Value Added Questionnaire

1. Tell me about yourself.

Hello, I am Apoorva Jain and I come from Bhopal, the city of lakes.
I was born and brought up there. I hailed from a well to do Jain family. And presently 25 years of age. I completed
my schooling at Bhopal. At my higher secondary school (Campion) I got an opportunity to participate in CBSE’s
National Science Exhibition during 11th standard. The opportunity came as a turning point. I won school, regional
and national level awards in row for demonstrating environment friendly homes of future. The challenges and
questions I faced during the competition, made me realize the importance of technology and various management
skills required to convert an idea into a successful product
After that I completed my B.Tech in computer science from VNIT, Nagpur. At college, I always tried to improve my
extra-curricular skills in addition to the regular subjects. I was an event manager in the technical festival of my
college for manual robotics event. I al so single-handedly organized an aptitude test in my home town for school
children, which was held under the banner of techfest. I was able to achieve an encouraging participation of 200
students. Along with that I captained my department’s football team in college’s annual gathering and also won
words in various cultural events like painting, collage and many others.
For last 3 years I was associated with Fidelity Investments as a software engineer and was responsible for
developing applications that calculate NAV of fidelity’s mutual funds. I was also recognized for implementing an in-
house solution for business reports, resulting in savings of 200 hours per year. Also, I won the innovation challenge
for coming up with the idea of implementing UPI like solution for US Market, thus expanding fidelity’s portfolio of
financial services. In addition to that I was a part of newsletter team and the fun committee in my business unit.
My hobbies include playing and watching football, and I am a big Real Madrid Fan.
I also like to paint, watch formula 1 racing, visit archaeological sites and I am big military aviation enthusiast and
like to follow and read about the new developments in it.

2. What is the job role that you are looking for? Give us three reasons that make you
think you are best suited for this role

I am looking for the job role of a product owner in a fintech firm. three reasons bye I think I am suitable for this job
role are as follows:
1. I have a strong technology background having done my undergraduate in Computer Science. Having worked in a
financial services firm for the last three years, I understand what the role of a product owner demands and I
believe my understanding of Technology and Finance would help me perform the duties of transforming business
challenges into engineering solutions in a comprehensive manner, thereby delivering results in an efficient
manner.
2. My stint with Fidelity Investments have made me well versed with the domain of finance, which will further be
improved during my MBA program and hence would make me ready for the role of product owner not only from
the business perspective but also from the technology perspective.
3. My ability to handle multiple tasks and efficiently prioritize them would co me in handy while working with
multiple stakeholders that a product owner needs to coordinate with. IN addition, I always try to look at the
bigger perspective rather than focusing solely on engineering efficiency, metrics or just the business
requirements.
 3. What qualities do you think you possess to be a good fit in our organization?
Following are the qualities that I think will make me a good fit in your organization:
1. Holistic view: I always try to look at the bigger picture of the task that we are trying to achieve ,what are its
implications, its benefits for the business and all the stakeholders in general. Instead of simply focusing only on
the task, I always try to understand the purpose behind taking up the task as well as what are the objectives
that we are trying to achieve.
2. Understand the importance of communication: I strongly believe that without clear and effective
communication a team cannot achieve their objectives. Effective communication within the team as well as
outside the team becomes very crucial towards breaking silos and delivering the value. Also, even the best ideas
fail to deliver if they are not communicated in a structured manner and as per the audience being addressed.
3. Creative and Expressive: I always ensure that I communicate my ideas to the team or the wider audience
through various platforms and like to collaborate with people to work towards those ideas and come up with the
working prototype, so that they can be demonstrated and further can be converted into a meaningful solution
or product. Similarly I always try to come up with Creative Solutions to the problems that team might be facing
and try to implement those in the best possible manner

4. Do you think your academic results, as mentioned in your CV, are a good indication of
your abilities? Elaborate.
Yes, the academic results mentioned in my CV are a good indicator of my abilities . I have always ensured that I
perform well in Academics while being an active participant in various co-curricular and extracurricular activities
throughout my schooling and college life. They display my capability to handle and prioritise multiple tasks at
hand.

I recall an incident wherein I got entangled with academic tasks and extra -curricular activities to be performed.
During 5th semester of B.Tech, four things were to be handle in short span of time; course academics, Event
Management in Tech fest , Intern-ship placements and self-participation in autonomous robotics event in the same
tech fest. So, I planned to utilize summer break before the onset of next semester to prepare for internship
placements and simultaneously making the robot for self-participation. Later with the start of semester, as an
event manager I concentrated on the teams for the idea development, organizing robotics workshop and
discussed our schedules and divided the responsibilities in the days leading to tech fest. In the evening hours I
used prepare for interviews for internship placements. In this manner I ensured that I was well prepared for my
interviews and academics vis a vis event management and self-participation. This incident helped me learn the
importance of proper planning and time boxing my day in-order to prioritize various task and accommodate a
demanding schedule. It also made me realize the importance of clear and effective communication, which
becomes essential when dealing with multiple tasks.

5. What is your purpose of doing an MBA? How do you think it is going to add value? Can
you elaborate on the reasons behind changing your career path?

