Employee Spotlight: Haritha Prasad, Manager, Technical Publications

Having worked as an information developer for over a decade, Haritha Prasad, Acceldata’s Manager of Technical Publications, has leveraged her passion and flair for the written word to establish order and structure within an organization’s technical documentation vertical. Here, she explains her career journey, her interests outside of work, and the things that inspire her to perform at her best every day.

How did you get started in your career? 

It has been over a decade since I started working on information development, and content strategy for various MNCs and startups. I started my career as a software engineer and progressed from there, combining my expertise in technology along with my passion for writing. At first, it was all about content structure, publications, or, describing what every product did. It then expanded to knowing the audience,business use-cases, experimenting with trends, working on analytics, and strategizing B2B content, and thus it became a continuous learning process. 

What do you feel about our company culture?

Acceldata as an organization prioritizes collaboration and encourages creative problem-solving. I can happily say that as a woman employee within the company, this is a healthy, encouraging, and happy place with no bias for all genders to work. The company’s culture in fact is the lengthened shadow of our leadership team’s vision, to have a nurturing environment for Accelos to solve complex problems in the data industry. 

What is your team like?

I can wax lyrical about my team for hours. Being fun like a family is a cliche to quote, but why not use it when it’s true?. We have cross-functional talents in the team extending from technical writing, front-end coding, video making, Adobe skill sets, DAP knowledge, and above all, a sense of belongingness to Acceldata. 

I strive to be a personally and professionally nurturing manager to my team because I believe that the time we spend together takes up 1/3rd of our lives, which probably might be more than what we spend actively with our families. Being in a startup, we constantly face priority shifts for deliveries with changes in business strategies at all levels, and content is one department that goes through reformations all the time. In such scenarios, I believe that my team works like a well-oiled machine.

What are some of the things you’ve perceived about our leadership team? 

Our leadership team consists of real visionaries in the data industry. I have observed that they possess a broad mindset, are accommodating, and foster collaboration among Accelos to develop solutions that address issues in real-time. Our CEO Rohit Chaudhary and CTO Ashwin Rajeev need no introduction in the data industry as they are renowned leaders and pioneers of many new concepts in the Big Data environment. For that reason, I am thrilled to be working and learning with them. 

What parts of our mission do you bond with?

I align the most with Acceldata’s culture of collaboration and synergy. The organization promotes its employees to take maximum ownership of their areas of expertise and has always been welcoming to new ideas and research. 

What has been your significant masterstroke on our team?

The things that I have been most proud of accomplishing at Acceldata would have to be when I introduced a Technical Documentation domain to organize all our publications under a single roof.. Also, I helped introduce analytics to scrutinize how our publications perform. I am also happy to have expanded our documentation to microlessons, in-app tours, API/SDK documentation, and changelogs over time. 

If you can tell us a little about your background, precisely how you came to be in the data analytics industry?

My interest in learning about data science started when I joined IIIT-Hyderabad, as a research intern who worked on Big data. There on, while I was working for an MNC in the banking domain, I stumbled upon this great opportunity to be a part of a Big Data startup called Infoworks. I later pursued my executive program in strategic management and digital innovations from IIT Delhi. The learning, the challenges, and the significance of the field piqued my interest, and I couldn't put it down. That’s how I decided to continue the combination of ‘Being in a startup and ‘Being in Big Data’, because it intrigued me both as a student and a contributor to the field. 

What set of resources have you clouted and held onto while on our team?

My best set of resources at Acceldata is Developer Hub, Google Analytics, Adobe Suite, and most importantly my rock-star team!!

What’s the most unique part about working at Acceldata?

The uniqueness about working in Acceldata is definitely the feeling of being a part of the team that coined the term ‘Data Observability’, which definitely is one of the most critical and complex issues in the world today. How often does one get the opportunity to be  a pioneer of new technology?

What is the best career lesson you’ve learned so far? 

The best lesson I have learned from Acceldata, and my startup journey so far is that challenges will never stop coming your way. However, if you strive slowly, and persistently, setting small milestones towards the result, keep moving ahead one day at a time with patience, focussing in the right direction on the issue in hand for a resolution, one day, sooner than you realize, you will definitely overcome it all. A mess would never give you the perfect result. Clarity of thought will be your key to success. Things might look slow at various points in life, but we must keep running.

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How has your career grown since starting at the company?

My career has grown considerably since I joined Acceldata. From being an individual contributor to becoming a manager who had to start a team from scratch, develop everything that’s needed for a Technical Publication team including style guides, templates, training, and buying the basic publication tools, I am happy to be in a place where I have a talented team of writers.  Moreover, I have a well-defined toolset that helps us work well together with self-sufficiency. I have also been able to be an integral part of Acceldata’s CSR activities, which has always been a priority for me in the places I have worked at.

What would you do for a career if you weren’t doing this?

I have always been an avid traveler, and am excited to hit the road for my first visit to the last unvisited state of India this May. I believe in stories that create lands and people, and I also believe that these experiences  can enable us to become better versions of ourselves. So, had I not been here doing what I do, I would have been a responsible globetrotter with a plan that would make the world a slightly better place to live in. 

What’s a fun fact about you that many people may not know?

Well, I believe in talking to plants and animals. In my mind, right now at this very moment, I am conflicted with the fact that I listed this as a fun fact. You know, I am kind of serious about it.

Where’s your favorite place in the world?

Have been dreaming of seeing the northern lights in Norway for a long time now. I think I began romanticizing  it ever since I watched a documentary about the same on Nat Geo. So probably, that’s where my mind is now. 

However, in India, I was mesmerized by the sunset at the Rann of Kutch. I saw the Sun literally falling off the edge to the other side, so I don’t know where! The list goes on. 

What is your motto or personal mantra

‍I wish to live by the fact that every day is a new opportunity, and to make compassion an integral part of it. 

If you could meet anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would it be?

I would love to meet my dad whom I lost when I was 4. I don’t know him at all. So, yeah, I would love to have a long chat and get to know the man who  passed on his love for literature and writing to me. 

What is your favorite TV show/movie?

My go-to movie is The Pursuit of Happyness. It aligns well with my idea of life, to constantly show up, steer with direction, and then, hang that picture on my wall which says “Don't ever let someone tell you, you can't do something. Not even me. You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they want to tell you you can’t do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.”

What is the one item you’ve learned in the previous month, whether connected to your industry or not?

Career-wise: I have learned a lot about working with SEO, digital marketing, and business analytics more in the last month than in my whole career. 

Personally: I learned about the power of Gratitude. True gratitude towards what you have expands your vision and helps you heal. 

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