On this episode of the Humans of DevOps, Jason Baum is joined by Aparna Balsundar (@AparnaB0607), Ambassador and India Chapter Lead at DevOps Institute. They discuss how Aparna moved to DevOps from HR, DevOps hiring trends, the future of WFH and more!

The lightly edited transcript can be found below.

Narrator 00:02
You’re listening to the humans of DevOps podcast, a podcast focused on advancing the humans of DevOps through skills, knowledge, ideas and learning, or the SKIL framework.

Aparna Balasundar 00:17
I ask them for scenarios where they exhibited their skills when they talk about I have done this or we have done this, I asked them, What did you do in this? And what did you face in this where you have expected a thought or critical thought which could change?

Jason Baum 00:34
Hey, everyone, it’s Jason Baum, Director of membership at DevOps Institute. And this is the Humans of DevOps podcast and I’m so excited today to be chatting with Aparna Bala Sundar, Aparna is the DOI ambassador and India chapter lead for DevOps Institute. She’s a DevOps Practice Lead for the application manage services service line for the APAC region at Capgemini. And has deep experience in applying and setting up DevOps centers of excellence, leading technical and cultural shifts, and strengthening DevOps capability. Aparna spearheads go-to-market strategies and her current and previous organizations that empower the sales, marketing and solutions teams to create and track DevOps roadmaps, develop marketing and communication content, conduct market research and analysis and develop business plans and presentations. She’s very keen on promoting and developing the core human element to drive a DevOps mindset. And I know we’re gonna be touching on that point, Aparna, welcome to the podcast.

Aparna Balasundar 01:36
Thank you. And I’m really excited to talk to you, Jason and be a part of this podcast.

Jason Baum 01:41
Awesome, thank you so much for being here. And, you know, I love BIOS like yours, because I feel like I have a really good understanding of you know, what it is that you do. And I feel like we should be doing that, like, when we get back in person, someone should just follow us around when we’re gonna be introduced. And just like say that, say your bio before your shake can’t Well, I guess we’re not shaking hands. But before you do the fist bump, or whatever we’re doing now?

Aparna Balasundar 02:05
Absolutely. I think if the, as you just mentioned, if BIOS could talk, maybe that’s the that’s going to be the future, probably things could just talk by themselves.

Jason Baum 02:14
There we go. Now someone needs to just get on developing that, and then we’re good. Well, thank you so much again, and we’re going to get human today. So should we just dive right in?

Aparna Balasundar 02:25
salutely. Right.

Jason Baum 02:27
So Aparna, I’m really interested to, in getting to know your backstory a little bit and how you got to where you are in your career, you know, with the application manage services side for the APAC region of Capgemini. Obviously, that’s a that’s a pretty big role right there as DevOps Practice Lead. So, you know, how did you kind of make your way along this path? Where did you get started?

Aparna Balasundar 02:54
Right, I would just go with the trend, probably and say, put in hashtag and say, don’t turn away. That’s going to be the mantra don’t turn away with hashtag. So the journey of somebody who’s from a non-tech background, and I would if I have to plot the graph from where I started as an HR professional 18 years ago, and moved all the way up to I don’t know how many paths that have crossed, and then right now being where I am, which you read in my bio. So it’s been quite a bit of a journey. 18 plus years in the software industry is, it’s a huge thing. When I look back, it’s like a big number right now, where the first seven years I was part of the HR human resources, I was into resource management and recruitment. I did my engineering but I thought probably I should take this route of human resources I, I always feel and felt and still feel, I’m good at people management, that’s my strength and core area. So I straight got into that after my engineering and my strength was ways of working with people. So I moved up. While I was doing that, I suddenly was asked for a job role shift, asked me to after seven-plus years, I was asked to move into procurement management, procurement of servers, and routers, and all the things which you might see in a data center. This was for a particular customer in the UK HealthCare. And they said Just can you probably handle that and that’s how I got into infrastructure.

Jason Baum 04:39
That’s so interesting because I would not think HR to the IT side is something that’s a path that many people follow. Right? So how did you have a why did they ask you to kind of make that or did you ask for that change?

Aparna Balasundar 04:54
No, no, I actually came back from my post-metal I believe and all. And then they said, We fulfilled your role in the HR with somebody and you have to take something else. So it was like, I didn’t have a choice. I mean, you don’t get choices. So you become what is there in front of you?

Jason Baum 05:13
Is that why you say don’t turn away is that it’s not where that mantra came from?

