Intern to Leader: An Inspiring Journey of Subin Shrestha
In the ever-evolving world of technology, the journey from an intern to a leader is often filled with challenges, learning, and growth. Today, we are thrilled to share the story of Subin Shrestha, our esteemed Technical Team Leader at Insight Technology Pvt. Ltd. Subin’s path from a technical intern to his current leadership role is a testament to his dedication, expertise, and unwavering commitment to excellence. Join us as we dive into an insightful Q&A session with Subin, exploring his experiences, challenges, and achievements that have shaped his remarkable career in the tech industry.
Q. Can you share a bit about your background and what initially sparked your interest in technology?
Hello I am Subin Shrestha an enthusiastic Electronics and Communication Engineer with an expertise in Computer Networks and Systems. I am currently working as the Technical Team lead at Insight Technology Pvt. Ltd. Here at Insight I mostly handle my Technical Team and provide effective and efficient solutions to clients who are in search of an enterprise solution for network and system management.
Q. Can you describe your first job in the tech industry? What was it like, and what did you learn from that experience?
I used to work on and off with companies owned by family friends and acquaintances where I used to troubleshoot internet problems and desktop issues. But, To be honest, Insight Technology is the first company where I have started my journey officially in tech with my roots as an intern. The first day here at Insight Technology was extremely long according to my experience as I was the only technical intern present at the moment with all my seniors out in field support duties. I did get my chance to experience on-call help desk support but completely flunked the call as I was new to the configuration of Mikrotik Routers. But then Narendra Chaudhary our then Network Hardware Technician helped me with the basic configuration and together finished the ticket.
Q. Were there any significant challenges you faced when transitioning into a technical lead role? How did you overcome them?
Yes, there are plenty. The major challenge was the change in the role of being always led by strong and technically gifted individuals to facing the challenge now of being one who has to walk in their shoes. As the Technical Lead I now have new responsibilities of maintaining my Team workflow as assigning them tasks according to their skillset and primary strengths. The challenge was significant when transitioning from the role of being the one who used to be guided to the one who is to lead and be a role-model for the entire technical team. The addition of new roles and bringing about a change in the way things needed to be done according to my preference and instilling them into the daily task of the team members was only possible due to my team members Siddharth Parajuli, Bidur Neupane and Sarun Munikar who are always keen on improvement and holistic development of skills and technical knowledge.
Q. Can you describe a typical day in your role? How do you balance technical tasks with leadership duties?
My day starts off with getting updates with my team and the tasks that have been scheduled for the day. I work with the business team if they have scheduled any client consultation with the technical team for the day and if any meetings are arranged with the clients where the business team may need any technical expertise. After the first hour of scheduling and getting updates on my team I assign tasks to the team members and give them deadlines for their tasks.
I am very grateful for my team as they are mostly independent and are able to handle most of the tasks that I usually assign them. They are well aware of the workflow as well as the processes. Thus it makes it easy for me to balance my technical tasks with my day-to-day duties.
Q. What projects or initiatives have you led at Insight Technology that you are particularly proud of?
Since my first day here at Insight Technology I have been a part of many deployments and projects whether big or small. I was really proud when the whole team was able to finish the project for Swarojgar Microfinance where we successfully established links for nearly 95 different branch locations to the Head-office among which I personally took part for about 40 of those branch locations. Along with that I have been part of System deployments with different servers/systems, creating SD-WAN, VPN tunnels (Remote access & Site-to-site), Dynamic Routing, as well as wireless PTP and PTMP for many of our clients. These are particularly my best project initiatives.
Q. What tools and technologies do you primarily work with in your role?
I am an avid Linux user. I support the Open Source Community and openly advocate for the use of Open source solutions in my daily tasks.I usually find the best alternatives for any proprietary applications, as such I daily drive Linux Mint for my work and have an Arch based home server where I stash my media and files. As a Network and System enthusiast I am mostly seen using my terminal to troubleshoot any system that I encounter. For the Generation of reports and documentation I primarily use Google workspace and have adopted AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini to streamline research and productivity.
Q. How do you approach team management and ensure effective collaboration among team members?
For me my team consists of the most helpful and selfless individuals that I have come across over the years. Most of my tasks become easy because of my team and their feedback. For me they are constantly improving their skills and learning with me as we work together. We collaborate on our ideas at the start of the day as we draw out our ideas and give feedback on each of our progress and new solutions that we came across the week. I use tools such as trello and a group chat with my team members so we can collaborate efficiently. By continuously working towards objectives with my team, I create opportunities for them to display their talents and cultivate their professional journeys which develops the whole team.
Q. What processes do you have in place to ensure that your team meets project deadlines and maintains high-quality standards?
For a quick overview of the technical teams work-flow I have insisted on using proper communication while gathering information and effective collaboration for the maintenance of a standard working environment in my team. The Technical teams’ Kanban Board offers a quick look at our backlogs, the tasks assigned to our team members, Research, Survey and Designs, Tasks in progress, the tasks we accomplished and feedback that we share to our team. This consistent team sharing and communication keeps our team in check and tracks our progress with the different processes while maintaining a high standard for our output.
Q. What are your professional goals for the next few years, and how do you plan to achieve them?
For my professional goals for the upcoming two years I have planned on giving a few of my certification exams such as, CCNA, JNCIA-Junos, LPIC-1, and if possible NSE-4 and CCNP. I plan to study masters in Systems and Security and may be seen packing my bags internationally for post-graduate studies in a year or two.
Q. Looking back, is there anything you wish you had done differently in your career path?
I am really thankful for being able to use and utilize the current internet with freedom and unlimited access to all the resources that I ever need. I do wish to improve a lot with my career path and dive deeper into systems and administrative roles in the near future. As for doing things differently I am known for abrupt decision making and critical thinking in my team which usually even though chaotic results in the development of fast solutions for problems, and I wish I could have started sooner in my field as a network and system professional for I always enjoy my time solving issues and troubleshooting my way out of complex issues.
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