I firmly believe that the good product / service, as a business idea, can only be built on thoughtful learning. For me,
as an 11th grade student I won CBSE National Science Exhibition in 2011 for "Green building", demonstrating need
of environment friendly house in present scenario. The project helped me develop analytical skills and understand
applied aspects required to realize an idea into via ble product. Consequently, the parental house is now equipped
with solar plant, solar geyser, catering for 90% of the household requirement.
The idea development skill further enhanced when I assumed the responsibility of event manager in college Tech-
Fest.
I was working as a Software Engineer at "Fidelity Investments" for last three years. Here I discovered the larger
role of technical solution for business process & its operation. While interacting with different departments I have
developed my knowl edge and interest in product management. Hence, I have updated my basic knowledge of
business domain from various learning platforms e.g. Basic Finance related courses from Udemy, Coursera and
internal sessions in the company. As a result of this, I got the opportunity to collaborate with clients and Product
Managers to identify and support business objectives through engineering implementation. But still more have to
be learned on other important frontier of busines s process for my career growth. I believe that, the Formal
education in management would definitely empower me to understand business process, planning and dec ision
making in a better way.
Full-time MBA will enable me to implement the right mix of technical expertise and business management skil l
with a holistic approach. It will propel my career as a Product Manager in fin-tech space and other diverse business
domains that will ultimately help me rise the ladder steps of the business and the industry.
 6. How do you see your career progression? Where do you see yourself 5 years from
now? Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

In the immediate future I see myself associated with a fintech firm in the role of a business analyst. My aim would
be to leverage my strong technical background and the learnings from MBA to derive insights for the business
using various statistical methods, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning techniques. The role would also help
me grow as a manager through various practical applications, opportunities to collaborate with industry experts
and different team members.
In the next 5 years I see myself progressing to the role of a product owner where I would be acting as a bridge
between the business and the technical development teams. The role would require me to identify and convert
business challenges into engineering backlog, which further will be implemented by the technical team in
collaboration with me. The role would help me develop the abilities to work with stakeholders from var ied
domains and it will prepare me for the future endeavours.
In the long term I see myself progressing to the role of a product manager where I would be responsible for varied
tasks like identifying the customer requirements, potential for new products, market segmentation and research,
designing the initial plan and the long term objectives for the product, looking after the technical implementation
and the complete product life cycle in general.

7. What are your professional goals in life? How do you plan to achieve them?
My professional goal is to reach a stage where I ideate, develop, manage and lead multiple products for an
organisation.
In the immediate future I see myself associated with a fintech firm in the role of a business ana lyst. My aim would
be to leverage strong technical background and the learnings from MBA to derive insights for the business using
various statistical methods, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning techniques. The role would also help me
grow as a manager through various practical applications, opportunities to collaborate with industry experts and
different team members.
In the next 5 years I see myself progressing to the role of a product owner where I would be acting as a bridge
between the business and the technical development teams. The role would help me develop the abilities to work
with stakeholders from varied domains and it will prepare me for the future endeavours.
In the long term I see myself progressing to the role of a product manager where I would be responsible for varied
tasks like identifying the customer requirements, potential for new products, market segmentation and research,
designing the initial plan and the long term objectives for the product, looking after the technical implementation
and the complete product life cycle in general. The eventual aim would be to lead a portfolio of varied products for
an organisation.

8. What qualities according to you are necessary to be a good leader? Detail 2 incidents
where you have demonstrated leadership qualities

According to me a leader should possess three critical abilities. First being the ability to see the bigger picture
when trying to tackle a scenario based on various factors. Secondly, he should be good at man aging his time and
prioritizing various tasks in order to get the max out of any situation.

Two incidents where I assumed the role of a leader are as follows:

