Vikas Upreti

Big congrats Mario Gerard on the launch of his latest Udemy course! After the success of his previous course, it’s clear that Mario knows how to deliver high-quality content that resonates with learners. This new course is tailored specifically for Technical Program Managers (TPMs) navigating the complexities of larger organizations—a resource that many have been eagerly awaiting. The course promises to dive deep into the unique challenges TPMs face in bigger settings, offering practical insights and strategies to help them excel. Excited to see how this course will empower professionals to elevate their careers and make a significant impact in their roles.

3

Tribe Qonf 2024 was an exceptional two-day QA conference that united India's QA community for a valuable exchange of insights and experiences. Here's a snapshot of my key takeaways: 🚀 Dr. Brinda V: Shared captivating stories from missions like MOM and Chandrayaan, shedding light on rocket testing and quality processes. 🌟 Pradeep Soundararajan: Emphasized a holistic approach to success, encouraging us to consider both macro and micro factors, urging us to "Be Lucid." 🤖 Vipin Jain: Discussed IoT and AI testing challenges, underlining the importance of multilayered and diverse testing approaches. 💻 Gaurav Singh: Simplified gRPC testing basics through live coding demos, making complex concepts more accessible. 🔧 Sahil Puri: Highlighted the significance of blending automation and manual testing, understanding business metrics, and prioritizing continuous learning in revolutionizing quality engineering. 🤖 Nagabhushan Ramappa: Introduced Ratl.ai and its Agentic Flow for automating quality delivery, sparking curiosity about AI's applications. 💡 Rahul Verma: Delivered a mind-blowing talk on pattern thinking, a topic worth exploring further. 📊 Vanya Seth: Explained the Cynefin Framework and the importance of making the best decisions for high quality. 🚀 Ajay Balamurugadas: Gave an impactful talk on career navigation, posing questions that brought clarity and made a significant impact. Connecting with industry experts like Ajay Balamurugadas, Pradeep Soundararajan Gaurav Singh, Sahil Puri, and Nagabhushan Ramappa , Mahesh Mallikarjunaiah ↗️, Nishant Gohel, Abhishek Das enriched my experience, fostering insightful discussions on various challenges and innovations in the QA landscape. Exploring solutions focused on AI, tools, and strategies for testing problem-solving was enlightening, with engaging activities like the BrowserStack quiz adding a fun element to the learning experience. A special thanks to the Test Tribe Team(Mahesh Chikane,Ashutosh Garg and team) for orchestrating such a successful event that brought the QA community together for learning and networking. 🙌 🌏 Discussing Code and Theory and sharing our "Technology First, Design Focused" vision was incredibly encouraging. It was great to see so many people interested in learning more about our company and eager to dive deeper into our innovative approach. Lastly, heartfelt gratitude to Pavan I. and Rahul Parwal for encouraging my participation—it was truly a worthwhile experience. 😊

45

3 Comments

"Humans of LMT” is a series to feature the inspiring and passionate team members of Last Mile Tech (LMT) at Amazon, who are building cutting edge technology solutions to ensure that we are able to process billions of packages and deliver smiles to our customers worldwide. Meet Rishabh Bajpai, who is an SDE-II in the Last Mile Tech organization. He has been with Amazon for 3 years starting his journey as an SDE Intern. In his own words: "My journey with Amazon began as an SDE-intern in the summer of 2020. Despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, including remote work and delayed equipment deliveries, my team went above and beyond to facilitate my onboarding process, enabling me to contribute effectively even without full access to the internal systems. This experience instilled in me an appreciation for Amazon’s leadership principles of ‘Bias for Action’ and ‘Deliver Results’. The sheer scale of Amazon’s tech operations is fascinating! In 2021, I transitioned into a full-time SDE role within the UTR (Under The Roof) technology team. My team owned the core execution services responsible for processing millions of packages worldwide. This provided me the opportunity to collaborate directly with delivery station stakeholders all over the globe, through which I gained firsthand insights into the scale of Amazon’s operation. Furthermore, my on-call experience enriched my understanding of the monetary and operational impacts of the smallest deployment errors in such a time-sensitive business. In 2022, I moved to the UTR Automation charter, which aims to enhance the throughput, efficiency, and safety of the delivery station operations using new automation technologies. Here, I dove head-first into the world of edge computing, supported by AWS Greengrass and AWS IoT Core. Growing into an SDE2, I became more focused on designing critical systems within the delivery station. Some of my best work was designing the edge software to support a smart diverter that helps improve Amazon’s sub-same-day delivery throughput, saving millions of dollars in costs at scale. Innovating for the delivery station is exciting and challenging. Creating solutions for the dynamic environment of a delivery station fuels my passion for research and experimentation. I enjoy the collaborative and inclusive culture of UTR. The spontaneous whiteboarding sessions and watercooler talks often helps spark new solutions for problems. Outside of work, there’s a lot to participate in at Amazon. I’m a big fan of the regular machine learning and business writing bootcamps. The phonetool and internal goodreads culture is super-interesting and unique. Amazon’s global month of volunteering provides a chance for everyone to give back to the community through various events organised both inside and outside the office campus. In fact, this time around, I’m organizing one myself!" #HumansOfLMT, #DTO, #ad, #Amazon, #LMT

