Last week, I returned to India for the first time since the beginning of COVID — and what a journey it was! To and from India from Las Vegas in just 6 days, the trip involved two full days of flights and layovers, fueled by coffee and anticipation. At one point, I found myself sprinting through the Delhi airport, escorted through express lanes just to make my connection. By the time I landed in Bangalore, I was exhausted but energized, ready to dive into meetings and reconnect with the community.
Bangalore did not disappoint. I met with a few customers and prospects, hearing firsthand about their testing strategies, challenges, and ambitions.
Visiting the Flipkart office was a highlight — walking through a tech complex buzzing with thousands of engineers was awe-inspiring. I could feel the energy and innovation in every corner.
I also spent time with one of our partners at Texas AI, sharing ideas and exploring ways to help teams move faster and build more reliable systems.
Then it was off to Hyderabad for KubeCon, where the conference was a whirlwind of learning and collaboration. The Pega Systems session on using Speedscale to prevent outages drew a packed room, and every conversation with partners and customers — from Flipkart to Myntra — left me energized with fresh perspectives and new ideas.
Returning to India after so long also gave me a chance to reflect on how much the country has changed over the past 10 years. The middle class has grown, elevated trains now connect major parts of the cities, and the immigration process is now fully electronic and much faster. I noticed is the rise in consumerism, with more American food and retail chains appearing across cities. These improvements make travel and daily life smoother and highlight the incredible growth and modernization India has experienced. On the challenge side, traffic is still very bad. During one taxi ride, it took two hours to travel just 10 miles to the airport. I tried to catch a few minutes of sleep, but because the car needed to keep up with the one in front, it jerked forward quickly and then stopped abruptly, while motorcycles weaved constantly between cars.
Despite the bumpy ride, the energy and ambition across cities and the engineering community are palpable.
Stay tuned for Part 2: I’ll dive into KubeCon in Hyderabad — from packed sessions and hands-on demos to insightful conversations with the Kubernetes community. I’ll share highlights from the Pega Systems session(https://kccncind2025.sched.com/event/23Ev9/containerized-time-travel-replicating-production-performance-sravanthi-naga-hari-babu-volli-pegasystems?iframe=yes&w=100%25&sidebar=yes&bg=no), key learnings from partners and customers like Flipkart and Myntra, and a few personal reflections on what makes the cloud-native ecosystem so dynamic and inspiring.