1. I was the Sole Coordinator in Bhopal for conducting the inaugural edition of Dexter (a aptitu de test for school
children) under college Tech Fest. For this I had to visit various schools and negotiate dates with them to conduct
tests depending on number of faculty members available to invigilate. The event saw a healthy participation of
over 200 children from Bhopal. As a result of this I was handed the responsibility of Event manager for manual
robotics event in tech fest and was responsible for the smooth conduct. The event witnessed a 50% jump in
participation over previous year. Along with this I was in-charge of interviewing candidates for the position of
event manager for the following year.
2. I remember my final year project in B.Tech where I had a conflict with my team regarding the selection of
problem statement that we were going to solve. I convinced my team to conduct an initial study on both the
problem statements. It included exploring various aspects like the originality of idea, its real world application,
technical challenges, learning opportunities involved and reading research pap ers. We used to brainstorm all our
finding in daily sessions and convey the same to our guide in weekly meetings. As a result of this we made an
informed decision and decided to take up my problem statement as our final year project
9. Can you describe two instances where you have proposed an innovative solution to
solve problems at the workplace (or internship or project)? What were the challenges
you faced? And results and learnings?
Following are the two instances where I proposed an i nnovative solution to solve problems at workplace:
1. During my time with Fidelity Investments, I suggested an idea to move away from using Excel reports for various
functionalities like uploading prices of securities, tolerance values, maturity date of secur ities and various other
parameters in our applications. Instead, I proposed to implement functionalities to update those parameters
through application screens or UI only. Idea was well received by my team and manager and hence we decided
to take it up with the business team.
Upon discussion with the business team we found out that they have been using this functionality for many
years and it would be difficult for them to move away from it. The new functionality would require them to
make changes in their regular day to day processes. With my suggestions even though the application would
have become more up to date and modular, the business process would have been impacted. Consequently, I
was asked to do a proof of Concept for one of the screens where I would implement the functionality to update
the tolerances through UI as well as through Excel import. The business tested this functionality for some time
and had mixed feedback. While they liked the functionality, it was a big task to change the process.
As a result it was decided to limit the number of screens where the new functionality will be implemented and
the volume of data to be updated was very less or the frequency to update was very low. This was any important
learning curve for me and I realized how business requirements are important at every stage of software
development and how technical and business teams’ work together to come up with the final product.
2. I recall a situation from Fidelity Investments, where the new members of the tea m were facing difficulty in
implementing their tasks. The reason behind the problem was the large and complex codebase containing over
1000 java classes or files which made it difficult to identify the flow of business logic and their relevance.
In order to solves this I proposed a solution to maintain a document Demonstrating the flow of business logi c
between various classes thus giving a point of reference not only for the new members in the team but also for
the existing people who might not have worked on certain functionalities. The idea was that every developer
should update or add the flow diagrams in the document for whatever functionalities they would implement. It
was received very well by the team as well as the management. The document updation took somewhere
between 10 to 15 minutes for a developer, But resulted in long term gains.
This helped me understand the importance of maintaining the minimum level of documentation which at times
take a back seat in Agile Software Development. The idea resulted in a go to place for every developer before
starting their work and saved a lot of time while solving the original problem of helping the new members of the
team.

10. Give an example of a time when you were able to share what you had learned in a
particular area with others.

I recall an incident during my association with Fidelity Investments, where I got an opportunity to learn about
robotic process automation. It was about a framework to Automate the end to end testing of Java applications.
I discussed the idea with my team and explained to them how we can leverage this framework to automate the
testing of our applications. It would not only reduce the time taken to test applications from 8 hours to under 20
minutes but also eliminate the knowledge gap that develops among teams working from different locations.
Generally a team works on one module while they would not have complete information about the workings of
another module or functionality. Now in future if they have to work on other modules they need to rely on other
teams to understand the business flow and test scenarios to be covered. By developing the test automation suite
we could easily avoid such a s ituation where the suite would remember how the application is supposed to behave
under different scenarios and developers can focus on the main task.
As a result of this the team and management decided to implement the test automation suite for two applic ations.
I was given the responsibility to organise knowledge transfer sessions for the team and also develop the initial
prototype on which the team can further build the complete test automation suite for the applications.
11. Tell us two instances wherein you had to take charge in a tough situation at your
workplace (or internship or project). What made the situation tough? What were the
risks and results?
Following are the two instances:
1. I recall an incident during my Association with Fidelity Investments, where I was on the production support for
one week. It was the 4th July 2019, Independence Day of the United States. US markets were closed on that day
but other markets worldwide were open and hence we need to calculate the NAV of mutual funds having
securities from overseas markets. On this day an incident/ticket was generated which if not resolved in time
could have resulted in the breach of service level agreement timings.
My task was to identify the root cause and solve it so that the application is up and running before we breach the
SLA timings.The time that I had on my hand was less than an hour. Upon further analysis I found out that as a
part of holiday preparations some of the configuration for the application were set in the wrong manner. As a
result of this application was stuck in one state and could not transition from the ‘Start of Day’ processing to
‘Pricing Underway’ state where the main processing happened. Upon identification of the root cause I came up
with the solution within the available time and guided the production support team to execute the steps. As a
result of this we were able to meet the deadline and also identify the obsolete configuration changes that caused
the problem in the first place.

2. I recall an incident during my Association with Fidelity Investments, where we were working on on -boarding a
new asset type( Canadian bonds in this case) to our in-house application so that we can decommission a vendor
application. The aim was to go live with the application before the end of year so that we do not have to renew
our licence with the vendor. During the business acceptance testing, some of the functionalities were found to
be behaving abnormally and would need to be fixed in order to go live.
Our team had already committed to new work considering the main changes were already done and business
testing was the only thing left. As a result of this we were facing a tough situation where we would need to
complete both the tasks at hand. I volunteered to take care of all the changes that business had suggested after
their testing and were part of MVP. Along with this I prepared for the go live activities as well.
As a result we were able to complete all our tasks 3 weeks before the deadline tha t is end of the year and saved
$20000 per month by successfully decommissioning the vendor application

12. What is your single largest achievement so far? Why do you consider it to be your
biggest achievement?
I would consider achieving 3rd rank in CBSE national science exhibition as my biggest achievement by far. While it
started as an attempt to learn more about creating sustainable “Green ”buildings and homes of the future, it
completely transformed the way I approach any task in my life. The project helped me develop analytical skills and
understand applied aspects required to realize an idea into a viable product.
The journey did not end there. We started implementing the ideas generated during the project in the parental
house. The first step was to install a solar geyser to eliminate our dependency on electric geysers or gas for warm
water. With time we also equipped our house with the Solar Plant catering for 90% of the household requirement
for electricity. The additional electricity that is generated is fed back into the grid via net metering.The latest
addition to initiative is terrace farming based completely on organic manure which again is produced from wet
waste generated in the house.
Moving on, I have always tried to apply my learnings to all the activites that I have been a part of during my college
and workplace as well.

