Naman Pandey

Ready Set Do

About the show

A podcast about how successful people got unstuck. Each episode goes back to the moment they were stuck and walks through what they actually did to move. Their story is proof the door opens. What you do next is yours.

Newest episodes

How to Pass the Amazon Bar Raiser Interview (From an Amazon Interviewer) - w/ Utkarsh

Nov 12, 2026 59 min

In 2022, Utkarsh Bajaj graduated from Purdue's MS in Business Analytics program into a job market where four offers was normal. Today he works in applied AI at Amazon, sits on the other side of the interview table, and says landing a single interview call is now the hard part. (If your inbox has been quiet for weeks, that line probably stings. It stung me too.) In this episode of Ready Set Do, Utkarsh breaks down the Amazon interview loop from the inside. He explains how to spot the Amazon Bar Raiser before you walk in, and why that one person carries half your outcome. Then he tells the story of an Amazon coding interview he was certain he had failed. The interviewer who ran that round later ended up on his team. What that person told him changed how Utkarsh thinks about technical interviews for good. So what does an Amazon interviewer look for in 2026? Utkarsh doesn't soften it. A generic answer about using AI for writing tells him you're two years behind. He digs into every number on your resume. And he keeps meeting engineers who ship code fast but can't explain the system underneath it. If you're prepping for SQL and Python rounds or grinding LeetCode, this stretch will reset your priorities. Next, we get into how he actually learns. Utkarsh hates token maxing (and he explains exactly why). He learns with NotebookLM and a backlog system he built himself. Before he automates anything, he asks one question. Is this problem deterministic or not? We also cover the AI projects that impress interviewers, which matters if you're eyeing the move from data engineering to AI engineering. The second half gets personal. Utkarsh lost the H-1B, relocated to Toronto, and started posting on LinkedIn as a way to hold onto what he was learning. He set himself a 100-day challenge. His first post got zero likes. He walks through what building in public has returned so far, plus the part nobody admits: posting becomes an addiction you have to manage. We close on the question hangin...

How to Prepare for Amazon Leadership Principle Questions (6 Steps) (Purdue MS Business Analytics Grad POV) - w/ Samridhi

Oct 28, 2026 59 min

Picture the 2024 job market from the inside. You finish a one-year master's, open LinkedIn, and every analytics role already has a wall of applicants ahead of you. (If you searched that year, you just felt your shoulders tense.) Samridhi Vats got through anyway. She went from a chemical engineering degree she did not pick, to two years of work in India, to the Purdue MS Business Analytics program, to Business Analyst II at Amazon. How did she land it when almost nobody was getting offers? She built a system, and on this episode of Ready Set Do she hands the whole thing over. It starts with applying to fewer jobs on purpose. Her 50 percent job description rule decides which roles earn an application at all. Then she goes where most candidates never look: venture capital portfolio pages, full of companies that had not posted on LinkedIn yet. She also maxed out her weekly LinkedIn connection cap. Her honest read on what that cold outreach returned is a job search strategy for 2026 worth stealing. From there we get into the Amazon business analyst interview itself. The BA2 process runs in two stages: a SQL phone screen, then a five-round Amazon loop interview. If you are prepping business analyst interview questions, save her six-step method for Amazon leadership principles answers. It includes a ranking step almost nobody does. She also keeps AI out of the first two steps entirely (yes, even in 2026). Then the moment every candidate dreads. What happens when an interviewer starts tearing apart the numbers on your resume? Samridhi explains how to defend them. We also look at the job itself. She compares a day as an Amazon analyst in 2024 with today, now that her team runs personal agents and MCPs. That raises a fair question for anyone chasing data analyst jobs in 2026: do analysts need AI skills to get hired now? Thinking about a career switch to analytics? Her chemical engineering to data analytics story covers the foundational skills that mattered and how to learn an...

How To Do A US Master’s Debt-Free in 2026 & Get Headhunted by Big Tech Recruiters (Meta SWE POV) - w/ Bharath

Oct 12, 2026 44 min

Thirteen hundred applications. Thirteen callbacks. At one point, that was Bharath Vemula's job search math. Today he's a Meta engineer working on the company's model training stack. (The twist? He never applied to Meta. Recruiters found him on LinkedIn.) So what was on that profile? We pull it apart, along with the LinkedIn habit that got him headhunted. If you've ever wondered whether anyone reads your headline, this one's for you. His path runs through four years as a software engineer at Goldman Sachs in India, then Verily, the Alphabet moonshot company, where he worked on privacy and data governance. Then Meta. We go deep on the Meta interview process as it stands now. Two DSA rounds, a system design interview, a behavioral round, plus the AI coding round that's been added since. Is LeetCode dead in 2026? He says no. His reasoning is worth hearing even if you hate grinding problems (and yes, most of us do). Then we rewind to 2022. Bharath came to the US for his MS at Purdue with the whole plan already mapped out before he left India. He turned down Columbia over the fee and picked Purdue for the assistantship odds. A research role in a cyber safety lab funded most of his master's, and he finished in eighteen months. His one rule? Walk out with zero debt. Study abroad folks, take notes. This is the international student playbook most people wish they had on day one. We also get into where big tech jobs are opening up next. His bet is ML systems engineering and AI infrastructure. He thinks the compute wasted across big tech data centers is one of the biggest openings for engineers right now. In the back half, we get EB-2 NIW explained in plain terms. How a green card NIW petition skips PERM, what USCIS looks for, and why he started it as protection against tech layoffs before it became the whole plan. For any Indian engineer in the USA, it's an H-1B alternative worth understanding. Plus his side research on AI agent security, how agents change the economics of soc...

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All episodes

How to Pass the Amazon Bar Raiser Interview (From an Amazon Interviewer) - w/ Utkarsh

Nov 12, 2026 59 min

How to Prepare for Amazon Leadership Principle Questions (6 Steps) (Purdue MS Business Analytics Grad POV) - w/ Samridhi

Oct 28, 2026 59 min

How To Do A US Master’s Debt-Free in 2026 & Get Headhunted by Big Tech Recruiters (Meta SWE POV) - w/ Bharath

Oct 12, 2026 44 min

How To Quit UPSC After 2 Failed Attempts & Restart With An MS In The USA - w/ Akash

Oct 4, 2026 57 min

Akash prepared full time for India's UPSC civil services exam for two years. Eight to nine hours a day, two attempts. He didn't make it. Then he gave himself three days to decide on a third try, and barely slept through any of them. He walked away. (Spoiler: what came next was far messier than "UPSC aspirant becomes software engineer in the US.") Why is UPSC such a trap? Akash calls it a black hole for India's youthful years. The exam is binary. You clear it, or you leave with zero. He shares the four questions to answer before another UPSC attempt. He also names the sunk cost trap that keeps aspirants coming back long after they should stop. At 24, he held a metallurgy degree from IIT BHU and zero coding background. He weighed CAT and GATE against the GRE, said no to an MBA, and chose an MS in CS in the USA. How do you build a CS profile from nothing? He co-wrote a machine learning paper with a professor back at his IIT. He also covers how to explain a two-year gap on applications. Then he applied to 17 US universities. One admit. Would you guess the next part from Instagram? Fear of failing a course on an F1 visa. No return offer. A layoff. $100K in student loans. (The Grand Canyon photos leave that out.) For international students job hunting in the USA, he breaks down 20 to 30 applications a day and what a real referral looks like. If you're sitting on a decision you've already spent years paying for, this one is for you. Subscribe on YouTube and Spotify, or visit readysetdopodcast.com. CHAPTERS 00:00 Why UPSC Is India's Biggest Time Sink 02:39 How He Ended Up Preparing For UPSC 03:52 The Back Bench Book That Started Everything 04:38 Quitting Consulting After One Year 05:57 What Is Actually In The UPSC Syllabus 06:33 UPSC Stages: Prelims, Mains, Interview 07:32 Why UPSC Is Not Like Engineering Entrance Exams 08:29 "I Don't Wanna Gamble My Entire Youth On An Exam" 08:40 A Day In The Life Of A Full Time UPSC Aspirant 09:25 Why IIT Killed His Study Habit 10:51 How...

How to Stand Out on LinkedIn When AI Writes Everything (20,000-Post Ghostwriter POV) - w/ Shoaib

Sep 29, 2026 47 min

A week before we recorded this, my nephew asked why I'd started posting on LinkedIn. He'd just finished college and started his first job, so I gave him the textbook answer about networks and opportunities. (I watched it bounce right off him.) Fair enough. If you're a new grad deep in a graduate job search, "build your network" sounds like homework with no due date. So I brought in someone who could answer him properly. Shoaib Ahmed is a LinkedIn ghostwriter who has written over 20,000 posts. His first job out of university came through a LinkedIn DM, and he later used the platform to build a million-pound business. (So yes, he's earned an opinion.) Why does LinkedIn personal branding matter more now that AI writes half the feed? Shoaib's answer surprised me. The flood of AI slop is your opening. When every post sounds the same, a real voice gets noticed fast. For personal branding beginners who don't feel like experts yet, he covers what to post anyway. And this isn't a founder-only game. Employees build a personal brand too, and he explains how. Then we get into the business side. Clients say they want one thing and actually want another. Impressions are a vanity number. You need reach and conversion, and one without the other stalls out. His LinkedIn profile audit covers the banner, the offer, your ICP, and the proof. Sell the transformation instead of the service. Make your ideal buyer feel seen. Let testimonials and case studies do the bragging. If your profile still reads like a résumé nobody finishes, jump to 00:37:13. If you're a student figuring out how to use LinkedIn, or you want to get hired on LinkedIn without sounding like a robot, this is the career advice I wish I'd handed my nephew. His closing line stuck with me: your LinkedIn profile is not for you. 🎙️ Chapters 00:00:00 - Preview: LinkedIn personal branding from a 20,000-post ghostwriter 00:01:14 - Why LinkedIn personal branding matters in the AI era 00:03:07 - How LinkedIn helped Shoaib build a...

How to Get Hired for Microsoft AI Roles Without Applying in 2026 using Recruiter Inbound Playbook - w/ Shrey

Sep 13, 2026 45 min

Shrey Shah never applied to Microsoft. Microsoft executives watched him give a talk on AI coding workflows, then reached out. Meta came knocking not long after, asking for something similar. Here's the part that stings a little: that wasn't luck. It traces back to a decision he made years earlier, when senior engineers around him said going all in on AI-assisted coding would hurt his career. He ignored them. He was building with agents before agent jobs existed, and using Cursor before most engineers could spell it. In this episode of Ready Set Do, Shrey — now Senior Software Engineer, AI at Microsoft — walks through how inbound offers actually happen in tech, and what he did to make himself findable. We get into the interview loop too. Four rounds, two technical, zero LeetCode. One problem was so big he had to keep solving it out loud while talking to his interviewer. He explains why that format tests something the standard algorithm grind never touches. Then the harder conversation starts. Shrey doesn't believe in resumes anymore. His argument: every resume is now tailored by the same AI tools, every application lands in the same ATS pile, and the traditional job application is finished. (If you're applying into silence right now, you already suspect he's right.) So what replaces it? Visibility. Posting what you learn. Forming your own point of view on what you read. Building a public track record long before you need one. He gets specific about what to build, what to post on LinkedIn as a software engineer, and how he never runs out of things to say. He also breaks down how meetup and conference speaking invitations actually arrive. Then the technical gut-check. Most engineers using AI tools can't explain the difference between a skill, a sub agent, a hook, a rule, and MCP — or when to reach for which. Shrey can, and he lays out the architecture in plain language. We close on his 2028 prediction. He doesn't think AI takes your job. He thinks roles merge, everyone...