Aparna Balasundar 05:19
Absolutely. So you’ll have to just pick your opportunities, do not think twice to put your hands up. That’s what I tell everybody beat my team, and especially to the girls. And the women out there, put your hands up, fight right in the front of the table. Just put your hands up if you get an opportunity. Be the first.

Jason Baum 05:40
Yeah, that’s pretty good advice. As a woman in the tech field. I guess early on, did you have? Did you have things that kind of got in the way that some barriers to entry? Did you ever feel like you are on the outside?

Aparna Balasundar 06:00
Absolutely. I mean, change is difficult. Change is not change is going to be not something that you might like, but you do it because there is no choice. First thing, but probably when you look back, you feel that maybe that was right. And if it wasn’t right, but it was a good lesson at least. So that’s what I thought probably if it works well and well. If it doesn’t work, I know where I can go back to. So that’s what my mindset was. And I’m still I still do that. Because if I’m going to tell you what I have done after that, it is like every six months or one year, there was a change in role. I hated the I probably I like to move on and keep moving on. And stagnation was never a case in mine. So what happened was from procurement, they said, why don’t you take project management, you’re doing procurement really well. So I said, Okay, I will do infrastructure project management. And from there moved into project management for the application development side. And another couple of years in that and then I moved into a strategic role with my previous company, which was CSE Computer Sciences Corporation, which is right now dxc. So there was a team, which was formed in back in 2013, which was like a strategic team for the custom application development. And as part of the DevOps was something that was getting introduced. And it was, it was a perfect agile team with five members, each of them at each corners of the world like my boss was in. In Australia, I had my team members, one of them in need couple of them in India, one of them in the UK, and another in us. So it was a perfect team, which was still coordinating across the time zones, and we were probably the pioneers to get started with introducing DevOps. So that gave me a lot of confidence to learn about it back in 2013, like setting things up. Probably creating your collaterals and artifacts in terms of how do you even bring in the value? What are you going to go and tell your customers? How are you going to convince them that you’re better than your customer? So it involves the sales and marketing side, it involves the pre-sales, it involves being a liaison between the solution delivery teams and the sales teams so that you become the pivot and work along all of them. And convince them saying that this is the way forward, we were quite early is what I could say then, but then that was like my starting point with DevOps to know learn. And from there, I have moved on to a couple of more companies and right now with Capgemini. But after that, it has been like setting up the cog for DevOps. And the company before this, it was like setting it up and also managing a huge team of 30 people across like 1011 Customers who wanted to do DevOps, or who are already doing DevOps. So it’s been if you plot the graph, it has just gone high up, up, and up, but it has been quite a bit of a journey.

Jason Baum 09:18
I’m overwhelmed. I mean, I seriously you must not be someone who scares very easily.

Aparna Balasundar 09:26
Oh, yeah, I don’t get those probably. Because

Jason Baum 09:29
I mean from I don’t think I’m at a loss for words. I’m kind of like thinking, you know, the jumping around that you did? And maybe not recently, but But initially, in your career from various different paths, and areas of expertise. I mean, I would for me, if I don’t know enough about a subject, I get a little, you know, I want to go and learn as much as I can because I don’t want to sound silly when I’m talking to someone else. About the Topic, which has been an actually interesting thing for me here on this podcast, because I’d like to, you know, as I always say to our guests, I really don’t I stepped into this, and I don’t know anything about DevOps. I know very little bit about it. So this has been an educational journey for me. I would imagine, you know, making the leap, for example, from HR to it. And then for what you were doing, you know, with project management, to, you know, to the next step into DevOps, and it’s a completely different understanding. And I understand that, and maybe we could talk about this. I’m sure you took pieces from each role. And that’s kind of how you shaped into becoming a DevOps professional.

Aparna Balasundar 10:43
Absolutely.

Jason Baum 10:45
Did you go to school? Like, what did you study when you were in? University?

Aparna Balasundar 10:52
I did my engineering, instrumentation and control. But that has nothing to do with what I am doing right now. Yeah, but if I have to answer this question, how did this leap happen? Yeah. If I have to tell the truth, it scares, because you will have to still project as somebody who knows, because people around, you know, things. But what, what I had to do, and I still do is I keep learning. I go shamelessly asking people even be the silliest of doubts, it may be for them to even judge me. But then I gain from that at the end of the day. So I, I go about I network, I communicate. And I think that’s what DevOps talks right communication and collaboration, maybe, if I, if I have to look at my younger self until I would just say that do that more. Probably the schools should beat these skills more than what they do. Actually, that’s what I would do this.