13. Describe a time when you had to rely on personal or professional integrity to achieve a
result.
I recall an incident during my association with Fidelity Investments, where I was working on the analysis and
resolution of errors in the processing of an inbound file during “Early Market Close” Scenarios in the NAV
application. During my analysis I was able to find out the root cause of the problem and in addition to that I also
discovered some potential future bugs. My task ( also known as story in Agile methodology) was to just rectify the
code for the issue that had occurred. But I decided to further analyse th e potential bugs and come up with a
solution for them as well. I talked with my manager and product owner regarding the same and informed them
about the extra time that I would need and the business value that we would gain by resolving these potential
future bugs.
As a result of this I was appreciated by my team for going the extra mile and fixing the issues which I could have
easily ignored and simply completed the task given. It also avoided the unnecessary engagement of 3 support
teams namely; the development team, the production support team and the business team, had those potential
issues occured in the production environment in the future.
14. Tell me about a time you worked well as part of a team. What role have you played in
ensuring the team’s success?
I recall an incident during my association with Fidelity Investments, where we were expanding our team and
recruited 8 new members into our team across 2 locations. Generally the new team members would be given few
knowledge transfer sessions and would be expected to start working on the project and learn things over time on
their own.
Considering the large number of applications that our team used to develop and maintain and their criticality, I
worked closely with all the new team members to not only provide them with knowledge transfer sessions but
also bring them up with the pace so that they can contribute meaningfully towards the work. In the initial phase, I
would engage them in pair programming along with me so that they can have a hands on experience. Also I would
organise a doubt clearing session every evening with the Chennai and Bangalore teams so that blockers can be
resolved in a timely manner and deliverables could be achieved. In addition to this I also ensured that they
understood the business aspect of the applications by providing them relevant documents, recorded sessions and
as well as live interactions. That way I ensured that new members of the team gel well and feel welcomed and
started contributing towards the work as early as possible.

15. What is it that irritates you the most about working in a team? How do you handle it?

I would say that people who display lower levels of dedication and motivation in a team irritates me the most.
There can be two reasons for the above mentioned behaviour. One of them can be due to personal problems like
health issues, some problems at home etc. In this case we need to support our team mates emotionally,
monetarily and see that we help them in every possible manner.
The other reason can be because they're not interested in the work. They might be finding the task difficult or
facing blockers which ultimately leads to lower motivation and dedication. In this case it becomes very important
that the team communicates well with each other frequently. The team needs to collaborate on identifying the
blockers, difficulties and opportunities that every member might be facing. When I see someone displaying a lower
level of motivation or dedication I would generally ask them if there are any blockers or difficulties that they might
be facing and if the team could help them either through some training, finding the correct person to solve their
doubt if it cannot be solved internally and work in pairs or triplets etc.. I believe that when we work in a team we
win and we lose together.

16. What motivates you to put forth your best effort?

The two major factors that motivates me to put in my best efforts are the sense of ownership about the work and
the trust that a customer puts in our products while investing their hard earned money thinking that we will give
our best in whatever we offer them.
For ownership, when I can see that my efforts make a difference in the product or services that we are offering, it
induces a factor of ownership and self accountability in me. I hold myself responsible for the quality of the work
that I deliver and also the time in which I deliver it.

Secondly for trust I would say, it is one of the major assets that a company earns from its customers. It takes
years of long and hard work to build the trust of the customers and it is something which motivates me to put in
my best efforts day after day to meet their expectation without feeling exhausted or tired.
If a team is able to understand these two factors they start owning the tasks at hand and always try to to come up
with the the best solution in the interest of their end Consumers or customers
17. How do you ensure the success of a project? Can you describe a situation where you
have played a critical role in ensuring successful completion?

The two most critical factors that I consider critical for a project to be successful are proper planning and clear
communication between all the stakeholders.
I recall a situation while I was working in Fidelity Investments. Our team was supposed to upgrade modules of an
application on which not a lot of members had worked previously. Since I was one of the members who had
worked, I started by identifying the tasks that had to be achieved, the position where the team stands in terms of
familiarity and experience of working on the application, especially the module in question. I also collaborated
with the folks who had already worked on the application to do an initial analysis and based on this we were able
to come up with an estimated timeline of the project and further were able to divide the task that team had to
accomplish every week till the time it was completed. This helped us in identifying all the knowledge gaps
potential blockers and their resolutions and schedule knowledge transfer sessions.
Secondly I ensured that we communicated with all the stakeholders regarding the expectations that team had
from them and at what stage of the project would their support be required. Also the business was communicated
about the estimated deadline and the business value that the project delivers . That way all the stakeholders
ensured that they had people available from their side when we needed them. Consequently, the project went
smoothly and we were able to complete it on time.

