May 3, 2020
Over the past few decades, ARC has developed dozens of products. From Abacus to PlanWell Enterprise to SKYSITE, we have regularly offered customers technologies designed to solve their business and building challenges. And although we take great pride in these products, we’re even prouder of the minds, hearts, and faces that make it all happen. So over the next couple months, we’d like to give you a behind the scenes look at the computer scientists, coders, and, of course, UX/UI pros that compliment our US team and power our product development.
This story begins in the technology sector of Kolkata, India, at an office set on the top floor of a university. It is here that each day 150 engineers work across specializations that range from QA to Big Data to R&D and mobile app development. Recently, you’d find the team hard at work on finalizing design stages for our print analytics software, redesigning SKYSITE’s website, and continuing the regular feature updates and additions to the SKYSITE apps.
Our team is fantastic, hard working, very smart, and creative. While I was there, we finalized designs on the next version of Abacus, worked through some the SKYSITE Sync app, redesigned the SKYSITE webpages, designed the new MFP embedded application, and put together plans for a couple new component apps to support SKYSITE. It was a tremendously productive three weeks, but most importantly, I felt the greatest benefit of the trip was the time I spent getting to know our team. I spent several evenings and weekends learning about them as people, not just fellow employees. It was great to hear about their families, school, India, food, and all the things that interest them. They are a great bunch, and having had the chance to finally get to know them makes working together more fun and makes understanding each other easier.
Since everyone always asks, I will say the food was fantastic. While there, I had the opportunity to eat a wide variety of food, from everyday lunch fare to a five-star dinner, and I can honestly say that everything I had was stellar. In fact, one restaurant served me a dish that might honestly be the best thing I’ve ever eaten, anywhere.
Special mention should go to Rahul (CTO), Chaitanya (Director of Engineering) and Abir (Legal). We planned the trip so that Rahul and Chaitanya would also be in India at the same time. Not only did this make our working time much more productive, but their local knowledge and extreme generosity ensured I was always taken care of, was never lost, ate well, and always had something to do. Abir’s good company, incredible local, economic and political knowledge made the trip a really fun and educational experience as well.
Rahul and the team have put together a great group of very talented people. I look forward to working even more closely with them, and hopefully making more trips to do so in person.