109

5 Comments

Sharing my conversation with Prashant Singh (Co-founder and COO of LeadSquared) on how LeadSquared accelerated chatbot deployments with generative AI using Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL. LeadSquared's innovative approach is revolutionizing chatbot technology, enhancing efficiency, and transforming customer interactions. #LeadSquared #AI #Chatbots #Innovation #Amazon Aurora

66

1 Comment

Work tidbits - Living on the edge! Over a year back, I received my patent in the Knowledge Annotation space after 5 years of wait - it triggered me to join this new team.  The space was/still is AI Accelerators, within Cloud Compute. My team specifically was the ‘last mile’, productionize and land the AI accelerators for the top cloud customers.  The work would have been fine in the last 2+ decades of my career - but these times were different. Everyone and everything was in the AI/ML race. Before we(or others) could plan a new stack - something better was out there - sometimes open sourced! Before anyone could make the perf/$ cheaper - There was an update on new numbers available. There were negotiations on software lifecycles, in favor of velocity.   Customers were eager more than any other time. They were feeling the same stress - best LLM, best Stable diffusion, best MLPerf, best ML stack, best chips, best networking, best price! We did very well overall and that part will continue - despite living on the edge. Recently things shifted and I have gotten time to breathe(joined a sister team), also write my thoughts/tidbits - 1.) A friend, a mentor once said - Go far, not fast! Life is not a race and you have a long way to go! I do.  2.) Build resilience. You will see a lot of ups and downs. You don’t always have time to feel sorry for the down, or cheer for the ups! Keep your emotions in the middle spectrum.  3.) Find the true allies, and keep them close. They will tell you when you are wrong, or not - but most importantly they will stick with you, for long. I just ran into my peer from 9 years ago, 2 companies back in the hallway today!  4.) Recognize that some folks are indeed for the fast, maybe also far.. but mostly fast. Let them be! Take 2 steps back. Build resilience.  5.) Invest in your team - My reports, people are/were the team's biggest strength, and the primary reason to keep us going. We certainly don’t end here. The jobs will always be demanding, and that is by design. But the 'how' is on you..   My Amazon manager (now a VP@Microsoft) wrote me a handwritten note that said - Shivani, slow down and take the time to smell the flowers - I have been practicing something like this lately..  I am taking my learnings and my tribe along - and certainly aiming to go far.  Please take care of yourself, no matter what stage! ##resilience #livingontheedge #farnotfast #machinelearning #google #cloud

62

4 Comments

Presenting at #MRCVegas2024 was a true pleasure and the response to our session, "Future of Strong Auth – Passkey" was fantastic. Shout out to Anand Bahety, Mahendar Madhavan, and the team for their invaluable contribution in enabling passkey capabilities for eBay users. Also, thanks to Kathryn Irwin and Julie Fergerson, CPFPP from #MRC for the opportunity and for making this conference possible. A few things to share on the topic of Passkey and its impact on payment risk management: 1. Passkey has significant potential as an option for 3DS, a standard currently in draft at EMVCo. If anyone is interested in learning or collaborating further, feel free to reach out to Ulrich Herberg, Ph.D. from eBay who has been actively involved in these discussions. 2. It would be particularly intriguing to see how EU regulations will classify passkey—whether as a two-factor or as a single-factor authentication method. 3. I learned from some of my friends about how some EU banks are already adopting mobile apps for verification over SMS. Similar innovations in the U.S. would be awesome! I'm eager to hear your thoughts on the following topics: 1. Has the widespread adoption of 3DS in the EU indeed resulted in lower chargebacks compared to the U.S.? 2. Given Passkey's potential, do you think it has the capability to not only safeguard accounts but also mitigate first-party chargebacks?

181

Is Gen AI hype or real? Hosting a panel of experts from Amazon ( Thank you- Muthu Muthukrishnan, Jeetu Mirchandani, Mukesh Karki, Anand Rathi) in AWS Fintech summit to talk about building enterprise Gen AI solutions and applying Gen AI at scale was an honor. We discussed potential, technological challenges, including hallucinations and accuracy, cost, and go-to-market plans for AWS, Advertising, Stores, and the AGI space. #GenAI #ArtificialIntelligence #AWS #FintechSummit

200

5 Comments