18. How are the academics of MBA different than under graduation? Which subject do
you like the most? Least? Explain.
Two biggest differences that I see between the academics of MBA and undergraduate are the importance given to
peer learning and example or case based learning .
In under graduation all the students in a class study the exact same thing, have the exact same background and
hence the scope to learn outside the domain becomes restricted. In MBA a class will have people from varied
backgrounds not only in terms of their undergraduate degrees but the specialisations as well. This opens up vast
opportunities to learn from each other and share our knowledge in different domains.
During under graduation the major focus is to learn the aspects that are there in the books with little focus on
practical implementation. But in MBA it is all about practical learning, through various use cases, practical
examples and their implementation in the industry.
The subject that I like the most till now was microeconomics. Having a technology background and 3 yea rs of work
experience in a financial services firm I was able to know more about the practical implementation of technology
and explore the domain of Finance from investment banking perspective. The course in microeconomics further
gave me insights into the behaviour of individual entities when it comes to demand and supply and hence further
intensified my interest in this field

19. What are your hobbies and interests?

I am passionate about playing and watching football, Formula 1 racing and a big military aviation enthusiast.
In footballI, I have represented my school and my department at various competitions. I like to play in the position
of a winger from the left flank and I'm equally good with both left and right foot. I support the Real Madrid football
club which plays in the top division of Spanish League. In Indian football I support the club Bengaluru FC.
I have been following Formula 1 racing since 10th standard. My initial interest in Formula One developed because
of Michael Schumacher and inception of Force India Racing team but later on as I spent more time, I have grown to
support Sebastestian Vettel who currently races for Ferrari and is a four time world champion.
I also like to read and follow the developments and trends in defence aviation around the globe. I would say my
connection to Defence aviation started when I visited the HA’s museum in Bangalore and then further used to
watch shows on fighter planes on various channels. In recent years I have been following the development of the
Tejas and Light Combat Helicopter ,both from the stable of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. In addition to this I
closely follow the fighter jet development programs of various countries like the X2 from Japan, 5th generation
fighter jets being built across various countries like China, Russia, India etc.
 20. Can you state 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses of yours?

My three strengths are as follows:

1. Creative: As I always try to come up with unique and creative sto the problems or challenges that we might be
facing.
2. Persevering: As I like to complete the task at hand and put in all my efforts and resources possible to accomplish
it. An example of that would be during event management of Tech Fest in college, where I had to multitask and
handle 4 different things.
3. Outspoken: As I always put forward my thoughts when relevant and don't shy away from participating in a
discussion about them from the fear of getting rejected.

Three weakness of mine are as follows:

1.Working on the process of learning to speak on content relevant to the audience and political correctness
depending on the scenario.
2.The inability to say no when someone comes with an ad hoc request. Learning this will help me prioritize things
in an even better manner and further increase my efficiency.
3. I expect everyone to give 100% form their side, while it may or may not be possible for someone to do that, due
to varied circumstances. This is something I need to inculcate in my thinking methodology.

21. Tell us about your lowest point in a career and how did you cope up with it and what
were the learnings?
I recall a situation where my team had to migrate an application to Fidelity’s internal cloud. Our responsibility was
to procure new servers, update the application code and successfully transfer application from old servers to the
cloud so that all the user requests would go to the Cloud Servers.
No one from my team had worked on this application previously and hence it was a complete black box to us at
the start of quarterly planning, where our tea m took up this project. We had few knowledge transfer sessions on
the application. Based on this we were supposed to estima te the amount of work required.
When the team started to implement the changes we were faced with multiple blockers, impediments and found
ourselves lacking in terms of knowledge about the application and specific work required for it to be migrated. As a
result of this we found out sometime later that we had underestimated the work required and hence, we missed
the deadline and the project was delayed. Post this the we took help from members who had already worked on
the application in the past, to increas e our understanding and engaged with business to enhance our domain
aspects on the application. Post that we were able to complete our task properly.
Biggest learnings from this project were the realization about the importance of communicating clearly a nd
calling out the blockers as early as possible, also known as failing fast. I also realised the importance of proper
planning, which in our case would have helped in estimating the size of work more accurately and set the deadline
accordingly. That way we could have managed the expectations of various stakeholders in a better manner and
could have avoided missing the deadline.

22. Tell us something that is not there on your CV and makes you unique.

One of things that CV does not have and makes me unique is my ability to handle multiple tasks and prioritize
efficiently.
I recall an incident wherein I got entangled with academic tasks and extra -curricular activities to be performed.
During 5th semester of B.Tech, four things were to be handle in short span of time; course academics, Event
Management in Tech fest , Intern-ship placements and self-participation in autonomous robotics event in the same
tech fest. So, I planned to utilize summer break before the onset of next semester to prep are for internship
placements and simultaneously making the robot for self-participation. Later with the start of semester, as an
event manager I concentrated on the teams for the idea development, organizing robotics workshop and
discussed our schedules and divided the responsibilities in the days leading to tech fest. In the evening hours I
used prepare for interviews for internship placements. In this manner I ensured that I was well prepared for my
interviews and academics vis a vis event management and self-participation.
A more recent example of this ability comes from last 6 months of my workplace, where I prepared for CAT, in
addition to my work, where I ensured that I maintain same level of productivity in delivery on my tasks, lead
almost 5-6 production installs which typically required a week of rigorous work and in addition to that I was doing
production support as well once every month.
 23. How would an ideal leader resort to conflict resolution? Describe a situation where you
resolved a conflict between you and your teammates.