How to Start With AI When You've Already Decided It's Too Hard (13 Year Google Veteran POV) - w/ Aishwarya

Sep 5, 2026 42 min

Thirteen years at Google. Trust and Safety in Hyderabad first, then the Bay Area, then most of the back half inside YouTube — finance, then analytics, then managing YouTube inventory and monetization. Then Aishwarya Raghavan quit. No job lined up. Two months later a friend referred her to a company she actually wanted. She didn't get it. That rejection landed right as the layoff headlines were peaking, and that's where this conversation starts. Most advice about the AI job market in 2026 is built to make you feel behind. Aishwarya's take goes the other way. She says a lot of postings that say "AI skills required" mean something far more basic than you'd guess. The people who never start are usually the ones who jumped straight to AI agents, decided it was too hard, and quit before level one. (If that's you, no judgment. It was most of us.) So she walks through four levels anyone can climb. Level one is small enough to feel silly: getting ChatGPT to stop sounding like a stranger. Custom GPTs come later. Agent orchestration comes after that. Is that really enough to get hired in AI? Her answer is more specific than yes. We also get into why she couldn't just move into AI work internally at Google, even with the badge and the tenure. How to read a job description and tell whether a company has actually thought about AI or is checking a box. And the interview skill she rates above every technical signal. Fair warning — it has more to do with storytelling than with reciting the STAR method at a hiring manager. Then there's the networking habit she regrets not building while she still had the Google email. Nobody tells you that your network has an expiration date. She's now a principal product manager at Arrivia, wiring AI into a travel business full of legacy systems. Different problem entirely from YouTube creator monetization, and she's candid about what transferred and what didn't. If you're a student, or a few years into your career and quietly worried the market alr...

How to Decide if a US Masters Is Worth It in 2026 (Purdue MBA Director POV) - w/ Prof Dunford

Sep 2, 2026 45 min

Should an international student still move to the US for a master's right now? That's the question sitting in thousands of inboxes and WhatsApp groups this admissions cycle. Not "which school," not "what score." Just: should I go at all? Naman put it to someone who has watched this play out for over two decades — and who has no reason to sell you the dream. Professor Benjamin Dunford taught leadership and management at Purdue's Mitch Daniels School of Business, where he was academic director over the full suite of Purdue MBA programs. He also taught in Kellogg's family business executive program, and most recently at the Indian School of Business in Mohali. His answer on the headwinds international students face in 2026 is more direct than you'd expect from someone inside the system. He names what's real. Then he tells you what actually still holds up. A big piece of it: work experience. Ben is blunt that it's the biggest differentiator in MBA admissions, and the thing most applicants under-invest in while they optimize everything else. Which brings us to the 4.0. If you're chasing a perfect GPA, he'd argue you might be playing it safe — picking the courses you'll win instead of the ones that will stretch you. (Yes, this is going to sting a little. Sit with it.) We also get into why so much leadership advice falls flat. The gap between the real and the ideal. Why change is a choice, not a command. "Compliance theater" — that thing where everyone nods in the meeting and disagrees in the hallway after. And how to influence people when you have zero authority over them. Ben's research on pairing accountability with forgiveness comes up too, including why CEOs get visibly uncomfortable the moment you say the word forgiveness in a boardroom. Then there's his work at ISB Mohali, teaching 20-something CEOs who inherited Indian family businesses. How do you honor your parents and still change the thing they built? He's watched a lot of people try. 🇮🇳 We close on where busin...

How To Break Into Site Reliability Engineering on A F-1 Visa - w/ Sai Joshitha

Aug 27, 2026 41 min

Somewhere it's 3 a.m. and a Kubernetes pod just quietly died. A guy in a different time zone taps his card for coffee and it works. He'll never know how close that was. Keeping him from finding out is Sai Joshitha's job. She's a Senior Site Reliability Engineer at Visa. Here's the part I care about for anyone sitting on an F-1 right now. SRE is one of the most underrated doors into the US tech market, and almost nobody in the international student group chats is talking about it. Everyone's fighting over the same software engineer postings. Meanwhile there's an entire discipline hiring for a completely different skill. Start with this: SRE interview loops have no LeetCode. None. Someone hands you a system that's on fire and watches how you think while it burns. Is that easier? Definitely not. It's just different, and it rewards people who like fixing things over people who ground through 300 array problems. Joshitha breaks down what the job actually is day to day — monitoring, deploying, automating, and hunting for root cause when dozens of connected systems start acting strange. Then we get to how she got there. She finished her MS at University of Michigan-Dearborn and walked into one of the ugliest markets in years, firing off 200+ applications a week before she changed the whole approach. What worked was fewer applications, aimed better, with the resume rewritten per role and real recruiter outreach instead of apply-and-pray. (We've all done apply-and-pray. It's a petri dish for burnout.) She also lays out the exact stack recruiters screen for. Kubernetes and Docker, one cloud learned end to end (not three learned halfway), observability tools like Grafana, Prometheus and Kibana, scripting for automation, plus the networking fundamentals holding all of it up. Her honest take? Knowing the tools matters way less than knowing how to solve a real problem with them. We close on where this is heading — how Visa is folding AI into on-call work for repetitive incidents,...

How To Escape The Family Business Trap in 2026 & The Real Reason Your Brain Fears Success - w/ Abhinav

Aug 21, 2026 48 min

Picture running a resort deep inside Jim Corbett National Park. Tigers on one side of the fence, guests on the other, and a family business you never actually applied for... That was Abhinav Jindal's twenties. The business did fine. He didn't. That gap — doing well on paper, feeling hollow off it — is where this episode of Ready Set Do lives. Abhinav is an empowerment coach and a certified master practitioner of NLP and MER®, plus the founder of Cydir. He got there sideways. A manifestation course in Delhi in 2019 that he only half believed at the time. (He admits the eye-rolling was real. He went back anyway.) Then 2022. He did emotional baggage work that he says reset his business and his marriage in the same stretch. Not a slow drift toward better. A hard reboot. So what happens when a second generation business owner stops running on his father's scoreboard? We get into why New Year's resolutions fail by the second week of January. Short version: your conscious mind writes the goal, your unconscious mind quietly vetoes it, and nobody told you there was a vote. Abhinav calls that unconscious programming. The stuff wired in before you turned seven, still humming in the background while you wonder why the gym membership went untouched again. Understanding the conscious vs unconscious mind split is the whole ballgame here, and he explains it without any woo. His four steps for making change stick: clear the emotional baggage, set goals your entire system agrees with, take purposeful action, then stay present on the path. That third one is where most people fold. We also dig into how to set goals that survive contact with your own limiting beliefs — a different exercise than writing a list in January and hoping. Then there's the client story that stuck with me. A guy who quit every job right before he was about to succeed. Not once. Every single time. Abhinav traces it back to one childhood moment, and watching him unpack it is the most useful stretch of the episode...

How To Go From No Job Offer To Amazon's AGI Development Team In 18 Months - w/ Kunal

Aug 12, 2026 37 min

Here's the description, formatted for RSS/Spotify (timestamps on their own lines with spacing so they don't collapse): Seven years ago, Kunal Mishra was a summer intern at DRDO, facing the choice every engineering student knows: take the safe campus placement, or bet on the harder thing. He bet on machine learning. 🎯 That bet ran through a master's in the USA at Northeastern University and dropped him into the 2024 job market with no return offer and no sponsorship. Tough for anyone. Harder for an international student. So he built something. A 30-million-parameter LLM from scratch, trained for about $50 when the same build can cost thousands. (Yes, fifty dollars.) That one project got him his first US job. Then it got him Amazon. Today Kunal works on Amazon's AGI post-training team, building the Amazon Nova frontier models. This episode is the machine learning engineer roadmap he wishes someone had handed him. We open with what AGI actually means inside a big tech lab. Not the sci-fi version — the working definition his team uses to ship. Then the practical calls. Why fundamentals still beat chasing trends. How he chose between an MS in CS and an MS in AI (and why the label mattered less than he thought). What breaking into ML really looked like with no H1B sponsorship locked in. The heart of it is the project. Kunal walks through how to build an LLM from scratch — the design choices and the cheap-compute tricks that kept it under fifty bucks. A real llm project beats a polished resume every time. Then Amazon. The full interview loop, unfiltered. 450 LeetCode problems logged. Two DSA rounds. Two system design rounds — real ml system design, not whiteboard theater. And the 40% nobody preps enough for: the behavioral, mapped straight to Amazon's leadership principles. Plus how to hold your nerve through the bar raiser interview. He also hands over his prep shelf: Chip Huyen's Designing Machine Learning Systems and AI Engineering, Maxime Labonne's LLM Engineer's Hand...

How To Write A Resume Big-Tech Recruiters Can't Ignore

Aug 8, 2026 15 min

I still have the exact one-page PDF that got me shortlisted for a Program Manager role at Apple. No headshot. No skill bars pretending "80% Excel" means anything. And here's the part the chapters give away early: I didn't get the job. (We get into why at 13:15, and it's the most useful thirty seconds in here.) So this episode is me pulling that resume apart, line by line. Not "delete your photo" advice — the layer most people miss even when the basics are already right. Everything hangs on one test: so what? If a bullet can't answer it, the bullet is decoration. That one question is how to write a resume a busy reader actually finishes. We start with sections and the order they belong in, because a strong program manager resume in the wrong sequence still reads as junior. Then the overview — small, or gone. Most resume summary sections are throat-clearing, and I'll show you when to cut yours. Then the engine: power verbs. Swap "responsible for" for a verb that did something, and half your resume mistakes fix themselves. The bullet formula comes next, plus the objection I hear most — "I don't have numbers." You do. I'll show you how to quantify resume bullets when nobody handed you a clean metric. After that, the project section. Which projects earn a spot, and which ones quietly sink you. Not every job on the page deserves equal space, either. Skills, one page versus two, and the almost-right details that get a resume for tech jobs tossed before a human reads it — think ATS resume tips and the tiny formatting killers that trip the filter. I built this for two people at once. The fresh MS grad with an internship or two, and the person about five years in whose entry level resume has gone stiff from too many rewrites. If you're running a US job search from abroad — a resume for immigrants, that Indian-in-US-jobs situation — the sequencing matters even more. Grab the one-page template (both layouts) here: https://www.overleaf.com/read/fcyfsjfgjnrk#a71930 📄 Chapters...

