Focus on the Basics
Episode #041: Senthil Padmanabhan, Vice President, Fellow at eBay
Episode Information
This is a special episode of Mobile Matters because we’re going back to the cutting room floor for this episode and sharing content from one of our previous episodes with Vice President, Fellow at eBay, Senthil Padmanabhan. In this episode of Mobile Matters, we’re talking with Senthil about his advice for developers.
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Stephanie Cox: I'm Stephanie Cox and this is Mobile Matters. In the spirit of summer winding down everyone going back to school, I thought it made sense to have a few shorter episodes of Mobile Matters over the next few weeks. Our guest list on the show has been absolutely incredible and sometimes we have so much great content during this conversation that we actually can't fit it all into a single episode. And that's exactly what happened when I talked to Senthil Padmanabhan, the Vice President, Fellow at eBay.
We had a great conversation about finding a career you’re passionate about, saying no to 99 things so you can say yes to one, and so much more but what you didn't hear in his first episode was the advice he would give new developers starting out and what one thing he wishes every developer knew. So take a listen to what Senthil said about developers, his advice, and what he wishes you all knew.
So we talked about, you know early on in your career. If you think about all web developers across the world and you could only tell them one piece of advice, what would that be?
Senthil Padmanabhan: Well firstly, I would just say focus on the basics. See all these things...in web development and there are so many things to know about it. Right if you're starting fresh as a web developer, there are so many things to learn about but I will just stay focused on the basics. All the frameworks and libraries that you keep seeing come and go what is cool now will not be cool after 5 years. But you know what’s really good? All of the good things in these libraries and frameworks...you mentioned kind of the platform itself, so I would always recommend people to be very good with the basics on the web platform, which starts with how a page is rendered, how a page is built...it starts with the basic programming languages HTML, JavaScript, CSS.
And then it's just not on the superficial level. You should go deep and it should be very strong in these basics. If you do that, I think you have a strong fundamental and all the things that keep coming and going cannot influence you cannot have many upsides and downsides to you. You will always be solid and you always be flying high.
Stephanie Cox: No, I think it's a great piece of advice. Is there anything else that you wish other leaders would know or do?
Senthil Padmanabhan: In terms of leadership or web development?
Stephanie Cox: Web development or just general leadership.
Senthil Padmanabhan: I think the other at the point that I made earlier, right? I think you should think that how technology connects with your customers. I think that's the thing that I learned in my career which I didn’t know earlier in my career when I started it...it was always about technology, it was always about coding, that what we do but it was trying to connect these dots, how and what you do impacts your customer. I think that makes a big difference. It’s a very fulfilling experience at the end of the day and that's what I would suggest.
Stephanie Cox: I'm Stephanie Cox and you've been listening to Mobile Matters. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. Until then be sure to visit Lumavate.com and subscribe to get more access to thought leaders, best practices, and all things mobile.