Jason Baum 11:58
And, you know, the buzzwords that I have been learning, you know, with digital transformation, cultural transformation. I’m sure with a background, like what you have with what you learned in HR probably comes into play quite a bit these days, I would think.

Aparna Balasundar 12:19
Right? You’re talking about from the headshot that I picked up, I think, zoom out and see all the interconnections that you have, you have to do your prioritization skills, you have to pick up your empathy. I think critical thinking and skillsets. Those are like very important responsibilities for professionals right now.

Jason Baum 12:44
And something that that I think you say is, you know, the human side of culture, that gets largely ignored. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Aparna Balasundar 12:56
Absolutely. So, when we talk about DevOps, I’m sure even you must be hearing, it’s all about the tools and technologies around the market is overcrowded, or I think, if there is one tool today, there’s definitely going to be something else tomorrow. So there’s never going to be an end to that. But who’s going to be controlling all that is the humans. So and where is the connections, I still see there is a huge gap. And I’m sure even the reports have mentioned that the companies which are doing DevOps might fail tomorrow if they do not work and concentrate on the human element of it. So I think that is the huge missing block, even when we talk about it right now, saying that a lot of companies are DevOps ossified companies, but are they? Are they humans? Who could spread that message? I think that’s the message with DevOps Institute gives, and which we should probably take forward. And how many companies are realizing that is a big question mark, even now.

Jason Baum 14:03
I mean, it’s right in the tail title of this podcast, the humans of DevOps, and we do try to focus, you know, on the humans themselves, and I think it’s right, it’s applying the tech to human is, is different. You’re thinking differently than creating a perfect, perfect software, maybe that doesn’t really exist, but a software that can be easily onboarded or explained and utilized by humans, right may not be the perfect software.

Aparna Balasundar 14:33
Right? Absolutely. Because if there are humans, if there are team members who are motivated to probably be good in their foundation and basic, I think tools are just like the back of their hand, they are going to be learning it anyway. And if they have to survive, they will still learn it. But what are you going to be doing to hire these engineers? I think more than hiring the DevOps in engineers who are just based on their skills of tools and technologies. I have done hiring for DevOps in the current and the previous companies. What I look for is their mindset. What I look for is their attitude, their learning capabilities. Can they give good customer service? Can they actively listen? And communication? When we say communication, it’s just not about speaking and you’re reading, right? What about your writing? How many people are even concentrating on their email communication? Can they write well? Are they willing to share? Are they willing to talk the truth? Are they committed to the team, and more about their critical thinking and empathy? I think these are like whole bunch of skills. I asked them, I asked them for scenarios where they exhibited their skills, I mean, it cannot it may not be a direct questions, but when they talk about I have done this, or we have done this in their resume, or while they talk, I asked them, What did you do in this and what did you face in this, which, where you have exhibited a thought, critical thought which could change and those are the people who probably will be the future, you just cannot buy them right now. They, these skills have to be ingrained right now.

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Jason Baum 17:14
There’s a lot of things that can go wrong there too. I feel like with all those scenarios, all those factors that make us human rights, so humanity is not but by being a human, you are not perfect. So yeah, there’s so many I feel like instances there where it’s not the same for everybody.

Aparna Balasundar 17:33
Absolutely, it is not a not everybody could have faced scenarios where they could have or need to display the skills. But what a good leader can do is teach them so that’s where the leaders have to be groomed in such a way that they know these skills. Obviously, when you hire Fishers of people who have lesser experience, they look up to leaders who can motivate them who can teach them who can whom they can trust, respect, and they will be cared for. I think that’s where I will be very glad to say that my HR skills dealing with so much of recruitment and resource management because that had to just deal with people so it automatically came like a skill which was probably complementing to this right now. And that probably helped me move on in my career.

Jason Baum 18:25
So I guess Did you ever I mean, you jumped around from area to area and obviously molded you know, your ability to do what it is that you do today. Did you have speaking of great leaders? Did you have a great leader or mentor? That kind of helped you along your path?

Aparna Balasundar 18:43
Absolutely. There were quite a few of them. If I have if I can bring out some people I think in my dxc there was a person by the name largish, who was who knew these people knew that I didn’t have the inner experience, but they still supported me, my mentor and my manager who was with PFC his name was Katie and still there in Australia, but then he helped me a lot. He he was a tough taskmaster, but then that helped me prove that I could pick up more challenges. I think that’s where that’s where I got molded myself to know where do I need to draw line? Where do I need to know? Know to? Where should I know? Where can I say no? Where can I say yes, and what my capability is? And probably some of the mentors that have had I’ve been really lucky to have them

Jason Baum 19:36
and along with that, you know, did you not get advice may be that you wish you had that maybe you picked up along the way?

