Meet Akhil — One of Zeta’s Silent Conquerors

Hey there! Welcome to Zeta Scoops, an infinite part series where we feature stories of Zetanauts changing the banking world around the globe!

In this edition, we got a hold of Akhil Yadala, an SDE II, after multiple requests and a juvenile bribe of a pack of Jim-Jams.

There are a few folks you meet and instantly know that they’re geniuses guised in humble speech and gentle demeanor — Akhil is one of those people.

Akhil is equal parts reserved and chirpy. He’d probably take a back seat when food or pop culture is being discussed, but you’d see him leap out of his seat the moment cricket or building software enters the chat.

Akhil joined Zeta right out of college and was immediately put to work on the biggest projects out there — building UPI journeys for iOS in our client’s application.

Here’s the thing: at Zeta, years of experience have little correlation with the kind of projects you get to lead. As long as you make good on your word, clear all competency checkpoints, and consistently ace your reviews, you will be given high-impact and exciting projects to lead.

Zeta will take big bets on you if you step up and deliver solid results. And that’s how Akhil, through consistency and a minor caffeine addiction, won the confidence of his manager.

Initially, Akhil was part of a two member iOS devs team and was still an intern at the time. But taking extreme ownership, Akhil had already started laying the groundwork for the project. Over the next few months, a four-member core team was created.

Akhil and his small team marathoned the heck out of the project. Pushing the pedal to the max, the team managed to deliver the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in under 4 months with >99% efficiency. It takes a regular team about a year to achieve the same milestone.

Today the application performs upwards of 200,000 transactions a day, comfortably. Right up there with the best in the industry.

While the team members have their core responsibilities clearly defined, Akhil — who largely takes care of software development — still plays an active part in contributing to other aspects of the project like analysis, design, development, testing, and releasing.

“I was never treated like an SDE- I when I started working”, says Akhil, now an SDE II, when probed about how he feels about the project. He credits his manager, Tarun Sablok, for always backing him to deliver the goods, and looks visibly excited when revisiting his “most amazing days”.

It took less than a gentle nudge to get Tarun, Akhil’s manager, to blurt out ribbons of appreciation for his mentee. “Akhil’s execution speed and extreme ownership was instrumental in achieving this feat”, says Tarun. “He has been the go-to-guy for the team, including the senior devs, for guidance on the UPI stack.”

Akhil had little to say about his manager’s high opinions of him and reverted to his usual smile and shied away from commenting but broke into a lengthy spiel when asked about who is the better captain — Rohit Sharma or Virat Kohli!

#WeAreZetanauts, and we’re always looking for folks to join us on our mission to build next-gen banking tech. Click here to check out career opportunities with Zeta.