From Data Warehousing to Cloud Architecture: Nidhi Nayak’s Tech Journey | Ep031

Episode Information Show Notes In this episode, Manuel Martinez talks with Nidhi Nayak, an Enterprise Support Lead with extensive experience across data warehousing, cloud architecture, and technical leadership. Born and raised in India, Nidhi shares her journey from studying mathematics to becoming an engineer, and how her passion for problem-solving drove her career choices. She walks us through the multi-stage interview process she navigated as a recent graduate in India, including how she prepared months in advance for campus recruitment. Nidhi discusses her progression from an ETL developer to various technical leadership roles, explaining why she chose to broaden her knowledge across multiple technologies rather than specializing deeply in just one area. Her approach paid off as she moved from on-premise systems to cloud architecture, ultimately achieving all 12 AWS certifications. Throughout the conversation, Nidhi offers practical wisdom on: Using certifications strategically to validate knowledge and build confidence Teaching others as a pathway to deepen your own understanding Developing presentation and documentation skills for technical and business audiences Creating effective boundaries and knowing when to say “no” to new responsibilities Setting clear goals with personal deadlines to stay accountable Balancing technical expertise with customer-facing responsibilities This episode provides valuable insights for both early-career professionals looking to map their path forward and experienced practitioners seeking ways to expand their impact beyond technical expertise. Listen to the full episode to hear Nidhi’s thoughtful advice on continuous learning, strategic career planning, and finding opportunities to grow even within comfortable roles. #CareerDownloads #TechCareers #CloudArchitecture #WomenInTech #CareerAdvice #ProfessionalDevelopment #AWSCertifications Transcription Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to really understand and uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me a coworker. Her name is Nidhi Nayak. So we’re no longer on the same team, but we did spend almost a year together, kind of interacting. I understood the different things that she had kind of had experience in. She was really kind of a lead in the group that I was a part of. She helped kind of guide and direct me in certain areas when I had certain difficulties. I looked at her background, I thought it was pretty interesting. I’ve seen her kind of give internal presentations and I thought she would be a good guest to kind of uncover and learn more about. So with that, go ahead and plug in and download the knowledge and I will introduce Nidhi. So welcome Nidhi. Nidhi: Hey Manny. Manuel: So I really appreciate you coming on and being open to sharing your experiences. Nidhi: Of course, thank you. Thanks for inviting me. Manuel: I know that we’re here in Austin, we’re here for a team gathering. So I mean, I was glad that when I reached out and you were open to kind of talking about this. So if you don’t mind just to start off, just give me a brief summary of kind of tell me what your role or current position is and just a summary of some of your roles and responsibilities so that people understand kind of what you do now. Nidhi: So hey, everyone like, currently I’m the enterprise support lead. So as an enterprise support lead, you are not just only the technical account manager, like you’re handling your customer, but then you are working with the people. So like we are, there is a pool of TAM, the cluster of TAM, whom you are managing. So managing in the sense like mentoring, so if they have any questions, they will come to you. So you need to help them with those. Taking care, like if they are on a vacation, so making sure that they have proper coverage, so those tasks. And apart from that, for my own personal interests, I’m also like working on a couple of internal projects and also contributing towards the technical community field so that I can stay in touch with the development and my technical skills. So yeah, and I really enjoyed working on this role. Manuel: If you don’t mind telling me kind of where you grew up and eventually, you know, what got you interested in technology, like everybody’s has different, but at some point, there’s something that called you towards that field. So if you don’t mind just kind of sharing. Nidhi: Sure, so I born and brought up in India. So I’m from the state Madhya Pradesh. So I did my schooling there. And during my schooling, I decided to become an engineer. So I have this aspiration since my childhood. And as I started growing up, I have more interest towards the maths. I like to solve those problems, those logics. So that’s how I took that as my career path. And then I came to know, okay, I can do the engineering. So I’d take the entrance exam. I passed it and like that time in 2020… 2002, basically. So everything was revolving around computers, IT. So I thought of exploring my career in that technology. So I did my bachelors of engineering from India in information technology. And that’s how I started my career. And then I got my first job in India. That was with Data Consultancy Services. And I joined as an assistant system engineer. And that’s how my career started over there. Manuel: As you started your career, right? So going through and understanding that you, you know, had your bachelors, what was the process or the experience like for you coming out of college? So I know for most people, and I’m one of those ones that similar to you, I went to college and went for management information systems. But for me, trying to land a job right out of college, it was difficult. I thought, I have a degree. People are just gonna come after me, but they were also looking for experience. So what was that process like for you over there in India? Nidhi: I, as I mentioned, I like to do those problem solving logistics and how the process there works is like company first screen you through their like quantitative analytics skills. So first you have to like go through that process. Like you will get a paper. You have to solve it in a certain amount of time. If you qualify for that, then they will call you for the technical interview. So I was like during my engineering time, so whenever I’m having those summer breaks or winter breaks, I used to solve those problems from my third year itself. And I started preparing myself for like the campus interviews. So I was, I like I solved problem like quantitative, then there was logistics, verbals, non-verbals. So I used to get those books and start working on that. And like once I started, I really kind of enjoying those things. Then like I just to prepare for an interview, right? Like you need to have certain skillset, like how you are going to talk, what you need to talk. So I did a crash course there. That crash course helped me to like excel in the GDPI so that I can appear for the interview. And that’s how like I prepared myself. And on my fourth year, I started like finding the campus jobs, like where like we can just companies are coming. They are like examining that a candidate, candidate qualifies, then you will move to the another round, like the group discussion rounds. And then once the group discussion is done, you will be moving to the personal interview rounds. So there are like technical personal interviews, HR rounds. So I prepared well ahead before reaching to that stage that helped me in my career path. Manuel: So is that pretty common down there to go through multiple stages like that? Because I know here, again, it’s very company dependent. Some people have multiple interviews, some have one, some do a screening, some don’t. So is that commonplace? Nidhi: Yeah, so for like recent college graduate, that’s a common process because like they are hiring in like bulk. So like, and people are appearing. So like more and more number of people are appearing over there for interview. So they need to screen the candidates so that is the process of elimination. So suppose if like thousand candidate appears for the writing exam, maybe like 600 qualifies, then the group discussion comes. So in group discussion, maybe only 200 qualifies. Then the technical interview in the HR may be like 100 or 150 qualifies. So that’s how they screen the candidates. Manuel: So that’s the process there. And that’s why you were able to sign up for the crash course because this is a commonplace thing where people go through and help coach you. Nidhi: Yeah, so yeah, like I talked to the people who were already faced those like my seniors and all. So that also helps in getting the guidance. So I was checking with them how they prepared, how they landed into the job and then the internet, right? Like you can search those things. So like that time it was not that active, but still there are forums where people share their experiences that helps me to prepare myself for that. Manuel: Awesome, so then now you go through, you land your first role and you mentioned that you enjoyed kind of the research and the preparing part. So then what was kind of, how did you feel once you landed the role and actually started doing the hands-on practical work? Nidhi: I feel I really enjoyed that. So it’s not like whatever you are studying in college that you ...