Employee Spotlight: Sudipto Manna, Senior Software Test Engineer and Chef Extraordinare

Hannah Juley
Hannah Juley
December 24th, 2019
Estimated read time: 4 minutes, 19 seconds

FastSpring’s Employee Spotlight is a Q&A series that features the hardworking, intelligent, and fun people that make FastSpring great. Get to know the fantastic team behind the ecommerce platform!

What is your role at FastSpring?

I’m a Senior Software Test Engineer at FastSpring. My role involves ensuring that the changes and features we put into place go smoothly so our customers can enjoy a world-class experience with our platform. We aim to make sure the changes we make enhance the customer’s experience.

I hear we have a product release coming up soon, what is your role in product releases?

My focus is to ensure that all the features we are delivering are bug-free while making sure that the features we plan to deliver to our customers are delivered on time.

What did you do before joining FastSpring?

Before joining FastSpring I was working for AT&T in the telecommunication department where my job was to ensure that the prices and features that we delivered backed the telecommunication activity. Something like the Term Plans where you pay a certain amount each month for say two years was introduced in 2014, and I was the person involved in delivering that project for AT&T. What’s cool is that this plan has become the norm for all major telecommunication companies.

How did you find FastSpring?

In 2015 I was looking for something new outside of working in telecommunication that would be a new challenge for me, and I found out that ecommerce is one of the domains that would help me improve my current skills. I realized that in telecommunications there are only two entities involved, the business side and the software side, but with ecommerce, there’s another factor, the actual buyer which I thought was a really interesting component to add.

What’s a challenge you face in your job role?

The ecommerce world moves so fast and is ever-changing, sometimes it can even change within a day. Sometimes we release a feature and it becomes obsolete within a few days. There’s so much competition and new innovation it’s a challenge to stay ahead.

What is a typical day at work like for you?

It changes a lot, being a software engineer, one of my main jobs is to create automation codes so we don’t have to build everything from the bottom up each time. When a feature has been delivered we have to ensure the automation code works with the new feature, and if not we have to change it so it’s compatible.

How do you keep up with all the changes in our industry?

Our product team does a brilliant job of looking at the industry trends and keeps an eye out for any new features that we should be looking to incorporate into our platform. We try to improve our platform as the industry changes and continue to keep up with the expectation level we are held to in order to be one of the best.

What excites you about working here every day?

I love helping people which is why I love this job. Being able to help people by providing them with the feedback they need to ensure they can release features that can be successful is my favorite part.

Do you have a favorite memory at FastSpring?

I think every day there’s an opportunity for a new favorite memory. I like to wake up every day and decide on what the new challenge is for the day. And then being able to solve people’s problems is one of my favorite parts of being at FastSpring. What’s great is that it can happen every day and become my new favorite memory.

When did you first join the engineering field?

It’s been a long journey that started about ten years back, but I was not originally involved in the computer science world. What drew me to engineering was wanting to understand “how” and “why” things work. The way I see it there are two aspects of my life, the theoretical aspect, and the practical aspect. For instance in college, you only study the theoretical aspect, but what I like about the real world is that you incorporate the practical aspect. The practical forces you to think about how this actually impacts the buyer experience or the person who is using it in the product field.

What is your proudest accomplishment at FastSpring?

One of the biggest accomplishments is integrating our sellers to our platform. Whether they come from another platform or if we’re the first one they’ve used it’s one of the parts of my job that I’m most proud of. It feels great when you see how much it helps our customers to utilize our platform on their website.

What’s something that most people don’t know about you?

People may know this already, but in my free time, I spend a lot of time cooking. I love cooking all kinds of Indian dishes. I also travel back to India to visit my parents every year—even though it’s a 22-hour flight!

Hannah Juley

Hannah Juley

Hannah is a recent graduate from UC-Santa Barbara. Her prior experience in marketing lead her to the FastSpring Marketing Coordinator role. Hannah assists with content, social media and department expenses. Outside of work, you can find her at the beach either playing volleyball or reading a book.

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