I joined Merkle Science as an Architect

I left Visa on July 21, and joined Merkle Science as an Architect and Lead Software Engineer. I’m working with the Data Engineering team, and have some cross-over work with the Product team as well. I am excited for this shift since this is the first startup I’m working at as a developer, and this comes after 2 years at a large corporation. I’m also excited since I knew nothing about Cryptocurrencies and Decentralized Finance, and today I can say I understand at least a little.

The CTO Nirmal AK contacted me over phone and scheduled the interviews, and I was a bit worried since I’d never worked at startup before. I wanted to give it a shot, but I didn’t know the right sort of questions to ask a startup.

However, Nirmal and the CEO Mriganka Pattnaik took their time in explaining how their business works and I realized I wanted to join them. The work seemed exciting and after 2 years at Visa, I was ready for a different sort of challenge. They went the extra mile to convince me of the quality of the work, the problems they’re dealing with, and surprisingly, they circumvented their rule that all new hires get an M1 MacBook Pro to let me buy my own laptop to run Linux in! While that might not be so important to many people, I’m pretty vocal about not liking the experience of using a Mac for work; before you ask, giving me a windows laptop is a quick way to assure a refusal to the offer letter. Additionally, I expressed that I’m interested in a Developer Advocacy role as well, and to my surprise, they revealed that they have a lot of work around that space as well, since tech in the cryptocurrency field is still new and it is constantly changing.

I don’t have much to say since I’m still new here, but I’ve already learnt a lot about the domain. I want to blog about Ethereum and how to write a DeFi app soon. It could be interesting!

We _are_ hiring, of course, so please reach out if you want to work in a company that’s making headway in the cryptocurrency space!