So I recently moved from #Delhi to #Bangalore and the easiest and fastest way I could move my work desk setup (monitors, PC, gaming chair) and my car was to stuff all that into the 🚗 and drive it all the way down.

So here's a smol thread 🧵 on a DEL-BLR road trip. Image
Day 1 was planned to be #Delhi to #Gwalior. But that would have left a very long 2nd day, so we planned to go a little further to Jhansi.

A complete chance browsing through @bookingcom led us to discover this beautiful Bundelkhand Riverside Resort at Orchcha to stay. Image
Day 1 was 425 km. Total drive time was 10hrs+, because we stopped at Agra to visit @TajMahal too.

Booked Hotel Atulyaa Taaj (apart from Oberoi Amarvilas, this is the nearest hotel to Taj) simply as an expensive parking spot 😅 as the car was loaded with stuff. Image
The Bundelkhand Riverside Resort is the haveli of the erstwhile Raja of Orchcha, and imho, the best possible place one can do a highway stop on the first leg of this trip. Highly recommended! ImageImageImageImage
Next day we went from Orchcha (Jhansi) to Nagpur.

In terms of road quality, we faced the worst stretches on this leg. Places where the highway goes through a city and is pretty much a city road. Places under construction/repair.

90% of it is still 100kmph level good. Image
Day 2 was 550 kms of driving. And thus again 10hrs on the road.

We stopped just a little before Nagpur inside the @PenchMP Tiger Reserve 🐯 to check out the resorts.

Sadly post COVID, all are at very low/nil occupancy. But worth staying if you have 2 spare days in the trip. Image
There's a lot of stretch of the National Highway that cuts through the tiger reserve. Despite tall barricades along the roads, monkeys on the road are a common feature.

We had to get out of Pench post sundown and it was spine-chillingly eerie to drive through the unlit jungle. ImageImageImage
Next day we drove down to #Hyderabad

This was quite a beauty of a drive. The amount of greenery, hills, valleys, small river crossings we saw around will be unparalleled. Great roads too, the whole stretch. Image
Not gonna lie, Hyderabad stop was all about @IKEA pilgrimage.

First time visit to IKEA, and totalllly worth it! Bought a bunch of things, and noted down a bunch more to order.

Protip: Good place to take out someone too 😅, won't run out of conversation starters. ImageImageImageImage
Day 3 was 500km, and we didn't stop at all (had to hurry to reach before IKEA closes) so covered it all in 8 hrs.

The last 50km stretch, the bypass around Hyderabad and the road to HiTech city were just 👨‍🍳🤌

Easily 150kph capable roads, 4 lanes throughout, well maintained! Image
At every stop I tried to stay at a good hotel, primarily because I wanted the car, laden to the brim with my stuff, to be parked properly.

@Westin at Hyderabad has one of the best breakfast buffet spreads, I figured, as a result. Definitely recommended just for the breakfast. ImageImageImageImage
Final leg - home run. Compared to the last 2 legs, where there would often be 30-40 min stretches of driving through literally middle of nowhere (no dhabas, no small towns, no civilisation), this whole leg is through quite populated areas. Not a single deserted stretch. Image
Day 4: Another 525 km.

Stopped at IKEA again in the morning 😅
Also stopped at @Lenskart_com as driving with the sun in the eye was starting to get to me. Buying shades helped a lot, albeit only on the last day.

Reached @peakbengaluru quite late into the night. Image
Thankfully journey ended at Indiranagar and didn't need to go upto @SonyWorldJn, or else would have had taken another 4 days to cross the stretch of deleted road at Koramangala😅😅

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More from @championswimmer

Jan 18
Something common to be found in large Android codebases is dimens.xml file with contents that look like this

This is a major 🚩🚩🚩🚩

It originates from overzealous developers not wanting to *hardcode pixel/dp in layout XMLs*, but it very counterproductive. Image
We need not be grammar-nazi like in our approach and go for a hard-rule on never to write android:layout_height=12dp kind of code, because from a readability perspective, there is no advantage of turning fig.1 into fig.2

@dimen/_24dp has to be 24dp right? What is the point? ImageImage
In fact, now we have opened ourselves to a whole different level of subterfuge in the code in the future.

