DevOps Automation

Divya: First and foremost, congratulations on being nominated as a new IBM Champion. How does it feel and what does it mean to you?

Sachin: My journey with IBM started 20 years ago as a Rational Test technical consultant. I then moved on to start my own company Datamato in 2012 and my first engagement was with IBM as their partner. We brought in good revenue to IBM. From that to now becoming an IBM Champion has been a great journey – one that I am excited and proud of. I have a lot of thoughts and ideas I’d like to bring to the table, how I can contribute to make this as memorable as I can.

Divya: I am glad to hear that. You wear many hats – Founder and Director at Datamato, IBM Partner, an Evangelist, and an IBM Champion – how do you juggle across these roles?

Sachin: That’s a good question (laughs). It’s all about passion. If you have passion, align your ups and downs with patience, I think you can do anything. My career aspirations and passion has always been technology. The culture at Datamato is also built on passion. My team is full of young aspiring individuals that love technology and have become solution architects with a non-engineering degree. I don’t look for a candidate’s background, instead, I look for the right aspiring candidates and encourage new talent to achieve new heights. My passion for technology and my amazing team in Datamato is what drives me to multitask across these roles and do more – having guided product sites like CLM (Collaborative Lifecycle Management) and Rational products, been a council member of IoT conference in Munich twice and subsequently got into DevOps journey. I realized I cannot be a dedicated partner with just one specific solution and must expand my company to provide GitLab and other specific skill-based solutions.

Divya: I am impressed by your passion for technology and the incredible opportunities you are providing your employees with. What are some of your key achievements and where do you see yourself in a few years from now?

Sachin: I have seen IBM grow as a company in the last 100 years – Innovation in technology, looking at market needs – I like how IBM is driven by these. As an IBM Business Partner, I don’t want to just sell a product and provide consulting. I decided 3 years back, I want to build my own solution on top of the IBM product – and we have built it and next week I will be suggesting the whitepaper along with IBM on this, we already have a success story - IBM marketing team is talking to the customer to build the success story and the blog. If that happens, that’ll be my biggest achievement in being the wrapper around the IBM product and getting it to go-to-market. With IBM’s very strong partner ecosystem, I’d like to go-to-market together with them and solve industry problems.

Divya: We are eagerly waiting to read the success story and see many of your accomplishments. As an IBM Champion, how do you plan on engaging and interacting with the members in the IBM Community?

Sachin: Becoming an IBM Champion has truly been exciting. Though pressed for time in juggling different roles, I look forward to sharing my experience via blogs and answering questions from members in the community. My team at Datamato is very talented and I’d love for them to join and explore the IBM community and contribute as well. Divya, can you please show my team how to do this?

Divya: I’d be more than happy to walk your team through our IBM Community. Let’s set up sometime next week to do that. Going back, what is your advice to aspiring IBM Champions?

Sachin: That’s a good question. As a first-time champion, I want to explore and contribute more to the community. Covid has changed a lot of things about the market today, the digital transformation that has happened and the feeling of belonging that a community brings is exceptional. I encourage the Champion aspirants to join and explore the Community, be an IBM advocate, discuss problems and solutions and share your expertise – you’ll be on the right path forward.

Divya: To wrap up, tell us something about yourself – could be a fun fact, hobbies, things you like etc.

Sachin: I’ve been in this industry for 25 years but before that, I started off my career as a hi-tech farmer with a complete engineering thought process. I am passionate about different things. Someday I want to direct a documentary on a social cause.  

It was a pleasure chatting with you and we wish you the best in the multitude of roles you play. Congrats again!