How to Build an AI Governance Career Without Writing Code ( Lawyer -> AI Architect POV) - w/ Aashita

Aug 6, 2026 35 min

Aashita Jain's H-1B didn't get picked. She was on an L-1 visa at Informatica, working against a clock that wasn't hers to control. Most people in that spot panic and start mass-applying to any job that will sponsor them. She built an O-1 visa case instead, and turned herself into an AI governance architect. That's a job title most engineers have never heard of, and one that barely existed five years ago. This episode is about what happens when the standard visa route closes and you have to build your own door. We start with the stereotype: governance people as the ones who show up late and say no to everything. Aashita's version looks nothing like that. She sits with engineers, reads architecture diagrams, and figures out how a product survives regulators in the US, the EU, and India before it ships, not after. (If your mental image of a lawyer in tech is someone slowing down a sprint review, this will reset it.) Her path is not a straight line. Law school in India, then Infosys, then Ireland, then the US. Each stop added a different lens on how privacy law actually works on the ground versus how it gets taught in a classroom. We get into how she treats privacy as a product decision, not a checklist someone fills out at the end. Consent architecture, GDPR, the EU AI Act: these come up constantly in her work, but she talks about them the way an engineer talks about tradeoffs, not the way a textbook does. Then we get to the O-1. The extraordinary ability visa has a reputation for being reserved for Nobel laureates and Olympic athletes. Aashita breaks down the exact mindset shift that won her case: thought leadership over article count. Getting cited in one meaningful place beats publishing ten forgettable ones. That distinction was her whole immigration strategy. We also get into the IAPP, what a non-coding tech job actually looks like inside an AI company, and why AI governance jobs are quietly becoming one of the more durable AI policy careers out there. Not the fla...

How to Get Attention Online: What a Magician Knows That Marketers Don't - w/ Jimi

Aug 1, 2026 1 hr 0 min

I asked Jimi Gibson how attention actually works. Ten minutes later he'd named a card I picked inside my own head — live, on camera. (I've rewatched the clip. Still can't explain it.) Here's the part that pays rent: that trick and a LinkedIn post that blows up run on the identical script. Jimi spent 16 years as a working magician before becoming the voice of Thrive Internet Marketing Agency, a 20-year-old shop whose work has landed in Forbes and Entrepreneur. Along the way, he studied 400 brands to figure out why some people get attention online and most don't. In this episode of Ready Set Do, he hands over the whole method. We start with the 3-phase "magic script" — connection, curiosity, conversion — and the brain chemistry firing at each step. An open loop hits different than a finished thought, and Jimi explains exactly why. He also names the reason most personal brands feel fake: they skip the first two phases and sprint straight to the close. (You know the guy. He pitches you the second you accept the connection request.) Then the tool I haven't stopped thinking about: the five finger framework. Promise, passion, villain, audience, thumbprint. Five questions, one hand, and suddenly you have a year of content ideas without staring at a blank screen. If you're building a personal brand in 2026 — or trying to grow on LinkedIn without cringing at your own posts — this is the closest thing to a copywriting cheat code I've heard on this show. We also get into AI content and the question everyone keeps asking: will AI replace writers? Jimi's answer is to build with the one thing AI structurally can't copy — your thumbprint — and it's far more useful than the usual hand-wringing. And if you're convinced you have nothing to say? His advice for aspiring creators starts smaller than you'd expect. Incremental steps. Read the room. Open a loop. Close it. Whether you're an early-career professional learning content marketing, a freelancer chasing content that converts, or s...

How to Become a Graphic Designer (Your Portfolio Doesn't Have to Be Real) - w/ Cynthia

Jul 28, 2026 50 min

Cynthia Wagner almost quit art in high school. Not because she lacked talent — because building a portfolio felt so intimidating she figured she'd rather not try. (If you've ever stared at a blank page and talked yourself right out of something you actually wanted, you already know the feeling.) She didn't quit. She got into a competitive design program, spent years doing brand and campaign work, and eventually opened her own studio at CynthiaWagner.co. This is the conversation about how to become a graphic designer that I wish someone had handed me when I was starting from zero. Cynthia breaks down how to break into design when you have nothing real to point to yet. And her portfolio advice is the part people need to hear: your portfolio doesn't have to be real to be good. Read that again. You can build a design portfolio around invented briefs and personal projects, and it still counts. That one idea kills the biggest excuse most people use to never start. We get practical too. She lays out how to build a design portfolio from scratch and how to land a first design job when your experience section is basically empty. Getting design clients before anyone knows your name? She's done it, and she tells you how. Then Cynthia flips the mic on me. In the back half she walks me through the exact "Find Your Why" questionnaire she uses with real clients — the one built on Simon Sinek's Golden Circle — and applies it live to my own business, no rehearsal. It got a little uncomfortable (which, apparently, is the point). Having someone pull your "why" out of you in real time is a different animal than reading about it in a book. We also get into visual communication design, brand design, and why good design quietly changes how people value your work, often before they've read a single word. If you're a beginner mapping your first move into design, or a working creative sharpening your freelance design path or eyeing a career change, this one is for you. 🎨 New episodes land ev...

How to Leave Chicago after a Masters in Public Policy, Return to Bihar, and Build for India - w/ Shreya

Jul 20, 2026 57 min

Shreya Shravini graduated from the University of Chicago with a masters in public policy and had every reason to stay in the US. Good job market, OPT STEM extension, a real shot at sponsorship. She packed up and went back to Patna instead, to work inside the Bihar government. If that sounds like the plot of Swades, that's because it basically is (minus Shah Rukh Khan & NASA). This episode is for anyone weighing a US masters right now, wondering if a career pivot is worth the risk, or quietly asking themselves whether "coming back" counts as failure or as the actual plan. Shreya answers all three, and she doesn't sugarcoat any of it. We start with why she walked away from engineering in the first place, and why she turned down Columbia for UChicago's MPP program (spoiler: it wasn't just rankings). She breaks down how she actually chose between schools instead of chasing the name everyone recognizes, and what nobody tells you about comparing a scholarship offer against a dream school with a bigger loan attached. Then we get into the messier stuff. What an MPP curriculum actually teaches you day to day, and how it's different from an MBA if social impact is the goal rather than a corporate ladder. Ground realities from her COVID-era community work, and how that experience reshaped what she thought "making a difference" even meant. We also talk about the 2026 visa reality that's pushing a lot of international students to rethink the whole "stay in America" assumption. H1B uncertainty isn't background noise anymore, it's a real input into people's five-year plans. Shreya walks through how that factored into her decision to return to India, not as a fallback, but as a deliberate move. The financial side gets real too. Education loans, what social impact work actually pays (it does not have to mean broke), and how she's thinking about Gates Foundation-adjacent public policy jobs in India as a legitimate career track, not a consolation prize. We close on Chicago versus Patn...

How to Get Into Public Policy & Development Economics (Harvard Economist POV) - w/ Jishnu

Jul 15, 2026 51 min

What do you think the richest 5% of urban India earns in a month? I guessed ten lakh. The real number is twenty thousand rupees — about $200. And that was the least surprising thing Professor Jishnu Das said to me. This one rewired how I see my own country. We started with a health insurance plan called RSBY, built to cover millions of poor families. Then Jishnu told me how one misfiled word — someone typed "Sally" where a name should have gone — quietly erased about a third of the people the plan was supposed to protect. (Sit with that. A typo, not a budget cut, deciding who gets care.) Here's the thread that runs through the whole conversation: every problem we call "technical" is actually a human one. The data doesn't break on its own. People fill it in, skip a field, round a number, guess. The architecture only works if you understand the hands touching it. We got into what the numbers really say about income inequality in India — who sits in the top 5%, who's in the bottom, and where your own school lands once you stop guessing and look. If you think you know where you fall, you probably don't. I didn't. Then Jishnu made a case I keep chewing on: dumbing ideas down is quietly killing good ones. When you strip a fact to make it "simple," you often strip out the part that made it true. The fix isn't more jargon. It's getting basic, boring, accurate facts to the exact people they're about. We also talked careers — real ones. What a public policy career looks like from the inside. Whether policy is a good career or just a nice thing to say at dinner. How research actually reaches the world instead of dying in a PDF nobody opens. If you're weighing development economics, World Bank careers, civic tech, or any job where the work has to matter, this is a candid look at the stress and the payoff. There's also a detour into functional illiteracy in the US and how India stacks up against the West — the kind of comparison that sounds settled until someone shows you the da...

How To Get Hired For Paypal AI Agentic Roles (in 2026) - w/ Sohil

Jul 6, 2026 45 min

I walked in ready for the usual "AI is coming for your job" sermon. Then a PayPal AI engineer — a guy who's also logged time at TikTok and JPMorgan — looked at me and said he's never once watched good code make anyone a dollar. One sentence, and the whole hour reset. Sohil is early enough in his own story to remember the scramble, and senior enough now to see what big tech actually rewards. So we skipped the platitudes. We open with what companies really screen for in AI agent jobs in 2026, and why leetcode refuses to die even though an LLM can solve most of it in seconds. (Yes, I asked him why. His answer beats the LinkedIn takes.) He walks through why take-home tests are basically dead for senior engineers, how AI reshaped his actual day at PayPal, and the edge-case trap that quietly wrecks AI-written code before you spot it. If you're prepping for a senior software engineer interview, that part alone earns the listen. Then came the takes that rewired my brain. The "10x productivity" thing? He calls it a myth. His number is 2x, maybe 3x on a great day, and he shows exactly where the ceiling sits. Anyone chasing AI coding productivity headlines should hear this before they overpromise to a manager. Here's the one that stuck with me: higher code quality almost never moves revenue. Sit with that. It changes how you think about getting promoted in tech, because the thing you're proud of might be the thing nobody upstairs can see. We also go inside ByteDance during Project Texas and the TikTok ban — what it felt like from a desk, not a headline. And how he pivoted from finance into big tech without a resume that matched the job on paper. (If you're plotting a career pivot into tech and your background looks "wrong," this is your permission slip.) This is the honest version of software engineer career advice nobody bothers to post. No hype about whether AI will replace software engineers. Just a working ai engineer telling you what the tech job market in 2026 looks like...

How To Get Real Press in 2026 (Without Paying For Forbes.. Ex-CBS Journalist POV) - w/ Vaishali

Jul 3, 2026 1 hr 3 min

Someone slid into your inbox last week offering Forbes for a thousand bucks. Maybe you almost said yes. 😅 Vaishali Gauba spent years inside CNBC, NBC and CBS newsrooms before starting her own PR agency, and she'll tell you flat out: that yes quietly costs you the exact people you were trying to reach. Here's the uncomfortable part about how to get into Forbes with a credit card. The crowd doesn't care where you got featured. But the client you actually want? They can smell paid coverage from a mile off (and once they do, your credibility is done). So we spent an hour on what earned media vs paid media really means when you're a founder with no PR budget and a business to build. Vaishali breaks down how to spot a real article versus a press release in about five seconds. Hint: the "we're thrilled to announce" opener gives it away every time. We get into why a journalist writing about you beats you writing about yourself, and why that gap is the whole game. Why Forbes might do nothing for your sales while a local paper your actual buyers read does everything. And how to find the story hiding inside your own company (the one you're too close to see because you live it every day). If you're a founder trying to figure out how to pitch journalists, whether paying for Forbes is worth it, or how to get press without buying it, this is the honest version nobody sells you. Vaishali also explains why any agency promising guaranteed coverage is quietly telling you to run. Her own path is a story too. She went from the Rutgers student newsroom to CBS, lost her US visa, rebuilt in India and Canada, and now runs earned media for founders who want the real thing. If you're building anything and you need people to trust it, start here. This one is for anyone thinking about startup PR, personal branding, and how to build credibility as a founder that actually holds up. Connect with Vaishali:Website: vaishalimedia.comEmail: vaishali@vaishalimedia.com New episodes weekly. Subscribe...

