A Day In the Life: Sruti, Software Engineer

Here at Finite State, our strength comes from our teams and the way we work together. In my time here, I’ve had the privilege to get to know our dedicated, incredible people and see how they are contributing to our world-class product security platform.

In 2022 and beyond, we’ll be showcasing some of our team members with Q&A sessions about life at Finite State. To start things off, we sat down with Sruti Chigurupati, a Software Engineer on the IPM team, to learn more about our engineering teams and what our team members love about working together.

What made you interested in joining Finite State?

I first heard about Finite State through a friend who was interning here. One of the first things he told me was how cool and incredibly intelligent everyone was that he was working with. On top of that, the company was solving a really difficult, important problem in cybersecurity.

As the company evolved (we’re a startup, so we’re constantly testing new ideas), we’ve found ourselves solving an even more interesting problem than the one I started with: today we are finding vulnerabilities in IoT devices specifically. No one else is doing exactly what we’re doing, and our approach feels different than anything out there.

What are you most excited about working on in the next quarter/year?

I’ve been working on a team that takes a bird’s-eye view of an organization’s portfolio, so they can look at security at a very high level rather than just looking at individual products one at a time.

During my first quarter on the team, we were doing work to get ready to create that bird’s eye view, and now we’re finally digging into what that looks like and finding ways to give better summaries of the data we compile–all without overwhelming the user. It’s all a big balancing act, but I love the problems we’re solving.

Who is your favorite coworker at Finite State and why?

There are a lot of really awesome people here. Two stand out particularly: Sam Vidovich, who I’ve known for as long as I’ve been at the company. He has the most positive energy–it is incredible to see how much he wants to learn something he is totally unfamiliar with, and how he dives into anything new. He is an absolute inspiration. 

The other person who stands out is Phil Curl. I never leave the conversation without learning something new about product technology or UI/UX design or something else. Whatever he’s discussing, he is super smart and knows how to teach me something new every day because those teaching moments just come naturally for him.

How do our company values (Transparency, Results, Accountability, Customer Dedication, Courage) impact your work?

I can definitely see accountability and customer dedication in my day to day work, every single day. I’ve spent my time here leveling up as an engineer, and part of that is holding myself more accountable for mistakes. As I’ve become more aware of mistakes I repeat, or ones I see other people do that I want to call out (in a nice way!), I want to make sure I always hold myself to the same standards.

After two years of pandemic remote work, where would be your ideal place to hang out with your co-workers for an all-hands offsite?

Somewhere tropical would be a lot of fun. Literally anywhere tropical, somewhere that feels a bit closer to a vacation than it feels like work. Wouldn’t be opposed to Aruba!

What would you tell a friend who was considering a job at Finite State?

The people are really freakin’ awesome. Everyone is super friendly. I have experienced a lot of egos in previous jobs in tech–there’s a lot of people who carry around an ego in their roles, but I haven’t seen that at Finite State. Everyone is really helpful and really smart at the same time. I never feel stupid asking questions, because everyone’s willing to answer.

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It’s great to hear about our teams working together, and I’d like to thank Sruti for taking the time to talk to me about her experience here at Finite State.

Ready to join a team like Sruti’s? We’re waiting for you! Check out our jobs page and apply to our open positions. Think you can contribute but don’t see the perfect opening? Reach out to jobs@finitestate.io to discuss how you think your experience could contribute to our mission of securing the connected world.