Experience of working with Fintech startup as software engineer

These are main points which covers my story :

1. Challenges
2. Fast Delivery without impacting end user
3. Innovations
4. Customer experience
5. Helping to achieve sales targets ( Business achievements)
6. Financial critical aspects ( Its danger to touch single rupees issue)
7. Digital media marketing for Fintech ( which was a new platform)

In my entire career as a software engineer I have mostly worked for e-commerce development, support or other promotional website development works (Thanks to SODEL solutions for giving me opportunity) . KNAB finance is first startup or company which gave me opportunity to evolve into different kind of person professionally. I have become a master of in and out of any e-commerce business strategy and technology implementation while working for e-commerce websites development. I have almost developed 10–15 e-commerce websites with several out of the box features (some of which couldn’t be released due to business decision). All past experiences have given me insights to SEO support and analysis from technical perspective which is helping me in KNAB finance to stand out uniquely in KNAB finance interview process.

I still remember the day when I got selected as Technical Lead in KNAB finance. My CTO and interviewer (Senior technical consultant) were taking my face to face interview on KNAB finance first website (Initial version) and they asked me to share my observations and feedback on the website. I used all my past experience as Front end specialist and shared my views through which helped me crack the interview. Overall interview was too good on Mysql, AngularJs, HTML, and AWS.

After joining, first challenge was to work on existing website and adapt to existing AngularJs framework which was developed previously also improvements in few things of normal website like analytics integration, robots inclusion, responsiveness, non www to www redirection etc. It was my first experience of working on Python. KNAB finance is one of the companies to be using most of AWS services, which was helpful in agile methodology( Develop fast release more ).

1. First thing I did was to set-up a process for team (git and daily check in and code review). Main challenge was, we were using AWS lambda (micro-service architecture). So, for one company one repository was mantra for Github setup but here it was more…one API one lambda( Python code). Means, if one KNAB finance website is using total 20 APIs then total 20 lambda’s due to which we were unable to setup standard practices in Github such as branching model like ‘dev’, ‘stage’ and ‘release’ to distinguish between environments.
2. AngularJs env setup — Due to API based architecture you need to provide environment based details for each env. We host our website on AWS S3 where we can’t implement symlink concept which I was supposed to used in web server (env-prod.js , env-stage.js and env-local.js points to env.js)
3. Google sheet engine — we used power of google sheet to use data entry and to build decision making system for business team. All credit goes to one of colleague (Sabari ram — Innovator geek).
4. Server less new website — when we started redesigning totally new website for our branding, requirement was CMS ( like Wordpress), which would help us to dynamically create pages and posts. Also it was necessary to keep current AngularJs app along with Wordpress. Finally we landed to use Wordpress plus AngularJs after lots of discussion. We used Wordpress, as it is PHP based CMS , so we required Apache server ( AWS EC2) and if we use server then have to adapt auto-scaling, load balancing model, but our CTO’s focus was always very crystal clear, he wanted peaceful sleep which we were getting with courtsey of Microservice architecture, he don’t want to end up lose it. So,we decided to use server less web hosting-Wordpress hosting on AWS S3
5. Evaluation of MIFOS (Loan Management System) — On evaluating the product, my CTO added tasks into my bucket like installation, configuration, API integration. As open source follower I was always ready to accept challenges of any language and platform. This was purely build on JAVA based framework. I got the knowledge about overall loan management process while API integration and configuration which helped me to get expertise solution in finance sector.
6. Dynamic agreement or documents printing — Next challenge was to generate agreement dynamically. As we got our NBFC license in OCT 2017 which meant I have successfully built this kind of feature for the first time in my career. Python is really rich programming language in this kind of features. In PHP we suppose to create PDF dynamically using coordinate but I never used template based engine. First basic development was done by me and later enhancement and rich feature built by one of junior colleague. He was good in this kind of challenges to work on it.
7. Facebook ads and Google Adwords — After almost setup done for KNAB loan process, next challenge was digital media marketing. Here I used my own blogging experience and e-commerce expertise to create digital awareness. But the task was not that easy because it’s easy to do digital marketing in e-commerce and blogging, but in financial sector it is very difficult. Normal tendency of user is, when money factor comes people always like to take more precautions. Thanks to Ravi Shrivastav because of whom I got to know about SEO. Running a Facebook and Adwords ads taught me very small things which can help in digital marketing like location, language,age based marketing. Our product manager always helped in creating a content and giving a direction so that brand value should not break. Her expertise in finance sector is too good.
8. Own CI module developed by one of my colleague (Innovator tech geek) — when he was developing or coding any feature he was passionate as if he was innovating something. I am learning from him on day to day basis. My expertise in Mysql architecture and writing a complex query improved day by day (which was average at the most) and now I can write any complex query its because of him. With him we developed our Continuous deployment tools which help us in Micro service architecture.
9. Bureau reporting module — As financial institute all borrowing record have to submit to Bureau ( CIBIL, CRIF, Equifax, Experian). Here I learned what is importance of single rupee. Data accuracy is one aspect of Software industry. Bureau reporting helped me to achieve this. We use four eye concept to review all data accuracy to avoid mistake. While reporting I got to know all parameter of business loans which helped me to understand business loans very closely.
10. Mautic (CRM) implementation success and failure — This was first CRM platform for KNAB finance to open source technology. Three month of rich experience of Mautic platform taught us lead and campaign management. Contribution to Mautic and issue handling experience was good. I still want to contribute whenever I will get a chance. Thanks John Linhart for giving me opportunity.
11. Understanding of legal aspects and audit flow in financial industry — Because of all above points I understood legal aspects and audit flow of financial sector, which helped me to contribute more to KNAB finance journey.

And last but not the least is working with one of best team of mentors, founder of KNAB finance Mandeep Chaudhary, Vineet Gupta and Thomas Varghese.

Thomas Varghese — Tech geeks and age doesn’t matter if you are a technology lover. I am still learning lot from him. Big fan of Agile methodology.

Vineet Gupta — Digital expertise view comes from him. One of best digital expertise.

Mandeep Chaudhary — Being a business head is not an easy task. He very well knows how to keep the sparks igniting within the team.. One of best motivator I have ever seen. I have learned one more thing from him is that aggressiveness is required in sales and business.

Thanks KNAB finance for giving this opportunity two years back. I am proud to say I’m a core member of KNAB finance.

KNAB finance rated among Best 10 Startups in Finance- 2017

https://startup.siliconindiamagazine.com/vendor/knab-finance-advisors-financing-capital-needs-of-msmes-cid-3188.html

Claps if you like my first article. I am writing this article to share my two year experience as Software engineer with KNAB finance.