How To Get a Remote DevRel Job From India in 2026 (Step By Step) - w/ Saurav

Jun 24, 2026 43 min

Saurav is twenty-six and lives in Delhi. For five years he's worked fully remote for companies in Israel and the Czech Republic, and he gets flown out to developer conferences across three continents. The part that stopped me cold: he's never once clicked "apply" on a job portal. Not once. So how does a kid from a government school in Delhi end up speaking on stages in Nigeria, Prague, and San Francisco? That's the whole episode. The job is DevRel — developer relations, or developer advocate if you want the fancier title. Most Indian devs have never heard of it. Meanwhile companies across Europe and the US are scrambling to fill these roles, and plenty of them pay in USD. (Yes, from India. Yes, fully remote.) Saurav walked me through his actual playbook. How he built public proof through his content and community work until hiring managers came chasing him instead of the other way around. How he got companies to invent a role for him when they weren't even hiring. We also got into the stuff nobody warns you about. The DevRel interview has a coding round most people don't see coming, and Saurav explains how to walk in ready. He breaks down what this remote tech job looks like on a normal Tuesday, not the conference-stage highlight reel. Then there's the AI question. Everyone assumes AI is coming for these jobs. Saurav makes the opposite case — demand for good developer advocates is climbing, and he explains why. If you're an Indian developer staring at LeetCode and wondering whether there's another door in, this one's for you. Saurav started exactly where you are. He learned Python, did the work in public, and built a remote career that pays globally without a single resume submission. Worth your forty minutes? I think so. 🎧 If real career paths with no fluff are your thing, subscribe and stick around. New episodes every week. Saurav's links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sauain/Apify: https://apify.com Podcast Website: readysetdopodcast.com Timestamps:00:00...

How To Get A Master's In Germany For $0 in 2026 & MUST-KNOW Hiring Rules - w/ Shriya

Jun 11, 2026 54 min

Shriya left India for Germany to do a master's in Human-Computer Interaction. Her tuition bill came to zero. (Read that again. Zero — not "discounted," actually free.) If you've been stress-googling "masters abroad" at 2am, stuck in the loop most Indian students hit after a B.Tech, this is the conversation you needed. US debt, Canada's wait times, or the rumor that Germany is some kind of cheat code — we sort out which parts hold up. She walks through why Germany won out over the US and Canada, and how the German public university system actually works. A free masters in Germany isn't a trick. Public universities charge no tuition to international students, full stop. The real masters in Germany cost is rent, a blocked account for your German student visa, and the slow work of building a life in a town where you might not know a soul. Shriya also explains what HCI even is. Most people file human computer interaction masters work under UX and move on, but the field is wider — AR, VR, data visualization, research roles that don't sit neatly on a job board. For one project she turned survey data into comics (yes, comics). Then there's the part nobody markets to you. The German language requirement quietly decides who gets hired after graduation, no matter how sharp your portfolio is. We get into that honestly, plus how she funded independent research as a student and what an HCI degree opens up beyond a standard UX role. And the human stuff: safety, the loneliness of a small German town, and learning to read a culture that says what it means and little more. So if you're weighing Germany vs USA masters, sizing up the best country for a master's as an Indian student, or just want a straight answer on a UX masters in Germany before you sign away two years — start here. Timestamps: 00:00 Shreya's Journey from CS to HCI 04:04 Understanding HCI and Its Curriculum 07:04 Why Germany Made Sense for Grad School 10:49 How HCI Programs Are Structured in Germany 12:57 AR, VR, an...

How To Get Paid As a Creator With an Audience Smaller Than Yours (Harvard Speaker POV) - w/ Alisha

Jun 8, 2026 1 hr 15 min

Six thousand followers. That's the number that should not work. Most people would look at Alisha Gupta's Instagram and assume she's stuck. Too small for brand deals. Too niche to get booked. The kind of account you scroll past on your way to someone with a verified checkmark. She's spoken at Harvard. She books out university stages across the country. Brands pay her to post. And she did all of it while holding down a full-time job in AI. So how does someone get paid as a creator without a big audience and without ever going viral? That's the whole episode. Alisha built Beauty and Balance from a single Instagram page into something companies want their name attached to. In this conversation she breaks down why engagement beats follower count every single time, and how brands actually pick who they work with (hint: it's not the number you think). We get into the post that opened the door to Harvard, and the exact system she used to turn one yes into fifteen more stages. If you've ever wondered how to get sponsorships with a small following or how to get booked to speak, she lays out the mechanics plainly. Then she flips the script. She runs her Power of And exercise live on me, the same one she teaches at universities, so you can map your own strengths against your passions and actually figure out your next move tonight. (Yes, I'm the guinea pig. It's a little uncomfortable. That's kind of the point.) If you're a student, a recent grad, or anyone trying to build a real personal brand on the side without quitting your day job, start here. 🎯 Chapters: 00:00:00 Alisha Gupta's 6K-follower playbook 00:03:10 Why your niche has to be obvious fast 00:08:40 The origin of Beauty and Balance 00:12:30 Starting small and listening to the community 00:15:40 First events and proving demand 00:20:00 Fear, cringe, and being judged online 00:25:10 Turning criticism into creative momentum 00:30:05 How Harvard found her 00:34:55 Designing talks for the actual room 00:38:40 What to do wh...

How to Turn LinkedIn Posts Into Career Opportunities - w/ Daniel

Jun 2, 2026 48 min

Most people treat LinkedIn like a résumé site. Daniel Greenberg thinks that is exactly why they stay invisible. Daniel has racked up 8 million impressions on LinkedIn and co-hosts Connection Accepted, a show about communication and online influence. So when he says the feed now behaves more like TikTok than a digital CV, I paid attention. Here is the part nobody wants to hear: posting on LinkedIn feels awkward at first, and that awkwardness is the price of entry. Daniel walks through how he actually started, what kept him going, and why the first few posts matter less than the hundredth. We get into AI writing tools too. They make you faster, sure. But faster at producing forgettable content? Daniel and I both agree most AI-generated posts read like they were written by a polite robot trying to win an award (we have all scrolled past that guy). The bigger idea is that communication beats algorithm hacks. You can chase reach all day, but if your one message does not stick, the impressions do not turn into anything. Daniel breaks down how to make a single point land and how to test new formats without abandoning what you actually care about. Then there is the podcasting problem. These episodes eat hours. So how do you know the time is worth it? Daniel uses real listener feedback as the scoreboard, not vanity metrics, and he showed me how he turns raw podcast transcripts into LinkedIn content and search-friendly material that gets discovered through ChatGPT. The last stretch might be my favorite. Daniel explains how consistent content quietly creates warm leads, so opportunities come to you instead of you cold-pitching strangers and hoping. (Imagine that.) If you want to grow on LinkedIn, build a personal brand, sharpen your communication, or create career and business opportunities without begging for them, this one will shift how you see the platform in 2026. 🎯 Listen to the full episode of Ready Set Do with Naman Pandey. Guest: Daniel Greenberg, LinkedIn creator an...

How to Turn a Civic Frustration Into a Viral Product (NammaKasa Bangalore Founder POV) - w/ Jyothish

May 25, 2026 37 min

Picture this. You spend a few weekends building a small web app to track garbage piles in your city. You post about it once on LinkedIn. You go to sleep. You wake up to 250,000 users and your local government quietly using your tool to clean the streets. That's Jyothish's actual 2025. The app is Namma Kasa. It does one thing — lets Bangalore residents drop a pin on a map when they spot uncollected trash, then routes it to the people who can actually pick it up. No login walls, no gamification, no pretending it's a "platform." Just a map and a civic problem. Jyothish is a solo developer and indian product designer who shipped at version 0.1 instead of polishing for six months. The polish came after the users did (and yes, that order matters more than the build-in-public crowd lets on). The Bangalore garbage app went viral on LinkedIn with a 5-word hook. BBMP marshals started using it without a single pitch meeting. Investors slid into his DMs. He turned them all down. In this Ready Set Do conversation, Naman pulls apart how it actually went down — the exact LinkedIn post that broke it open, the mindset behind shipping an MVP in india before it feels ready, how civic technology gets adopted when nobody is forcing a partnership deck, and why he's anti-VC on principle for this one. If you've got a half-built side project sitting on your laptop right now (yes, that one), and you've been told you need a FAANG resume before anyone takes your work seriously — this is the one to play. Civic tech india doesn't need permission. It needs people who ship. ⏱ Chapters:00:00 The Viral Journey Begins03:30 Designing a Map-First Civic Reporting Journey06:40 The Mechanics of Reporting Garbage09:45 Going Viral, Hitting Limits, and Coming Back Online12:30 Accountability, Visibility, and Reaching Authorities15:01 Scaling and Future Plans18:54 Product Design Lessons for Civic Tech23:45 Shipping Imperfectly and Learning from Feedback28:30 Keeping Nammakasa Citizen-Led32:52 Building Ideas Wi...

How to Choose Between Duke and Purdue MEM in 2026 - w/ Fiza & Bhushan

May 20, 2026 1 hr 5 min

Picking between Duke MEM and Purdue MEM is the kind of decision where Reddit threads contradict themselves. Program brochures sound identical. And the people who actually survived it have already moved on with their lives. So I tracked two of them down. Fiza Patel finished Duke MEM in 2025 and works as an Associate Product Specialist at STIHL. Bhushan Chougule is still in Purdue MEM and co-oping at Tesla right now. Same degree, opposite schools, very different price tags. I asked them every question the admissions websites refuse to answer. A few things surprised me. Purdue's 12-month co-op used to be the headline reason people picked it over Duke. That moat is gone. Duke and other MEM programs run co-ops too now, so if you're choosing Purdue purely for the co-op, you might want to slow down. Then there's the tuition gap. Duke costs roughly twice what Purdue does. Worth it? I asked Bhushan directly — the guy who picked the cheaper school and landed at Tesla. His answer is more nuanced than the "prestige doesn't matter" takes you'll see on LinkedIn. (And yes, we get into the Research Triangle vs Midwest job market thing, because location matters more than the rankings will admit.) Honestly, the part I'm most proud of is the mistake I own on tape. I picked my own MEM program for reasons that turned out to be wrong, and I walk through exactly what I'd tell my pre-application self now. If you're an Indian student staring down an F1 visa, a CPT co-op decision, and six figures of risk, this part is for you. (yes) We also unpack how MEM is different from an MBA, MIM, MQM, or a Masters in Product Management — and which one you actually want based on your career direction. Whether the school name on your resume matters for MEM jobs, or whether the cohort quality and career fair access matter more. What Duke Pratt's cohort actually feels like vs Purdue's, including staff support and the reality of internship conversion. Why "is MEM worth it" is the wrong question, and what yo...