An ideal leader would always look at the bigger picture of the task at hand and promote communication between
the team in order to resolve a conlict. That way all the team members would be able to understand each other’s
reasoning behind their thoughts and opinions. Everyone would be able to put forth their unique ideas and
ultimately the team would be able to meake a informed and objective decision to achieve the task in the best
possible manner.

I remember my final year project in B.Tech where I had a conflict with my team regarding the selection of problem
statement that we were going to solve. I convinced my team to conduct an initial study on both the problem
statements. It included exploring various aspects like the originality of idea, its real world application, technical
challenges, learning opportunities involved and reading research papers. We used to brainstorm all our finding in
daily sessions and convey the same to our guide in weekly meeti ngs. As a result of this we made an informed
decision and decided to take up my problem statement as our final year project

24. Can you share an instance of conflict between you and your manager and how did you
handle it?

I recall a situation where my team was working on implementing functionalities for generating business reports.
For this purpose we were using existing Java libraries . During testing some of the functionalities in lower test
environments, we observed a sudden spike in memory usage followed by the crash of environment/server,
thereby forcing the application to stop and resulting in downtime. After various failed attempts to solve the issue,
the business was asked if they can drop functionalities that were creating pr oblems. I was not convinced with this
proposition as it would have resulted in extra work for the business analysts when using the reports. Also, I was
convinced that a solution could be found.
Hence, I volunteered to find the root cause of this behavior a nd come up with a solution to the problem. After
initial investigation I found that the implementation of functionalities that we were trying to directly use from the
library were highly inefficient and in case of high volumes in the report they lead to an increase in memory usage
thereby resulting in the crash of application. I conveyed the same to my manager but he was not convinced if the
problem was because of the library, as they are generally opti mized. In order to convince him I did a Proof of
Concept with only one component and successfully demonstrated that the library’s inefficient implementation was
the root cause. Further, I had to make the solution scalable and generic to completely onboard my manager with
the idea. As a final solution, I analyzed the existing implementation of library and came up with a more efficient
and scalable custom solution for our reports.
This way, I was able to solve the problem and business didn't had to compromise on critical functionalities
resulting in 200 hours of yearly savings and I was awarded with “You have earned It” award for my work.

25. How would you approach a disengaged and disgruntled employee who tanks the team’s
productivity? Describe a situation, where you had to deal with such a scenario.

There can be two reasons for an employee to be disengaged or fisgruntled. One of them can be due to personal
problems like health issues, some problems at home etc. In this case we need to extend support to our team
mates emotionally, monetarily and see that we hel p them in every possible manner so that they can weather
though the tough times.
The other reason can be, they're not interested in the work either because they feel their voice was not heard and
their idea, suggestion was rejected for unjustified reasons or they could be facing blockers which ultimately leads
to lower motivation and dedication.
I recall a scenario during my association with Fidelity Investments, where one of our team members was working
on incorporating the new security features for fetching the passwords from the Central database for our
applications. Because of the complexity of the problem, the task overshot beyond its deadline. Also, instead of
communicating the blockers with the team, the team member continued to struggle and try to solve it alone. As a
result of this he got frustrated and lost interest in the task. Since it was important f or the feature to be
implemented for other tasks to start, the timeline was being impacted and productivity suffered.

As a result of this we decided to tackle the problem as a team and identify the solution by working in pairs and
taking the help from another team which had already worked on implementing the similar feature. Also we talked
with our team member and told him to communicate about the blockers as early as possible in the future as it
would allow the team to tackle the problem and help him in a much efficient way while maintaining productivity.
 26. How would you ensure the good levels of trust and communications in a remote team?

As cross functional teams become more and more common where people of different backgrounds work together
from remote locations and the only medium to connect is virtually, it is very important that they trust each other
and communicate efficiently.
The first aim would be to break silos that we get used to working in. For this I would encourage the team members
to work in rotating pairs whenever possible. This would help them identify each others strengths, weaknesses a nd
develop trust among each other. In addition, I would like the team to meet at least twice daily, where in all the
members of the team come together. One meeting would be in the morning where are all the members can
discuss the status of their work, any blockers that they might be facing, while the second meeting would be in the
evening, for the team members to discuss about the progress that they were able to make, discuss about any
dependency that the team might have with external teams, which can resolved with leader’s help. This would help
the team progress efficiently with that tasks on hand and maintain a healthy communication. Also, once in a week
everyone would come together for normal conversation or fun activites, which would help in maintaining the
moral of the team and break any inhibitions or barriers that some of the team members might be having.