What if, some day, (by mistake, not deliberately), someone changes these values. Perfectly possible under time-constraint, doing last-minute UI fixes. Image
Read 6 tweets
Jan 13
200 LeetCode questions in 3rd year of college.
FAANG/BigTech job in placements
2 yrs in India, then move to US (sponsored by that BigTech)
7-8 yrs of laid back 5hrs/day work, with 30-40 leaves a year and slowly climb to L5

That's how majority folks turn millionaires by 30
Doesn't sound sexy or cool. Sounds counterintuitive, that if it is that straightforward, then why aren't more people doing it ?

Well if my estimates are correct, every year at least 10000 (probably 20000) Indian techies are doing exactly that.
Don't mistake this as advice to follow this path. (Hell I didn't, myself).
Don't mistake this as an indication of this being "easy" either

Getting into those jobs is not 'easy'. The path is well known and well trodden, but takes time and effort.
Read 5 tweets
Dec 29, 2021
As I filed my tax returns I realised last year I paid more taxes than the sum of all taxes I ever paid before that in my life.

Also couldn't stop thinking about how I'm actively funding a machinery that propagates hate on a religion which was celebrating their festival that day
Every day for every 3-4 rupees I make, I contribute a rupee to this refined, well oiled machine, sprouting hatred in a refined, perfected manner for the last many years.

Muslim, Christian friends of my generation have literally been leaving the country to escape the oppression
I have been paying taxes, coincidentally, exactly since the BJP govt came to power. And not that bridges were not made (some fell too), or roads were not repaired (except in Bangalore), but I have a feeling mostly I have just been funding a terror org, just legally.
Read 4 tweets
Oct 18, 2021
Today in India's tech ecosystem, if you ask *ANY*one, literally anyone, <5yrs exp, about what is the one thing they want to do to grow, 100% of them (including the Google engineers) say that they want to change jobs.
It is sad that we have over the last 1.5 years created a market where somehow everyone has FOMO. Everyone feels underemployed. 3yrs exp folks earning 50L found some outlier of an outlier on Blind earning $300k remote from India, and they now want that.
I am not saying when there is an open market, one should not look to optimise their net worth. But isn't it sad if you go out and do 100+ user interviews, mainly from highly aspirational companies, and 100% of them are looking to change jobs within 6 months.
Read 6 tweets
Aug 1, 2021
Over the last 3 years or so I have had to hire/help-to-hire a lot of senior engineers, especially in small to mid startups.

Usually it is in a role where the person would be the main pivot of the team and be responsible for a project.

A thread on what has worked 🧵👇🏼
Over the last couple of years the tech hiring market has become more and more uphill. If you're a small startup, it is super challenging today. There are funded startups who are dying off because they are unable to corner tech talent. So the challenge is very real here.
Small caveat here - these are contextualised a bit towards Android, as that's what I have mostly hired for. Although the same methods and principles I have used for things like Node/Java backend too which has worked out well.
Read 30 tweets
Aug 1, 2021
I don't build social media clout for a dopamine fix.

Social media clout today is part of the essential consumer survival kit.

It is not only easy to access redressal mechanisms with most B2C businesses if you have clout, but in fact the only process of it happening today.
If you do not have the capability to raise a rabble, you just have no insurance against bad consumer experience and dealing with faulty products/services in today's world.

This is just the Black Mirror-esque world we live in now.

"Social credit scores" actually exist
I have regularly had experiences where my problems got fixed - exact same problems for which my friends who are not active on social have gotten the short end of stick.

In fact, the extreme end of *this* very spectrum is B2C brands sending freebies to influencers.
Read 4 tweets

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