From Samsung to Salesforce to Google: How an IITian turned his ‘will to prove it’ into a dream career | Success story

A Bengaluru tech professional overcame early coding struggles at Samsung, using his IIT experience to build confidence. After hours of upskilling, he secured a job at Salesforce but felt like an outsider. He later moved to Google with his 'will to prove it’ to himself.

From struggling with coding and technical discussions at Samsung to cracking Salesforce and eventually landing a job at Google, a Bengaluru-based tech professional has described his journey as a personal battle to prove that his achievements were not a fluke.

The techie, an IIT graduate Vedic Mishra who uses the Instagram handle @bug_to_feature, recently shared his career journey, explaining how his early struggles with coding left him feeling like an outsider among more experienced developers.

“As a fresher in Samsung, I was never a big time coder. Team discussions on design & quality sounded Greek to me,” he wrote, recalling the difficulty he faced during the early phase of his career.

Rather than allowing those struggles to hold him back, he decided to treat them as a challenge. Drawing confidence from his IIT experience, he said he began believing that if he had managed to get into an IIT, he could also overcome his weaknesses in coding and technical skills.

How he cracked Salesforce

In 2024, the techie spent two months putting in 6-8 hours a day to strengthen his skills. His preparation included learning data structures and algorithms (DSA), system design and different technology stacks through online courses, books and Medium articles.

The effort eventually helped him secure a role at Salesforce. But getting the job did not completely silence his doubts about whether he truly belonged among top technology professionals.

“That feeling of an outsider never left me. Maybe this is the problem of achieving things too quickly. What others got with 6-12 months of prep, I got it in 2. And even though I had aced 3-4 rounds of rigorous interviews at Salesforce and Amazon, it kept feeling like a fluke,” he wrote.

Why he left Salesforce for Google

The techie said his decision to move on from Salesforce was not because he was unhappy with the company. Instead, he wanted to challenge himself further and establish that his success at Salesforce was the result of his abilities.

While working at Salesforce, he continued spending hours after work studying design practices and tackling DSA problems he had not attempted earlier.

“I lived the most disciplined life in Bangalore with my time divided between office, gym & upskilling,” he said.

He eventually decided that moving to a bigger technology company was the next step in his personal challenge.

“I had to prove it to myself that Salesforce was not a fluke and unfortunately the only way to do it was to leave Salesforce for a bigger company,” he added.

The move ultimately led him to Google. Looking back, he clarified that his career decisions were not meant to diminish his experience at either Samsung or Salesforce.

“I'm not trying to devalue my previous orgs Samsung & Salesforce in any way. It was all about my personal ambition and a will to prove it to myself that I deserved a spot in the room,” he told Hindustan Times.

Netizens react

One user said, “It's an inspiration to many…” Another remarked, “Well deserved.” Other comments included, “Everything feels like a fluke when you make it” and “Imposter syndrome catches up fast no matter how big the achievements are. You just have to be faster than it, that's all. I can relate. Was in the same boat as you this year.”

About the Author

Garvit Bhirani is a journalist based in Gurugram. He is a Deputy Chief Content Producer at LiveMint, where he covers national and international news stories, focusing on accuracy and compelling storytelling for readers. <br><br> With a total of six years of experience in journalism, he has previously worked with Vaco Binary Semantics for Google, taking on the role of news curation lead, and reported from the field on health, education, and agriculture stories for 101reporters and News9. He has also served as a content editor for entertainment and news media organisations. <br><br> Garvit holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism and mass communication from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and Gurugram University, respectively. During college days, he joined India’s only non-profit student journalism network, where he anchored daily news updates and produced his own weekly show called ‘Data Fix’. <br><br> He was selected for the YES Foundation Media for Social Change Fellowship in Delhi, the Talking Data to the Fourth Pillar residential workshop, and the VOICE Fellowship in Pune. <br><br> He holds certificates in COVID-19-verification reporting, data journalism, food & agriculture, tech policy, media literacy and countering misinformation, and tackling election disinformation courses from Thomson Foundation, IndiaSpend, The Dialogue, US Mission in India, and AFP. <br><br> He can be reached on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/garvit-bhirani">LinkedIn</a> or on <a href="https://x.com/GarvitBhirani">@garvitbhirani</a> on X

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