Jason Baum 19:50
Yeah, that’s a tough question. Yeah. Been you on the spot. That’s what we did a little bit.

Aparna Balasundar 19:56
Yeah, but I probably as probably get a little more to celebrating each other’s achievements. I think that should be, that should be a thing that should have been taught to me more exhibited more by more leaders so that I could also have picked up. But I did miss that a little bit here and there, I realized it and I course-corrected. So I think that’s one thing that I can say here.

Jason Baum 20:26
That’s a good one. You know, I feel like we’re learning about DevOps and DevOps principles. I’m loving the concept of a blameless culture. I think that’s such a great, you know, people like to be motivated, they don’t want to be scolded. And, you know, no one wants to be told what they’re doing wrong. I mean, you even you can even apply that principle. You know, I have, I’ve talked about her a few times, but I have a four-year-old. And even at that age, like with, with, there’s so much learning that they’re doing everything they do is wrong. And pretty much you know, they’re, you’re just this impulse being at that age. And, and typically what they do is ever is wrong. And no one wants to be told over and over again, how to do it right, or that they’re doing it wrong. They want to learn through observation and be told when they’re doing it, right, you’re celebrating the small wins, right? And not constantly being told what’s wrong, I feel like that, that should never end. That’s kind of something we should all just practice all the time.

Aparna Balasundar 21:24
Absolutely, we should probably learn to celebrate each other’s success, and probably be more open to go ahead and tell people and give them a pat on the back. Because I see that something that is lagging. I have even had instances if I can quote, where you send out a mail to your team member saying congratulations. And they don’t respond back with a thank you. Because there could be only two reasons when somebody doesn’t know something. They don’t want to do it. They don’t know how to do it. So I think a lot of times when I have gone ahead and told them as feedback when somebody appreciates you, you are supposed to say thank you, or probably acknowledge it. They said they didn’t know it, that they’ll have to respond back. They thought, okay, it’s fine. I’ve got a mail, I’ve done it. Good. So

Jason Baum 22:15
that’s one-way street right there. And that’s another really basic principle. I feel like when someone says, Hey, nice job, you say thank you.

Aparna Balasundar 22:25
I think that’s what I would say, a lot of things. People take it for granted, but rather, you should teach them may be in your high school to say thank you, and please, and all these things are going to be helpful for you in the future. That’s what

Jason Baum 22:42
should be earlier than that, you know, we try to you know, I feel like kindness, you know, is something that’s like a very basic principle that you should be taught early, because I think being kind always gets you further in life than maybe kicking, screaming and yelling, and not being kind.

Aparna Balasundar 23:01
Absolutely, because that’s where strong leadership comes from because you know, where to stand and how to act in the interest of others. And see, and do I think your people see it, probably, and maybe they pick up these qualities, I have seen that I have done that. And I think there are people who have looked at me and done that also. So I strongly believe train people in such a way that they can leave you but treat them in such a way that they don’t want to leave you this is such a favorite quote of mine from Richard Branson. But I really love that train people so that they can meet, but treat them so well that they don’t want to leave.

Jason Baum 23:42
Yeah, that’s a great quote. That’s a really good quote. And you’ll probably get better productivity out of them. Right? And, and they’ll be happy, you’ll be happy. That’s that’s like the perfect scenario. What’s the like? So those? That’s some good advice for managers? Do you have advice for incoming, you know, DevOps engineers, or people who are just kind of starting out maybe earlier in their career that can help them along their journey?