How to Make $80K on Upwork (From a Top 3% Freelancer) - w/ Anas

May 12, 2026 45 min

Two years ago, Anas lost his full-time UK job. He went back to Upwork — the platform he'd already used to make over $80K while studying — and within months landed an 18-month Swedish contract that generated over $5M in client revenue. His unfair advantage? A 60-second intro video that gets him hired in 24 hours. In this episode of Ready Set Do, I sit with Anas, a Top Rated Plus Upwork freelancer (roughly the top 3% on the platform), to walk through his exact playbook for freelancing on Upwork in 2026. We cover how to start freelancing on Upwork with zero reviews, how to write Upwork proposals that actually get opened, how to price freelance work across countries without underselling yourself, and how to escape the "Upwork is saturated" trap that keeps most beginners stuck. Anas is a Moroccan-born industrial engineer who pivoted into data science, freelanced his way through grad school in the UK, and rebuilt his income on Upwork after a layoff. So he's lived both sides — the broke student grinding for first reviews, and the senior freelancer competing against AI and offshore pricing. If you're trying to figure out how to get clients on Upwork, build a freelance data science career, or future-proof yourself against AI eating junior work — this is the full breakdown. A few things we get into: → The Upwork proposal mistake 90% of beginners make (and the niche-down fix)→ Why milestones beat hourly contracts on bigger projects→ How to filter bad clients before you ever get on a call→ The LinkedIn + YouTube combo that pre-sells you before the proposal lands→ Where Anas thinks "Chief AI Operator" roles are headed next Whether you're sending your first Upwork proposal this week or you've been freelancing for years and feel the AI pressure closing in, Anas gives you the tactical playbook and the bigger story behind it. (Quick heads-up: I learned more about freelance pricing in 25 minutes of this conversation than in any Upwork course I've seen.) Subscribe to Ready Set D...

How To Get Hired For Agentic AI Big Tech Roles in 2026 (Amazon Sr Data Scientist POV) - w/ Surya

May 9, 2026 45 min

Here's the uncomfortable thing nobody at career services will tell you: "I use Claude every day" stopped being a resume line about six months ago. The people hiring at Amazon, Google, and the frontier AI labs already assume you do. So what actually gets you hired in 2026? I sat down with Surya Kari, a Senior Generative AI Data Scientist at Amazon, to find out. Surya works on Amazon's white-glove GenAI team. His days are spent shipping with Fortune 500 customers and the frontier model labs you read about on Twitter. He's in the room when hiring decisions get made. And his honest read on early-career AI hiring is way more specific than the LinkedIn-thinkpiece version. We start with the thing I keep seeing destroy promising careers: using Claude (or any AI tool) like glorified autocomplete. Surya calls this the fastest way to plateau in your twenties. The fix isn't more tools — it's depth. The kind of moat that doesn't melt the next time a frontier model ships. Then we get into agents. Surya doesn't think agentic AI is actually production-ready yet (and yes, he works at Amazon, so he's seen the receipts). We talk about what's still broken, what the hype is missing, and what "agents" will probably mean by the time you graduate. His own story is pretty wild too. He was running a Canadian startup competing against Amazon Go before he ended up running GenAI deals at Amazon itself. The arc from analyst to startup founder to senior AI scientist is full of stuff that won't show up on a tidy career-advice carousel. The conversation I'm proudest of comes near the end. Surya grew up in India, studied in Canada, works in the US — and he's watched how each region is building AI from the inside. The contrast between how the East and the West think about AI right now is sharper than I expected. His take on India treating AI as public infrastructure is the kind of thing you don't hear in the usual big tech hiring discourse. If you're a CS student or new grad trying to figure out wher...

How to Build a Global Health Career (Public Health Master’s, Oxford & WHO Africa) - w/ Dyuti

May 6, 2026 1 hr 11 min

How do you go from running tuberculosis programs in rural Bihar to studying at Oxford and eventually working with WHO Africa? There is no clean answer — and that is sort of the point. In this episode, I sit down with Dyuti Sen to talk about what a public health career actually looks like when you do not start as a doctor, do not have a linear plan, and refuse to pretend the journey was smooth. Dyuti studied economics, then entered the development sector through a social leadership fellowship in India. That fellowship dropped her into Dalsinghsarai in Bihar — not a posting you would find on a glossy career brochure. She spent five years there working on tuberculosis, community health delivery, and the enormous gap between what policy says on paper and what happens when a patient in a remote village needs treatment. She calls those years her real master's degree, and after hearing the details, you will understand why. We get into what public health work looks like day to day — the fieldwork, the project management, the bureaucracy. Why "free medicine" does not automatically mean people can access it. Why community health workers carry deep practical expertise that often gets overlooked. And why the distance between a well-designed health policy and its execution on the ground is where the real work lives. Then we talk about her Oxford journey. How she shortlisted master's programs, why scholarships were non-negotiable, what shifted after getting into International Health and Tropical Medicine, and how she later navigated the confusing world of WHO and UN applications. If you have ever stared at a UN job portal and thought "how does anyone actually get hired here?" — Dyuti walks through it with real specifics. This conversation is for anyone interested in global health careers, public health in India, international development pathways, WHO jobs, Oxford scholarships, or what it takes to build a meaningful international career from a non-medical background. No fluff, no...

How to Vibe-Code 20 Production Apps in 13 Days - w/ Avi

Apr 29, 2026 52 min

Twenty apps. Thirteen days. Some already making money. That's what Avi Pilcer actually shipped while most of us were still picking a domain name. And the wild part? He didn't do it alone. He built an autonomous system called System Zero that does the heavy lifting for him. If you've been told "AI is making it easier to build" but you still freeze at "what should I build, how do I ship it, who's going to use it?" — this episode unjams the whole pipeline. Avi's path is not a normal founder origin story. He went from a struggling engineering student to an electric violinist in China (yes, really) to leading AI innovation at Motorola — all before "deep learning" was on most people's vocabulary list. Now he runs a framework-agnostic orchestration system that ships apps, buys Google Ads, writes SEO blogs, and nurtures email lists. All of it runs 24/7. None of it needs him babysitting. Host Naman Pandey gets into the parts nobody actually explains: Why "meta thinking" is the one skill that still matters when AI handles the code and the copy. How an automated AI process picks which apps to build — so you stop drowning in a Notion doc full of half-baked ideas. A live demo of Fleet AI launching a business in real time (this part will probably make you close your laptop and rethink your week). The "prune and purge" method for killing dead apps fast, because shipping is only half the game. The other half is knowing when to walk away. And why Avi thinks money and traditional jobs are on borrowed time — plus what to actually do about it before that clock runs out. If you're an indie hacker or a solopreneur who keeps refreshing Twitter looking for permission to start — this is the permission. 🚀 Built for the Peter Levels crowd and the Claude Code curious. Anyone tired of vibe coding their way into half-finished AI apps will find a real playbook here. Whether you're chasing your first profitable agentic AI workflow or trying to wire up autonomous AI agents that genuinely run witho...

How to Get Hired for Applied AI Roles in Fortune 500 Companies (Target Sr Data Scientist POV) - w/ Sowmya

Apr 26, 2026 55 min

Picture this: it's 2023, ChatGPT just dropped, every Fortune 500 suddenly needs an "AI strategy," and the job postings want 5 years of experience in a technology that's barely 18 months old. How does anyone actually get hired in that mess? Sowmya Podila figured it out. She's now a Senior Data Scientist on Target's centralized Generative AI team — basically the internal startup that decides which AI use cases get built, killed, or scaled across the entire company. Before Target, she was deep in the chaos: interviewing at Google and other Fortune 500s during the wildest hiring wave applied AI has ever seen. We pull back the curtain on what enterprise AI actually looks like from the inside. Not the LinkedIn version. The real one. She walks through how she prepped for GenAI interviews when nobody on Earth had three years of GenAI experience, why she picked Target over Google (the answer is more interesting than you'd think), and what Fortune 500 hiring managers are actually screening for in 2026 once the hype settled. Here's the part nobody tells you: knowing when NOT to use AI is the most valuable skill on her team right now. Every PM wants an LLM in their product. Most of those ideas should be a SQL query and a dashboard. Sowmya breaks down how her team plays gatekeeper — and why that judgment call is what gets you hired, promoted, and trusted with bigger budgets. We also get into the agentic AI question everyone's dancing around. Can AI agents actually run a Fortune 500 company? (Spoiler: no, and the reasons are way less sexy than Twitter would have you believe — it's data plumbing, not model capability.) She talks through building a multi-agent simulator at Target, why company size completely changes the AI adoption playbook, and the messy reality of getting clean data out of systems built in 2008. Then we go big picture. Utopian future vs. dystopian future. Will AI take your job? Sowmya gives an honest answer that doesn't pander in either direction, which is rare t...

How to Get a UK Work Visa With No Lottery (H-1B Lottery Reject POV) - w/ Hari

Apr 16, 2026 54 min

Hari Prasad Renganathan got rejected from the H1B lottery three times. Most people in that situation spiral. They scramble for a second master's, beg their company for an internal transfer, or start mentally preparing to go back home. Hari texted 10 YC startups, got callbacks from four of them, landed an offer as a Senior AI Engineer, and moved to London. The UK work visa took three weeks. No lottery. But here's the thing — that's just the final chapter of a pattern that's been repeating his entire career. Every time Hari hit a wall, he did the thing nobody else was willing to do. He applied to Columbia with a mechanical engineering degree from Tamil Nadu. No CS background. His GRE score was so average he deliberately withheld it from his application. He wrote an SOP that broke every template the admissions consultants swear by. He got in. After Columbia, he couldn't land an interview for four months. When a senior data scientist on his team quit, Hari walked up to the decision maker and said — and I'm quoting him here — "I'll be much cheaper than that guy." He got the full-time offer. Then he launched My Real Product, a community workshop where he helped data scientists and AI engineers stop building cookie-cutter Kaggle projects and start building actual products with real users. He put up a LinkedIn post expecting 20 people. 470 showed up. We also get into the AI conversation. Hari has a take on the whole "AI won't replace you, but people using AI will" thing. He disagrees. So do I, actually. He breaks it down into four layers of AI replacement and where you need to be if you want to be the last person standing. Whether you agree or not, it's the most specific framework I've heard anyone lay out on this topic. This conversation is for you if you're an international student navigating the US visa system, if you're trying to break into data science or AI without a traditional CS background, if you've been following every template and wondering why nothing is workin...