27. What is emotional intelligence? Can you share some instances where you showcased EI?

Emotional intelligence is the ability of a person to be aware about his or her own thoughts as well as thoughts and
emotional state of the people they are interacting with.
I recall an incident from Fidelity Investments, where the technical lead of our team came back from the paternal
leave after becoming a father and had to juggle between his family and his work. Since the team had dependency
on him even the manager was sceptical to allow him to work from home for two to three days a week. Having
identified his tough situation, I proposed that we allow him to wor k from home and instead me and one more
experinced would put in extra efforts to cover for him, till the time his parents or some other relatives come over,
settle down and start taking care of the child and the mother. During that time we used to connect with him on a
daily basis to resolve our doubts about any blockers and also the doubts of the other team members that I was not
able to solve and we continued with the work in this manner for coming 2 weeks .
This way we were able to help our team member through hi s tough and challenging time while maintaining the
productivity levels and delivering on our task on time and with quality. Once he was back, we could clearly see the
difference between his motivation and focus level, which benefited the team largely.

28. What is your approach to problem-solving? How do you arrive at a decision?

The first step towards solving any problem, would be to identify what the problem is trying to solve and the end
result that is desired. For this I will perform initial round of analysis and engage with all the stakeholders to affirm
on the understand and identify any gaps or points that might have been missed.
Based on the intial analysis, I would break the problem into smaller sub -problems or sub-task depending on the
type, magnitude and nature of the problem statement. After this I would try to come up with an estimated
timeline required to solve the problem, define key performance indicators in collaboration with all the
stakeholders and then come with a plan to solve the problem .
If the problems is about making a decision I would define various input parameters that impact the output and
perform analysis on each parameter using various framworks like SWOT analysis or PESTEL analysis.

Once either the plan is ready or the analysis is complete, I would go ahead with the approach that helps us to
complete the all the tasks and achieve desired objectives. In case of decision making I would go ahead with the
decision with maximum benefits and delivers value.
29. What are the 3 changes you would like to implement in your past institute/workplace?
How would they solve the problems faced by you?

The 3 changes that I would like to implement in my past workplace are as follows:
1. Break silos between teams and encourage communication between various teams. In every workplace a lot of
teams work on similar technologies and solutions. If different teams work in silos, they would not know about
the solutions that have already been impl emented, and would end up spending time or something which all
exist. Similar time savings can be made in problem solving or knowledge on new technologies.
2. When new members join Fidelity, it takes almost 1 month for them to get all the access, complete tr aining which
at times are repetitive. In addition to this, by the time a person gains intital understanding of products and start
making meaningful contribution, it is almost 2-3 months. Hence making this process smooth and efficient would
help new members start early.
3. In my past workplace, agile methodology was used for software development and at times team would focus
heavily on handling metrics like velocity, burndown charts etc. to show progress to higher management, as they
monitor these numbers to see progress. High velocity does not necessarily mean every thing is good and hence a
balance needs to be maintained between two, for both the team and higher management.

30. How working in a virtual environment is different from physical? What are the advantages
and disadvantages of it? What would you prefer?

I recall a scenario from my time with Fidelity Investments, where I had to work virtually due to covid -19 lockdown.
We were in the final stage of preparations to going live with our new application. This required my team to work
and co-ordinate with multiple stakeholders like the database team, the devops team, production support team
and the business.
When in office it was easy for us to co-ordinate with all the stakeholders as they were present in the same building
but since all of us were working virtually and we were busy with our daily tasks, it became difficult to co -ordinate
and get hold of each other. While discussing and identifying the responsibilities of each team it was difficult for all
the stakeholders to come together in the meeting at the same time as most of the teams mentioned above
support multiple applications. Consequently my team divided the responsibilities among themselves to co-
ordinate with individuals from different teams and identify the task and challenges that could be faced to go live.
Even though it was difficult to co-ordinate among ourselves as well as with other teams the advantage we had was
the flexibility of working beyond office hours. Generally when working from office people would be available
during particular hours only but when working from home people were flexible with their schedule and hence it
became easy to connect after the office hours a s well. Sometimes, these flexible timings would blur the difference
between office and home, on an average this was an advantage when working with so many stakeholders.
As a result of this new way of working combined with some creativity, we were able to successfully go live with our
application on the planned date and achieve our aim. This goes on to show that it’s the team members and their
dedication and commitment that determines the success or failure and not the mode.

31. How would you ensure you would meet your objectives, especially when you would be an
intern, working virtually?

There are three tools that I would rely on inorder to achieve my objectives, during my virtual internship.
The first thing would be communicate efficiently and frequently. This would help me understand the tasks,
objectives, expected deliverables clearly. The communication becomes even more crucial in virtual environment,
where people work on different times and hence every opportunity to connect becomes even more important.