Aparna Balasundar 24:15
Sure, I think the missing link, which people the engineers should know is the human contact, and they should start doing that. Get to know the people better. There’s no harm talking to people, because we still see islands of people, islands of developers, hands of testers, and QA and security even within the same team because it’s I I really wonder what stops them from talking. So consciously, the leader should go ahead and make your team members meet and I think the engineers who are joining should take this as an advice that get to know your people get to know each other in your team have a good communication channel between each other, and foster knowledge sharing and blame-free culture. I think that’s that would be the advice. Because when I, I right now I have doubled up also as a scrum master for a particular customer. So I follow the three ways of DevOps, flow, feedback and continuous learning. So when I tell them about the flow, it’s just not about finishing the task, it is finishing a task and making sure that you do not have so many things on starting new and limiting your work in progress. Because people think that if I have more work in progress, I’m making a lot of progress, but it is not. And automating the manual tasks and backlog grooming, because in the rush to do the work, they do not understand why they should do grooming of your backlog grooming and talking to your product owners? Why is it important? How is it important? So I do that coaching right now to make them understand that all this makes you a better individual, rather than just trick you as I if I have to tag you, as a good developer or a better individual pick up what you want is the question that I have when I talk about flow. And when I talk about the feedback, I I advise them to write more tests, do more code reviews, do more peer reviews and involve your business analyst, involve your product owner involve the business right from the start, rather than use call yourself joy and DevOps, you do not go back to them and tell them, I think that’s a problem again, and the continuous learning, I think, please read eradicate technical depth and learn to collaborate because many of them, let me tell you this. And the problem is many of them have not been exposed to production infrastructure. So what happens is, they do not know in case if they are even doing a mistake, you can expect everyone to know the hidden rules without even being exposed to it. So I think that’s where the learning comes from. I have my architects, continuously teach them, give them, give them the tricks of the trade that will help them the engineers to move and take the next positions as they go on. So I think I have made it as a mandatory thing, very critical. The onboarding documents, your knowledge transfer, and the continuous learning. That’s, that’s gonna really help.

Jason Baum 27:37
Oh, great advice. And, you know, what’s something now, I want to get back to your, your thoughts, perhaps on maybe the opportunities that lie ahead? For in the DevOps space? You know, there’s been so much change within the past year, due to the pandemic, you know, what do you see as some of the biggest challenges that have come out of that, and, and perhaps, you know, being more positive, what are the opportunities?

Aparna Balasundar 28:10
Right, I think the biggest challenge, which pre COVID that a lot of people faced was resistance to work from home, just systems to keep them the secure access to be wherever you are, and still be working. I think that has moved on. And it is. Right now, there’s a lot of work and trial and error methods, but the demands for working from anywhere that has given rise to a lot of people in terms of exhibiting, exhibiting the secure ways of working, exhibiting new ways of working, I think what COVID has done is more than enter it with the entire technology, maybe by 10 years. That’s what the reports from Gartner. And everybody says, and it has probably happened for good

Jason Baum 29:10
to be so amazing. Yeah.

Aparna Balasundar 29:13
I don’t think there was a lot of openness towards working from wherever you are. And I think that’s become the norm today. And it’s only getting better, we don’t see any resistance to it. You are working wherever you are from and it does reduce a lot of your travel time and it has become more productive. Yes. On the other hand, meeting and collaborating. There is nothing second to it. I don’t have any second thoughts on that. But yes, this is the best that you could do. If you’re given lemons, make lemonade and have it.

Jason Baum 29:50
So does that mean we’re probably going to be headed back to perhaps a hybrid system and maybe not, you know, full time in the office but perhaps maybe not. full time at home either.

Aparna Balasundar 30:01
Absolutely, I think if you ask me personally, and I’m sure you will also agree to it, it is going to be hybrid, it has happened for the good. And I think that’s the only positive way of looking at it, because there’s no other choice that we have, because your officers, my officers are all like ghost officers right now with just chairs sitting down there. So what you could just look at for the future will be in hybrid ways of working, be wherever you are, and give me the output. I think that’s the way the leader should also have their mindset because we are talking about mindset and culture, we are not talking about the engineers only here we are talking about the leaders, the senior leaders, and the people who have to first think that the results matter and trust your people. So I think in the future, a lot of sentiment analysis is going to be a bay of work, a lot of opinion metrics are going to come up, I think, forget the voice of the customer, it’s also going to be the voice of team and voice of society, that voice of your company, it is going to be your companies are going to listen to you they are going to probably I think the term here is you know, internet of behavior. So that we provide the right feedback. And we alter the behavior of people.

Jason Baum 31:28
It’s trust, right? At the end of the day, I feel like the company’s businesses had to trust their people, employees, you know, it’s no, no, maybe this is a weird and analogy. I just, I don’t know, go with me here. No, I’m in a weird space that I, I feel like, you know, in back in school, I remember you just have to raise your hand and ask permission to use the restroom, which is such an antiquated thing to do, if you think about it, like we don’t trust people to just say, to just be able to go and do something so simple and that everyone has to do. And I feel like that’s kind of like the trust factor with employees and aren’t with an employer and their employee to be able to work from home these days because it feels like that’s something that everyone can do. And yeah, there was this weird approach to it. I feel from the employer that if you’re working from home, you’re not working. And clearly, over the past year and a half, we’ve learned that’s not true because productivity went up when people are working from home. And it’s just amazing what happens when you actually trust people.