How To Crack Your First US AI PM Internship (With No Prior PM Experience, Purdue MEM POV) - w/ Aryan

Apr 9, 2026 36 min

Two weeks into my first semester in the U.S., I remember sitting at my desk refreshing LinkedIn like it was a slot machine. Apply. Refresh. Apply. Refresh. Zero replies. At some point you start asking yourself the obvious question: is this just how it works here… or am I doing it wrong? This episode is the answer I wish I had back then. I sat down with Aryan Vaidya — a Purdue MEM (Master of Engineering Management) student who pulled off something most people spend years chasing. He went from being a Data Engineer at Shell in India to landing an AI Product Manager internship in the U.S. by his second semester. No built-in network. No shortcuts. Just a very intentional strategy. And here’s the part that’ll probably annoy you (it annoyed me): a lot of the things people tell you to do… just don’t work the way they claim. Career fairs? Overcrowded.Generic applications? Ignored.“Wait your turn”? Doesn’t apply here. So what does work? Aryan breaks down why cold applying still works in 2026 — if you actually do it right. Not blasting 200 resumes. Not tweaking one bullet point and hoping for the best. He treated every application like a product problem. Who is this for? What do they care about? Why should they pick you? That shift alone changes everything. We go deep into his PM resume framework — what he calls the “So What?” test. Every line on your resume needs to answer that question. Not what you did. Not what tools you used. But why it mattered. (If your bullet can’t survive that test, it’s dead weight.) Then there’s the part most people avoid: reaching out directly. Instead of waiting for recruiter replies, Aryan messaged founders. Straight up. No overthinking. No long essays. Just clear intent and relevance. That’s how he landed his AI PM internship at a startup, and it completely changed his trajectory. We also talk about a move that sounds insane on paper — he dropped his initial coursework to double down on breaking into product. Risky? Yes. Random? Not really. It...

How To Publish 100 Podcast Episodes (10 Lessons I Wish I Knew on Day 1)

Apr 7, 2026 26 min

Two years ago, I was lying in an ER bed, scared enough to get brutally honest with myself. And the thing that bothered me most was not some giant life philosophy. It was embarrassingly specific. I had still not started the YouTube channel and podcast I had been talking about for way too long. That night became the reason Ready, Set, Do exists. Now, exactly two years after uploading the first episode on April 4, 2024, the show has hit 100 episodes. And this felt like the right time to say what I actually think about podcasting, not the polished creator-economy version people usually give you. Because the truth is, podcasting is hard in a very unglamorous way. The ROI math makes no sense for a long time. Discovery is brutal. The algorithm does not care how thoughtful your conversation was. A guest’s pedigree will often beat a better episode. A great thumbnail can hurt you if it attracts the wrong click. And if your audio is bad, none of the rest of it matters. In this 100th episode of Ready, Set, Do, I break down the 10 biggest lessons I learned from starting a podcast, growing a YouTube interview show, and trying to survive the first 100 reps without losing the plot. We get into why your guest’s family may be your best marketing engine, why “ex-Microsoft” or “IIT” can outperform raw insight on YouTube, why high CTR with low retention is a trap, and why podcast audio quality is still the one thing you should never cheap out on. I also talk about a branding mistake I made early with the “not-experts” framing, why episode 7 was the one where I actually found my voice, and why I have badly neglected solo podcasting even after 100 episodes. This is also a bigger conversation about building anything from scratch. What happens when the thing you are making is a little hard to categorize? What happens when your show is genre-agnostic by design, but platforms want clean boxes? What do you do when 95% of your watch time comes from non-subscribers, and every upload is really an...

How to Future-Proof Your Tech Career in the Age of AI Agents (3x UiPath MVP POV) - w/ Naveen

Apr 2, 2026 1 hr 4 min

Everyone's hyping autonomous AI agents. Your corporate IT department is quietly building a blacklist. That gap — between the hype and the reality inside enterprise walls — is exactly what this episode is about. Naveen Chatlapalli, a three-time UiPath MVP and seasoned .NET developer, has watched the automation industry reshape itself in real time. He's seen RPA go from a boardroom buzzword to a genuine enterprise backbone. And now he's watching Agentic AI arrive with all the confidence of someone who didn't read the security brief. So is traditional RPA actually dead? Short answer: not even close. Longer answer: complicated, and the complications are the interesting part. Naveen walks through how he got into UiPath before most people knew what robotic process automation was, what it takes to build a career in a field that keeps reinventing itself, and why the jump from rule-based automation to autonomous AI agents is less of an upgrade and more of a trust exercise nobody's prepared for. Then things get uncomfortable — in the best way. Open-source agent frameworks like OpenClaw sound great in a demo. In production, the enterprise AI security picture gets ugly fast. Naveen breaks down what prompt injection means in an enterprise context (hint: not a niche concern for someone else's team), how AI data exfiltration risks are being underestimated, and why major corporations are pausing agentic AI deployment while the vendor ecosystem scrambles to catch up. Claude Cowork, Anthropic's autonomous desktop agent, gets the same honest treatment. The capability is real. The AI compliance and enterprise trust story are still being written. Cost-effective AI solutions, emerging startups filling the trust gap, and the broader domino effect of enterprise adoption all come up too. This episode covers the full arc — from what Naveen's career trajectory tells us about where automation engineering is heading, to the personal habits that help him stay current in a field that moves faster...

How to Get a Job by Just Showing Up (Moving to SF With Nothing) - w/ Deep

Mar 25, 2026 35 min

Most people grinding through a tough job market send 300 applications and wait. Deep Suchak bought a one-way ticket to San Francisco. No offer. No contacts. No couch lined up past the first week. Just a read on where the opportunities actually were — and a conviction that showing up in person would do what a perfectly formatted resume never could. In this episode of Ready Set Do, Deep walks me through the whole story. The decision to leave, the first freezing weeks of uncertainty, the cold office walk-ins, and the moment the strategy actually started working. (And yes, there were plenty of moments where it really looked like it wouldn't.) Here's what makes his story worth paying close attention to right now: the job market in 2026 is brutal for recent grads. Remote-first hiring has made proximity feel irrelevant. Most career advice tells you to optimize your LinkedIn headline and apply through the portals. Spray and pray. Hope the ATS doesn't eat your file. Deep went the other direction entirely. Deep calls it proximity strategy — the idea that physical presence in the right city, combined with genuine cold outreach, creates a shortcut that no algorithm can replicate. It sounds almost too straightforward. And yet the results speak for themselves. We get into the full mechanics of how he pitched himself into rooms, how he approached networking when he knew absolutely nobody in the city, and how he mentally handled the long stretches where nothing seemed to be moving. There's a section on the GTM Engineer title that's genuinely clarifying if you've been seeing that term everywhere and still aren't entirely sure what it looks like day-to-day. We also dig into SEO strategy for early-stage startups — which came out of his actual work, not as a side tangent. What I keep coming back to after this conversation: the job search tips that actually work in 2026 are not the ones being taught in career centers. Cold outreach for jobs, done with a real point of view and a willingn...

How to Open a US Company from ANYWHERE in 24 Hours (0% Tax) - w/ Bobby

Mar 19, 2026 51 min

Here's the thing nobody tells you when you start a business from your laptop in Kolkata: the company setup is the easy part. It's the tax side that'll keep you up at night. (Ask me how I know.) In this episode, we unpack the entire Business Anywhere model — what it actually does, who it's for, and why so many location-independent entrepreneurs are using a US LLC as the backbone of their international business setup. If you're a non-US citizen running a foreign-owned US LLC, you already know the structure is powerful. Zero state income tax in certain states, pass-through taxation, credibility with US clients and payment processors. But here's the question most people skip right past: do you actually understand your global tax obligations? We break down the difference between residency-based taxation and citizenship-based taxation — two systems that sound similar but work in completely different ways. Where you live, where your company is registered, and what passport you hold all change the math. And if you're a digital nomad bouncing between countries every few months, that math gets complicated fast. This is where most people get stuck, so we get specific. We walk through real-life examples of legal tax optimization — actual scenarios, not hypotheticals — and talk through how offshore holding companies work in practice. When do they make sense? When are they overkill? We cover tax loopholes that are genuinely on the books and how to use them responsibly. No grey areas, no shady workarounds. We also spend time on something that doesn't get enough airtime: the unique headaches US citizens face with international taxation. Citizenship-based taxation means the IRS follows you everywhere, and the compliance burden is no joke. If that's your situation, we map out a clearer path forward. And if you've been thinking about forming a US LLC from abroad — or you already run one and want to tighten your digital nomad tax strategy — we cover what you need to know about non-re...

How To Build Expert Authority Online (Without Spending ANY Money) - w/ Christine

Mar 4, 2026 54 min

Do you really need a massive following to make a massive impact (and income)? If you're an entrepreneur, coach, or creator, you've probably felt the pressure to go viral. You're told you need 10,000 followers, perfectly polished Instagram reels, and a big budget just to be taken seriously. But what if all that "vanity visibility" is actually distracting you from building a real business? Welcome to The Ready Set Do Podcast. In this episode, I sit down with Christine Blosdale, a literal media veteran with over 25 years of experience. She's worked with giants like America Online and Microsoft, and she's not here to sugarcoat things. In fact, she live-audits my personal brand using her Expert Authority Scorecard—and let’s just say, my score of 41 out of 100 was a wake-up call. Christine breaks down exactly how to transition from being just another face in the feed to a recognized, sought-after expert. This isn't about chasing likes; it's about building a solid foundation of trust. Here's a sneak peek at what we cover in this episode: The Big Mistake of "Helping Everyone": Why having a bio that says "I help everyone do everything" is a fast track to being ignored. We talk about the importance of getting incredibly specific about who you serve and what problem you solve. The Power of the "Who Cares?" Filter: How to stop sounding like a generic corporate brochure and start speaking directly to your ideal client's pain points. We explore a real-life example of transforming a "clinical gut health doctor" into "The Gut Health Expert Who Cares." The "Zero Budget" Blueprint: How to establish your authority and get booked on podcasts without spending a dime on ads. It's about leveraging the knowledge you already have, not buying expensive gear. Overcoming the Imposter Syndrome Trap: What to do when you feel like you aren't "expert enough" to share your message. Christine shares practical advice for pushing past the fear of what other people think. The "Seen, Trusted, Paid" Pipe...

How to Humanize Your AI Copywriting (Ex-DC Journalist POV) - w/ Joshua

Feb 15, 2026 54 min

Beyond the Bot: Why Your AI Marketing is Failing (and the Journalist’s Fix) In the noise-saturated landscape of 2026, the barrier to entry for content has never been lower, but the barrier to trust has never been higher. Everyone has access to the same LLMs, the same prompts, and the same "perfect" prose. The result? A digital environment filled with "brain rot"—content that is grammatically flawless but intellectually invisible. In this episode of Ready Set Do, we sit down with Joshua Altman, CEO of Beltway Media and a former digital media producer for The Hill in Washington, D.C. Joshua spent years in the high-pressure newsrooms of the nation’s capital, covering the White House, Congress, and government agencies. Now, he’s taking those journalistic principles and applying them to the chaotic world of tech marketing. Joshua emphasizes that true content success is 99% pre-production. In the newsroom, you don't just "write"; you plan, you budget, you scout, and you script. If you haven't planned the narrative before you hit record or start typing, you’re going to spend ten times the effort trying to fix it in post-production. One of the most tactical takeaways from the conversation involves the word "you." In the race to be "personable" and "empathetic," many brands have become too casual, sabotaging their own authority. By selectively using "you"—perhaps only in the final call to action—you create a "color pop" effect where the personal connection carries weight because it wasn't overused. Joshua’s stance on AI is refreshing for 2026: AI is a tool, not the end in itself. He suggests that AI is exceptionally good at research, data synthesis, and creating detailed outlines. However, it is "exceptionally bad" at the final product. The reason? AI is too perfect. Humans signal authenticity through "intentional mistakes" and strategic inefficiency. We want to know a person was behind the screen. If your prose is too polished, too symmetrical, and too "formulaic," the hu...