Flexibility in work hours would play a cruicial role, as physical environment would inherently provide oppurutnities
to come together at one place and connect. But in virtual environment, the differentitation between officer hours
and personal hours blurs and certainly provides a big opportunity to work beyond the normal hours as per
availability of team members and various stakeholders.
Laslty, it will be very important to call out problems as early as possible. The physical environment, provides us an
opportunity to collaborate immediately with co-workers or experts when faced with a problem, but in virtual
scenario that can become an issue and hence it becomes very important to call out problems as early as possible,
so that they can be resolved at the earliest possible time.
32. Tell me about a situation when you handled a project with strict deadlines and limited
resources. How did you manage to complete it?
I recall an incident during my Association with Fidelity Investments, where we were working on on-boarding a
new asset type( Canadian bonds in this case) to our in-house application so that we can decommission a vendor
application. The aim was to go live with the application before the end of year so that we do not have to renew
our licence with the vendor. During the business acceptance testing, some of the functionalities were found to
be behaving abnormally and would need to be fixed in order to go live.
Our team had already committed to new work considering the main changes were already done and business
testing was the only thing left. As a result of this we were facing a tough situation where we would need to
complete both the tasks at hand. I volunteered to take care of all the changes that business had suggested after
their testing and were part of MVP. Along with this I prepared for the go live activities as well which included co-
orditing with external teams for their support, perfromace testing etc.
As a result we were able to complete all our tasks 3 weeks before the deadline that is end of the year and saved
$20000 per month by successfully decommissioning the vendor application

33. How is your experience of learning virtually so far? Do you think it would affect MBA
learning?

The experience of learning Virtually has been pretty good till now. I would say it has its own advantages as well as
some disadvantages.
In context of MBA, Peer learning is the most important aspect which certainly has been hampered by the virtual
mode. With everyone connecting from their hometowns or remote locations, network and infrastructure issues
does play an important role. Having said that the availability of multiple digital platforms to connect and we
being the students from millennial generation, adapting to this new mode of learning wasn't very difficult after
some initial hiccups .We were able to adapt and identify ways to stay connected, learn together and develop a
strong sense of belonging.
Also learning Virtually helps us manage our time in a more effective manner. We don't have to worry about basic
needs like food, travelling from hostel to department etc. Our complete focus is only on learning and activities.
With busy schedules it becomes very easy to take power naps or short breaks and keep ourselves recharged
throughout the day. So, despite not being able to connect with our peers in person, the virtual platforms have
helped us and we feel confident about the coming days as well.

34. What are the most important learnings from your past work experience?

My biggest learnings from my past work experience are the importance of communicating clearly and believing
in your ideas by working on them and demonstrating it to your co-workers.
I recall an instance where our team had to migrate an application to an internal cloud and we had no prior
experience of working on this application. During the initial planning we heavily underestimated the work
required and eventually when we started working on the task, we did not communicate immediately with the
management about the same. As a result of this there was an expectation mismatch between the team and the
management. Had we communicated the problem on time, it could have been avoi ded. Similarly, even for
simpler tasks I have always felt that it is very important to communicate within the team and as well as others in
the firm to deliver on time, with quality and prevent re-work on similar problems or solutions.
For the second learning I believe that if we want to suggest an idea and want others to support it or accept it we
should start by putting in additional efforts towards it and come up with the prototype. That way others would
be able to see the benefits and advantages of the idea in practical and would be able to judge better if they
should go ahead and implement it as a bigger solution.It also helps us understand the value that our idea delivers
to the customers or business who ultimately is the real beneficiary of the idea. Thus helping us in better decision
making.
35. Can you tell us 3 adjectives that your friends would use to describe you and 3 adjectives
that your previous manager would use to describe you

The three adjectives that my friends will use to describe me are as follows:
Creative: As I always try to come up with unique and creative sto the problems or challenges that we might be
facing.
Curious: As I always try to find out the reasoning, why something is happening. An example of this is where I was
able to find several critical bugs which are essential for the timely delivery of minimum viable product.
Persevering: As I like to complete the task at hand and put in all my efforts and resources possible to accomplish
it. An example of that would be during event management of Tech Fest in college, where I had to multitask and
handle 4 different things.

The three adjectives that my manager will use to describe me are as follows:
Outspoken: As I always put forward my thoughts when relevant and don't shy away from participating in a
discussion about them from the fear of getting rejected.
Hard working: As I always put in all my efforts towards the completion of the tasks on time while maintaining the
quality of work and call out blockers whenever necessary so that they can be resolved in a timely fashion.
Team Player: As I would always help my team members with their tasks where they might be facing pr oblems or
need knowledge transfer and always keeps the mood of the team light.

36. Can you share an instance where you added business value to the project and what was it?

I recall a situation during my association with Fidelity Investments, where the business user would need to upload
Excel sheets for storing the prices of securities, tolerances , benchmarks and other factors in the application that
calculate net asset value of mutual funds. During this process if a user made the mistake in entering the data as
per the guidelines & tried to upload the file, they would fail with just an error message and no information about
which point or data field had the error. As a result of this, they would have to go back and again make th e whole
sheet and try uploading it. This would end up consuming a lot of time, especially when approaching the 5 p.m.
NAV cut-off time, when the volumes are high and the deadline is strict.
I came up with the solution where as soon as the users select a file to upload, they will be shown a preview of the
file and the dynamic check would highlight all the fields or data points that were wrong and had errors. Also,
instead of uploading the whole sheet again the user can update those entry points on the screen itself and then
simply upload the data on the click of a button. This way I was able to save the pain and time-consuming process
that the business users would have to go through even for a very small change.