My name is Abhishek Ram. I work as an Associate Director of Engineering at Spotdraft, a B2B SaaS company based out of India. I have taken several mentorship sessions on Plato from Vaidik since October 2022. I am writing this note to appreciate how Vaidik has helped me grow in my career during this time.

Vaidik has mentored me on matters of engineering management, engineering at startups, and my personal growth as an engineering leader. As an early engineer at a rapidly growing startup like Spotdraft, I faced several challenges like scaling the team, org structuring, mentoring engineers, driving, platform improvements, etc. I also needed help in understanding how my role should evolve from being an individual contributor to being a leader. Vaidik helped me navigate the challenges of leading engineering at Spotdraft, growing my teams, mentoring engineers and engineering leads, setting up leadership development and effective feedback processes, and setting up engineering processes for building high-performing teams.

Vaidik has been a guiding force. I found him to be an empathetic listener and a great mentor. His experience in engineering leadership, especially at startups and growth-stage companies (scale-ups), was highly relevant to the challenges I was facing. I found his advice helpful and hope that we continue this relationship.