How To Engineer Your Path to an O-1 Visa - w/ Harsh

Feb 7, 2026 51 min

Every year, hundreds of thousands of international students and tech workers face the same terrifying math: there are 85,000 H-1B seats and over 400,000 applications. The odds are not in your favor. But what if you didn’t have to play the lottery at all? In a recent episode of the Ready Set Do Podcast, we sat down with Harsh, an AI Architect who "speed-ran" his way from an international student (F-1) to a Director-level role and an O-1 Visa approval in just three years. Here is how he engineered his career to bypass the H-1B trap—and how you can too. The biggest misconception stopping tech workers from applying for the O-1A (Individuals with Extraordinary Ability) is the belief that you need to be a famous researcher. Harsh explains that AI tools and public forums often perpetuate the idea that "if you have five publications or ten publications, you’re automatically eligible," making the visa feel inaccessible. The reality? "O-1 isn't magic, it’s evidence," says Harsh. You don't need to be famous; you just need to prove your work is rare and impactful in your specific domain. The USCIS requires you to meet 3 out of 8 criteria. Harsh didn't have a PhD or academic citations. Instead, he built a case around his industry impact in "AI/ML in Healthcare". Here are the three pillars of his petition: Harsh realized he needed tangible proof of his expertise. At Optum, his team revamped a slow healthcare search system into a "Google-like" experience for finding doctors. The Evidence: They pulled a patent out of the project, which is now used by multiple subsidiaries. The Lesson: You don't need academic papers. Patents and internal technology that disrupt your company's competitors count as "Original Contributions". To satisfy the "Critical Role" criteria, Harsh strategically took on high-risk projects. He led a team to solve a patient attrition problem costing the company $11.3 billion annually. The Evidence: He delivered the solution in four months, managed the budget, and s...

How to Pivot from Hollywood Writing to AI Disruption ( AI Apps for Neurodivergent People) - w/ Victor

Feb 3, 2026 44 min

What happens when a Marvel writer loses $500,000 on his first tech deal? In this episode of Ready Set Do, I sit down with Victor—a legally blind, albino filmmaker and founder who is disrupting the AI space. We dive into the first few steps of his transition from Hollywood to tech, his unique philosophy on modular AI, and how he's building 'Magic Bookifier' to remove obstacles for neurodivergent writers.Ready Set Do Podcast, Victor Varnado, Marvel Writer, Legally Blind, Albino, AI Founder, Future of AI, Magic Bookifier, Neurodivergent, Startup Failure, $500k Loss, Career Pivot, First Steps, Tech Industry, Hollywood, Jimmy Kimmel, Love & Hip Hop, Tech Startup, Modular AI, AI Coach, Supreme Robot, Innovation, ResilienceTimestamps:00:00 Intro + Background01:19 Navigating Life as a Legally Blind Person03:50 The Journey into Comedy and Writing06:43 Career Trajectory: From Stand-Up to Production08:54 Innovative Projects: Video Games and Writing Assistants12:15 Understanding Neurodivergence14:20 Building Software for Neurodivergent Individuals17:15 The Intersection of Writing and Tech18:06 Lessons from Tech Ventures and Mistakes22:21 The Evolution of AI and Its Applications25:24 The Modular Approach to AI Development27:09 Navigating the Tech Landscape: Pre and Post-AI Era30:43 Pivoting from Tech to Entertainment: First Steps31:49 Creating Engaging Content: The Importance of Quality33:53 The Journey of Filmmaking: From Concept to Production36:29 Overcoming Creative Blocks: The Path to Improvement39:03 The Learning Curve: Embracing the Process40:22 Celebrity Encounters: Stories from the Industry41:59 AI's Impact on Hollywood: A New Era43:05 Supreme Robot: Vision and Future Projects

How To Help Rag-Picker Children in Kolkata Escape Poverty thru Education & Empowerment - w/ Shafkat

Jan 24, 2026 44 min

Is Beast Philanthropy a Scam? The Reality Behind the Viral Video When the world’s biggest YouTuber hands over a check, the internet asks one question: Is it real? Joining us on Ready Set Do is Shafkat Alam, the Joint Secretary of Tiljala Shed and the man who stood face-to-face with MrBeast’s team in the heart of Kolkata’s slums. What he reveals in this episode might dismantle everything you think you know about "internet charity." But the MrBeast story is just the hook. The truth—the real story—is much harder to swallow. The "Garbage" of SocietyShafkat isn't just an administrator; he is a lifeline for a community that society has actively decided to ignore. He works with the "waste pickers"—the families who live alongside the railway tracks and canals, earning their survival by sifting through the trash the rest of us discard. Shafkat shares a gut-wrenching insight early in our conversation: "People consider them dirt and garbage because they deal with dirt and garbage." This isn't a story about pity. It is a story about dignity. It is about fighting a social stigma so potent that even other slum dwellers refuse to associate with these families. Why Kids Choose Trash Over SchoolWe like to believe that if you offer a poor child an education, they will run towards it with open arms. Shafkat corrects this naive assumption with a brutal economic reality. In this episode, we explore the "Rag Picker’s Dilemma." Why would a child sit in a classroom for zero rupees when they can earn ₹50 a day collecting bottles? When survival is on the line, education feels like a luxury they cannot afford. Shafkat walks us through the incredible, strategic patience required to convince a family to choose the long-term promise of a degree over the short-term necessity of dinner. What You Will Learn in This Episode: The Beast Philanthropy Verdict: Did the money actually arrive? Did they keep their promises after the cameras turned off? Shafkat gives us the unvarnished "aftermath" report...

How to Unite 600,000 Strangers Who Want to Be Alone - w/ Amanda

Jan 16, 2026 44 min

How do you build a community of 600,000 people who want to be alone? In this episode, we sit down with Amanda Black, the founder of The Female Traveler Network, to reveal how she turned a simple travel blog into a global empire and a safe haven for half a million women. If you have ever felt the urge to travel solo but were stopped by the fear of loneliness or safety concerns, this conversation is your permission slip to go. Amanda breaks down the reality of life on the road, dismantling the "stranger danger" myth and replacing it with her powerful theory of "Shared Firsts"—the psychological secret to turning strangers into best friends in under 24 hours. Beyond the travel tips, this is a masterclass in community building. We dig deep into the business mechanics of how Amanda monetized an online group without selling out, pivoting from content creation to running high-demand global group tours. Whether you are an aspiring digital nomad, a female entrepreneur, or someone just looking for the courage to book that first ticket, this episode is packed with actionable insights. Inside this episode, we explore: The "Shared Firsts" Strategy: The specific psychological trigger that creates instant, deep bonds between strangers and how Amanda uses it to curate the perfect group dynamic. The 5 Levels of Solo Travel: A diagnostic guide to understanding where you are in your journey, from "nervous planner" to "adventure pro," and how to level up. From Blog to Empire: The step-by-step evolution of The Female Traveler Network. Learn how Amanda recognized a gap in the market and scaled it into a sustainable business model. The Truth About Loneliness: Why being alone doesn't mean being lonely, and how solo travel often leads to more connection than traveling with friends. Safety & Logistics: Practical, real-world advice for women navigating foreign countries, dealing with anxiety, and planning logistics for safety. Monetizing Community: How to build a brand that people trust with t...

How to Mass Produce Humanoid Robots (The Neo @1X Blueprint) - w/ Ritwik

Jan 9, 2026 55 min

Everyone is obsessed with the viral videos of robots folding laundry. Almost no one is talking about the absolute nightmare of actually building the hardware. In this episode, we sit down with Ritwik, the supply chain lead at 1X Technologies—the company behind NEO, the humanoid robot currently going toe-to-toe with Tesla Optimus. If you’ve ever wondered what happens after the prototype works, this is it. We are going deep into the unglamorous, high-stakes world of Supply Chain Management and the "Zero to One" reality of mass-producing androids. The "First Steps" Focus:Aligned with the core mission of this podcast, we don't just talk about the destination. We break down the First Steps required to get there. This episode is a masterclass in two specific types of beginnings: The Ultimate Career Pivot: How do you go from running a farming business in Jabalpur, India, to managing deep-tech logistics in the US? We dissect Ritwik’s exact journey—the first decision to pursue an MS in Supply Chain, the first cold emails, and how he cracked the interview process for a top-tier hardware startup. The Manufacturing "Firsts": How do you build a supply chain for a product that doesn't exist yet? We explore the "Chicken and Egg" problem of training AI data, the first major hurdles of scaling from 10 robots to 1 million, and how to navigate the legal red tape that comes with shipping humanoids globally. What We Cover in This Deep Dive: 1X NEO vs. Tesla Optimus: The real competitive landscape of humanoid robotics. Supply Chain Hell: Why hardware—not AI—is the biggest bottleneck to having a robot in your home. The Reality of "Scaling": Moving from R&D prototypes to mass manufacturing without going bankrupt. Privacy & Safety: Addressing the real concerns of inviting an autonomous bipedal robot into your living room. Negotiation Secrets: How to build relationships with suppliers when you have no leverage. The Human Element: Why the most automated industries still rely heavily on human...

How to Survive the AI Wave as an Engineer (IIT Kharagpur Grad POV) - w/ Aayush

Dec 31, 2025 48 min

Episode Title: Why He Rejected the US for IIT Kharagpur: The AI Career Blueprint Description: Is the "American Dream" still the only path to success for Indian engineers? In a world where the standard advice is to "get a GRE score and leave," Aayush Sugandh did the unthinkable: he stayed. Despite having the profile to go abroad, he chose to double down on India, pursuing his MTech at IIT Kharagpur. But this isn't just a story about a degree. It’s a masterclass on ROI. Aayush breaks down the math of saving ₹50 Lakhs by studying domestically, the reality of the "IIT tag" for Tier-2 and Tier-3 college graduates, and how to build a career launchpad that survives the coming AI wave. If you are an engineering student confused between the GATE exam and the GRE, or a professional wondering if you need a Master’s degree to pivot into Artificial Intelligence, this episode is your blueprint. We discuss the subjective bias against non-IITians, the grind of the IIT coursework, and the exact roadmap to becoming an AI/ML expert in 2025. In this episode, we cover: The "MS in US" Myth: Why staying in India might be the financially smarter move in the current economy. Tier-2 & Tier-3 Struggles: How to overcome the "subjective bias" of recruiters and break into top-tier tech roles. The AI Roadmap: A step-by-step guide to preparing for a career in Machine Learning and AI, even if you are from a Civil or Ocean Engineering background. IIT Kharagpur Reality Check: The truth about networking, placements, and the intense academic pressure inside India's premier institutes. Join the conversation:Are you Team MS or Team MTech? Let us know in the comments! ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Understanding the Value of a Master's Degree04:15 - The Importance of Networking and Learning06:20 - When a Master's Degree Might Not Be Necessary09:42 - The Trade-offs of Job Switching vs. Further Education12:53 - The Role of Self-Learning in Today's Education15:51 - Choosing Between Domestic (MTech) and International...