Aparna Balasundar 32:34
Correct? I think that was one of the missing links because we tell our own employees to build trust with our customer. But have we built it within our own team? Have we built it within the organization? I think that is going to be a big question mark and has every company has to accept it, that a lot of them have failed to do that. And they’ll have to build it. Yeah, I

Jason Baum 32:57
hope that trust remains. I mean, I think some employers are seeing this. Well, now let’s sell the building. Let’s keep everybody home. But yeah, and that doesn’t hurt when you’re making when you can save money, too. But yeah, I hope that that trust factor remains. I think it will. Yeah, but I’m an optimist. So moving on, and you know, with COVID and just on that topic, you know, what are some things that you’ve been doing for yourself to kind of keep your mind right, and in a good positive frame of mind throughout all this?

Aparna Balasundar 33:36
Oh, yes, I have picked up gardening skills. I have a lovely, nice balcony right now which has flowers. Me and my daughter, we took gardening classes for five weeks, every day, for one hour in the evening, we just zoomed in on this call and we were learning that yoga was another thing. And I’m a trained singer, way back. But now I have again restarted it so that I remain sane. If you asked me. I don’t want to hide it. But yes, I was also one of those who felt really depressed. I mean, we are humans and the human way is to mix collaborate and talk and look at people and it’s a very natural way. We are used to it and suddenly we do not get to do that. It was It seemed very overwhelming. It seemed not the right thing to do. But then to remain sane to probably get my daughter also to feel that it is okay and everything is still going to be fine. We are going to have a hopeful future. I had to divert do other things. And I think it just feels nice right now when you look at look outside your balcony and terrorism. There are nine nice plants that are sitting there and flowering. It’s good

Jason Baum 35:00
Yeah, gardening is very zen. I think I’ll need your help with that because I’m terrible at keeping things like keeping like my plants alive, I’d sell anything I wish I could do I finally have good grass this year because we’ve just you know, been home so I can actually water it. Other than that though, I think I need some assistance. I turn to music I always tell people Music has always kind of been my little Savior I feel like it can put you honestly could do either. It could put you in a really depressed mood or positive depending on the way you like to go with it. But I like to I always kind of go that way.

Aparna Balasundar 35:40
Gardening one thing, which you key skill that you pick up is? Patience. Yes, you don’t. You don’t say it. And you don’t get to see the results. The next day, you just have to do your work. And you will see the results probably in two weeks time, three weeks time, six months time. But you got to do it every single day. You have to fly, you have to water them, you have to probably talk to them.

Jason Baum 36:07
Maybe that’s what I’m not doing enough of I need to start talking. I have neighbors though. If they like start thinking that I’m going. Going crazy. I don’t want them to call anybody. Maybe I’ll start doing that though, anyway. Well, this is great. Oh, you know what? I like to ask this question and totally put my guests on the spot. But what’s one unique thing about you that nobody knows, I think you kind of shared a couple there. But is there anything else?

Aparna Balasundar 36:39
I love Zumba. I think not a lot of knows that. But I just can get into the moves. I think that’s my biggest stress. Stress Buster stress reliever. And I am I do that for 510 minutes. And I’m like all up and high.

Jason Baum 36:58
That’s great. That’s great. Well, Aparna, thank you so much for being on the podcast today.

Aparna Balasundar 37:05
Thank you, Jason. I think it was wonderful to talk about everything else other than tools and technology for a change, and it was a very light and nice conversation. Thank you so much.

Jason Baum 37:18
It was great getting to know you. I appreciate it. And I always say I feel like I have another friend after these podcasts.

Aparna Balasundar 37:25
Absolutely. We are going to connect more on our gardening tips. No,

Jason Baum 37:28
definitely. Yes. I’m going to call you on that. Y’all thank you so much for listening to this episode of the humans of DevOps Podcast. I’m going to end this podcast the same as I always do, by encouraging you to become a premium member of the DevOps Institute to get access to even more great resources just like this one. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and most of all, stay human, live long and prosper.

Narrator 37:55
Thanks for listening to this episode of the humans of DevOps podcast. Don’t forget to join our global community to get access to even more great resources like this. Until next time, remember, you are part of something bigger than yourself. You belong