years, way before Shortlist was founded. He is the kind of guy everyone wants to work with- be it as a colleague, as a manager or as a friend. If it were not for him, I would have never been a part of this great place.

The second person on my list would be my teammate Tilak, who has been there for me since the beginning and has been super supportive.

Thirdly, I would like to give a high five to our CEO Paul for his continuous and unconditional support to the tech team.

Tech Team, Hyderabad

Any final words?

This has been a great journey so far as Shortlister and I am enjoying every bit of this.

Thank you, Niranjan! We’re so glad to have you on Team Shortlist.

Did reading about Niranjan’s experiences make you want to join our squad? Check out the rest of our crew here

We’re hiring…Follow this link and stay up to date on job openings! 

Apply today — we’re excited to hear from you 🙂

If you would like help building your team, let us help you. Shortlist offers a wide range of recruitment solutions that help companies build great teams.