How to Plan a Sold-Out Fundraising Event (Step-by-Step) - w/ Roger

Dec 19, 2025 45 min

If you think running a nonprofit fundraising event is just about booking a venue, finding a caterer, and collecting auction items, you’re in for a rude awakening. The landscape has shifted beneath our feet. The days of relying on the same 200 people in a ballroom with paper bid sheets are fading fast, and organizations that refuse to adapt are seeing their revenue plateau. In this episode, I sat down with Roger Devine, the Chief Marketer at SchoolAuction.net. We stripped away the fluff to talk about what actually moves the needle in modern fundraising. We aren’t just talking about party planning; we’re talking about the infrastructure, legal compliance, and marketing engines that power successful organizations. The "Boring" Stuff That Kills EventsWe started the conversation by tackling the topic nobody wants to talk about: Legal Considerations (05:35). Roger pointed out a massive blind spot for many mid-sized organizations. When you start running raffles, online auctions across state lines, or hybrid events, you aren't just hosting a party—you are engaging in regulated commerce. We discussed the specific legal pitfalls (11:47) that catch organizers off guard and how to ensure your fundraising support scope is actually compliant. It’s not sexy, but getting this wrong can shut you down. The Tech Stack: Friction is the EnemyOne of the biggest takeaways from our chat was the Evolution of Fundraising Software (20:44). Roger and I dove deep into the user experience. In 2024 and beyond, your donors expect the same seamless experience they get from Amazon or Uber. If your check-in process is clunky or your mobile bidding software crashes, you lose money. We explored the Role of Technology (14:43) not just as a tool for collecting money, but as a way to optimize the guest experience (17:43). The goal? Reduce friction. The easier it is to give, the more people will give. Roger shared insights on how the industry adapted to the pandemic with virtual auctions (26:33) and, more...

How To Deal With A Lay-Off While on OPT (& Get A New Job Within 90 Days) - w/ Aman

Dec 9, 2025 46 min

Laid Off on OPT? How He Stopped the Clock & Got Hired in 40 Days (The Blueprint) Description: Getting laid off is a punch to the gut. Getting laid off on an F1 Visa with the 90-day unemployment clock ticking? That is a full-blown emergency. If you are currently staring at a termination letter and wondering if you have to pack your bags, STOP. DO NOT PANIC. In this episode, we are tearing down the "OPT Layoff Survival Guide." I’m joined by Aman, who faced the exact nightmare scenario: losing his job while on OPT. Instead of letting the 90-day limit push him out of the US, he engineered a strategy to legally pause the unemployment clock and landed a killer new job offer in just 40 days. This isn’t generic "stay positive" advice. This is a tactical, step-by-step masterclass on how to save your visa status and your career. 🔥 WHAT WE COVER IN THIS EPISODE: The "Stop the Clock" Strategy: The exact, legal methods you can use immediately to pause your unemployment days so you don't run out of time. The Sponsorship Trap: How to answer the dreaded "Do you need sponsorship now or in the future?" question without getting automatically rejected. The 40-Day Sprint: The daily schedule Aman used to network, apply, and interview like a machine. Mock Interview Mastery: Why you are failing interviews (and how one specific change in prep can double your offer rate). Negotiating Power: Yes, you can still negotiate your salary even if you are desperate for a visa. Whether you are on Post-Completion OPT, STEM OPT, or just worried about the current job market for international students, this conversation is the playbook you need right now. 🎧 EPISODE CHAPTERS: 00:00Intro & Highlights 01:27Finding out he was laid off (The initial panic) 04:23Navigating the 90-Day Unemployment Constraint 07:27THE STRATEGY: How to Pause the Clock on OPT 10:18Formulating a 40-Day Comeback Plan 13:09Building a "War Room" Support System 15:00Networking & Application Strategy (Quality vs. Quantity) 17:01Finding...

How to Grow from 0 to 100k Followers on LinkedIn (Step-by-Step) - w/ Sai & Sohan

Nov 30, 2025 59 min

Are you afraid to hit "post" on LinkedIn? Do you worry that your employer might judge you, or that you don't have anything valuable to say? In this episode, we sit down with two of the biggest Indian Study Abroad creators on LinkedIn: Sohan Sethi and Sai Kumar Bysani. These two haven't just built followers; they’ve built empires, careers, and life-changing opportunities solely through the power of writing online. We deep dive into their exact journey—from zero followers to becoming the go-to voices in the Study Abroad niche. We cover the "scary" stuff: dealing with hate comments, navigating corporate policies while building a personal brand, and the transition they are now making from text-based LinkedIn posts to visual storytelling on Instagram. If you want to unlock the power of personal branding in 2025, this conversation is your blueprint. The "Cold Start" Problem: How to write your first post when you have zero audience. LinkedIn vs. Reality: How writing online creates offline opportunities (jobs, speaking gigs, and income). The Corporate Trap: How to handle employer perceptions and "moonlighting" concerns. The Strategy: How to build a content process so you never run out of ideas. The Pivot: Why top LinkedIn creators are now aggressively moving to Instagram. 00:00 - Intro: Meeting the Giants of LinkedIn02:20 - Why Start? The Hidden Motivations Behind Content Creation05:17 - Going Viral: How Community Engagement Changes the Game08:01 - "Will I Get Fired?" Navigating Employer & Corporate Concerns11:12 - The ROI of Writing: Real World Value of Content14:14 - The Blueprint: Building a Sustainable Content Strategy16:09 - Life-Changing Rewards: What Happens When You Commit?19:09 - Skill Stacking: How Content Makes You Better at Your Job21:39 - Scaling Up: The Importance of Delegation & Teams29:07 - Process Deep Dive: How Sohan & Sai Actually Write31:23 - Data-Driven: Analyzing Audience Engagement & Trends32:46 - The Dark Side: Dealing with Hate Comments & Trolls36...

How To Stick To Culture-Centered Nutrition (& Why It Matters for NRIs) - w/ Neha

Nov 23, 2025 52 min

Are you an NRI, student, or expat living in the USA who feels sluggish, bloated, or heavier despite "eating healthy"? You are not alone. Millions of Indians move abroad and immediately switch to a diet of salads, cold sandwiches, and protein bars, thinking they are making better choices. Yet, the "Freshman 15" turns into the "expat 20," and gut health issues skyrocket. In this deep-dive episode, we uncover the uncomfortable truth: The American definition of "healthy" might be destroying your gut. We explore the concept of Diaspora Nutrition—the bridge between where you live and where you come from. This isn't just about nostalgia; it's about biology. We discuss why your body craves the warm, cooked, spice-rich foods of your ancestors and how the hyper-processed nature of the US food supply chain (even the "organic" stuff) differs vastly from what you grew up with. We cover everything from the science of the Indian gut to the logistics of finding authentic ingredients in an American city. If you are tired of feeling lethargic and want to reclaim your energy without giving up the foods you love, this episode is your blueprint. 🔥 What You’ll Learn in This Episode: The "Healthy" Food Trap: Why substituting dal-chawal for cold salads might be wrecking your digestion. Sourcing Secrets: How to find authentic, chemical-free Indian ingredients in the US (beyond just the local Patel Brothers). The Cost of Nutrition: Breaking down the math—why investing in quality food now is cheaper than healthcare costs later. Meal Prep for Busy Professionals: Practical, time-saving tips to cook traditional meals while managing a 9-to-5 or grad school schedule. Community & Culture: Why food is about more than calories—it's about identity and community building in a foreign land. Join the Conversation:Are you team "Salad" or team "Sabzi"? Let us know in the Q&A below! If you enjoyed this episode, please rate us 5 stars and share this with a friend who is struggling with their diet in the US....

How To Take The Most Meaningful Vacation of Your Life - w/ Kimberly

Nov 18, 2025 41 min

Most people take trips to relax. Beaches. Cocktails. Photos for Instagram. This conversation is not about that kind of trip. This is about the kind of travel that changes what you think a vacation is for. It is about showing up in a small community somewhere in the world and leaving it a little better than you found it. That idea sits at the center of GlobeAware, a nonprofit that builds one week volunteer programs where anyone can contribute to real projects run by local communities. My guest today is Kimberly-Haley Coleman, the founder of GlobeAware. Two decades ago she built an organization around a simple question. What if everyday people could experience a new country in an honest way and also serve the people who live there. Not as a savior. Not as a tourist with a camera. Just as a fellow human who is ready to help. In this episode Kimberly opens up about how GlobeAware started and what it takes to keep an organization like this alive. We get into the practical side of things. How do you choose projects that matter. How do you avoid the trap of voluntourism. What happens when volunteers show up and do not know the culture. What about safety, logistics, and the fact that people are literally paying to do work. We speak about her favorite projects from across Latin America, Africa, and Asia. We talk about the program in India where volunteers work shoulder to shoulder with local women. They cook, fix, build, teach, and play with children. That connection is the whole point. You arrive as a stranger and in seven days you feel like part of a family. There is also a real business challenge here. Running a volunteer organization is not a feel good hobby. There are coordinators on the ground. There are safety rules. There are governments to work with. There is the constant pressure to maintain dignity in the communities you serve. Kimberly shares how she has stayed committed even when it was hard to find funding or when people misunderstood the mission. If you have e...

How To Switch From Software Dev to Machine Learning Engineer (Amazon SDE -> Tiktok MLE POV) - w/ Umang

Nov 3, 2025 44 min

In this episode of Ready Set Do, my guest is Umang Chaudhary, a Machine Learning Engineer at TikTok and former Applied Scientist at Amazon. Umang’s story is one of momentum — a reminder that you don’t need decades of experience to reach the top tiers of tech. What matters more is the mindset: continuously learning, adapting fast, and being ready to leap when opportunity strikes. We dive deep into how Umang built his way into machine learning roles in Big Tech without prior ML experience, and the exact principles that helped him accelerate his career both internally at Amazon and externally to TikTok. His path shows that success in tech isn’t about luck — it’s about strategic preparation, deliberate skill-building, and understanding where the industry is heading next. Umang breaks down his early struggles, from navigating graduate school in the U.S. to handling the uncertainty of job hunting as an international student. He explains how to find leverage in every stage of your journey — whether that’s converting an internship into a full-time offer, pitching yourself for roles outside your comfort zone, or developing credibility in a field as competitive as machine learning. We also talk about the hidden truth of career acceleration: the importance of consistency over intensity. Umang shares how he prepared for months before landing interviews, why most people give up too early, and what separates those who get rejected once from those who eventually break into elite teams. His advice on managing rejections, reframing failures, and staying mentally sharp during transitions is refreshingly real and actionable. Another major insight from this episode is Umang’s perspective on risk and adaptability inside Big Tech. At Amazon, he learned how scientific rigor meets business impact — and how every algorithm, no matter how elegant, must tie back to measurable outcomes. Moving to TikTok introduced a whole new dimension of risk management, scale, and data culture. We discuss ho...

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Podcast details

Created by: Naman Pandey
Status: Active
Latest episode: Nov 12, 2026
Episodes: 132
Release period: Weekly
Avg. episode length: 50 min
Explicit: No
Language: English

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