Real conversations and insights on maker's careers and hiring.
Hireworthy podcast brings you conversations you've never heard before, from Designers, Product Managers and Leaders from Asia, with insights on careers in design & product management. Tune in every fortnight.
Hireworthy is an Xperian Initiative
Listen to the Podcast
View by Season
Season 2
New Episode every Fortnight
Learn about ESOPs in India
Sahil Talwar, Head of Customer Success –EquityList
Episode Released: 6 Sept 2020
Episode BriefIn a country that is low on Financial Literacy, Equities, ESOPs can be confusing for someone who has been offered some or has an opportunity to take them up. In collaboration with EquityList by AngelList India we bring you this episode which gives you the basics of ESOPs, Tax structure in India & some must knows.
About the SpeakerSahil Talwar is the Head of Customer Success at EquityList by AngelList. Prior to AngelList, Sahil was part of Squad Inc and soon realised his love for building a customer success driven Organisation Culture. With roots in Business operations, Sahil went on to Head the process of customer success for India and US at Squad before leaving to join EquityList earlier this year.
Sahil firmly believes that a company’s entire culture should reflect a customer first approach from product building to delivery. Building and maintaining cordial relations with customers and business partners paves a strong path for growth.
Learn about Skillsets in Building Startups
Misbah Ashraf, Co-Founder/CEO – Marsplay
Episode Released: 13 Aug 2020
Episode BriefThe topic of skills divide us as makers, designers & product managers.. Everyday you hear an opinion on what skills a makers should have. Should be a generalist or a specialist? Especially, when you are looking to run your startup do any of these skills even matter? What goes beyond just these skills?
About the SpeakerMisbah Ashraf, who is currently building Marsplay - a community-led commerce platform for fashion and beauty. Previously led product and growth at multiple global startups like Toymail, Spangle, Pulse.qa, Pursuit, Keygo.me backed by YC, Social Capital, Alexa Fund, True Ventures, Sequoia, Angel List, among others. He also dropped out of college earlier with his friends from IIT D to build a Fintech startup called Cibola, i.e. Venmo of India.His passion lies in building products that users find delightful, and this drive is perfectly complemented by his love for people, numbers and winning. In his words, “All my energy comes from bringing order to chaos, solving problems before they surface and staying focused when the going gets tough”.
Learning by Doing & Leading Products
Shivangi Srivastava, VP Product – Khatabook
Episode Released: 19 Jul 2020
Episode BriefHow do you actually learn more about something? It’s actually by doing the work. This method of learning by doing and putting yourself on the line can you give you actually teach you a lot more than going to a college for an MBA. We at Hireworthy had the privilege to talk to one of the most driven product leaders in the country, Shivangi Srivatsava who is the VP of Product at Khatabook. Shivangi shares her intuitive career journey and her thought process on building an organisation with strong product principles.
About the SpeakerShivangi Srivatsava is the VP of Product at Khatabook and prior to this, she was a part of the Swiggy product team. Before Swiggy, she caught her ropes to Product Management by running a star- up called Tazzo as co-founder & CTO.
Hireworthy Season 2 - Introduction
Madhuri Maram, Host – Hireworthy Podcast
Episode Released: 19 Jul 2020
Episode BriefWe're back with another season of the Hireworthy Podcast. Hear us out on what the focus for this season is and what you can expect. Let's begin this journey!
About the SpeakerIn real world terms, Madhuri is a product designer with deep interests in history, health and anything that falls under the realm of Problem Solving, Design and NoCode.
Season 1
Last Ranking in Apple Podcasts: #59
Reflections at the End of Season 1
Madhuri Maram, Host – Hireworthy Podcast
Episode Released: 15 May 2020
Collaborating with Business Stakeholders
Kshitij Bhardwaj, Head of Product - Consumer Platform, Gojek
Episode Released: 15 May 2020
Episode BriefOne of the most important parts of being a designer or a problem solver is working with collaborating with our business stakeholders, conveying ideas and running experiments with them. Quite often there are misunderstandings and resolving them need some respect and empathy on both sides. This is also an episode which places emphasis on the fact that as designer or product managers we are makers and problem solvers too.
About the SpeakerKshitij is a designer turned Product Manager and has been creating value for the past 8 years for companies like Gojek, Flipkart, Housing and many more. He currently heads a platform group at Gojek which builds communication and identity management tools.He’s also a Full stack developer and tinkers with open source libraries.
The Grit of User Experience Careers
Arjun Arunkumar, UX Lead, Swiggy.
Episode Released: 8 May 2020
Episode BriefYou might have wondered: What does a user experience designer do in a growth stage startup? Do they conduct research? What is the most important aspect when you are presenting and working with stakeholders and more!
About the SpeakerArjun Arunkumar who is working with Swiggy and leads the consumer apps for Swiggy. He has had previous stints in Ola & Housing.
Learning to Lead a team with Core Values
Aastha Gaur, UX Lead – Google Ads
Episode Released: 1 May 2020
Episode BriefBeing a Lead and growing your team can seem daunting if we’re not well informed about how to approach it in a structured way. So, we reached out to Aastha Gaur at Google to understand more about how she nurtures her team with core values and great frameworks.
About the SpeakerAastha has designed solutions for consumer and enterprise, both at boutique design studios and big corporations. Her passion is to lead with mindfulness, intuition, creativity, and compassion. She puts that passion into practice as a UX Lead.
On Being a Freelance Remote Designer
Darshan Gajara, Product Designer – Graph CMS
Episode Released: 24 April 2020
Episode BriefThinking about being a design freelancer? Then this episode is for you! Listen to Darshan Gajara, talk to you about the ups and downs of freelance and remote life, building a newsletter to stay in touch and learn from the world.
About the SpeakerDarshan has experience working as a remote freelance consultant for almost 5+ years with clients from all over the world and prior to his freelancing stint he has worked with BookmyShow & Wishberry. Currently, Darshan is based out of Berlin. Darshan also runs the popular product disrupt blog which curates great resources for designers.
Basics of Design Interviews
Hardik Pandya, Design Lead, Searchbox & Autocomplete –
Google Search
Episode Released: 15 Apr 2020
Episode BriefIf you are currently applying for jobs and interviewing, you need a realistic guide to interviewing for design jobs, so we reached out to Hardik who shared his secret sauce on his experience and frameworks for interviewing.
About the SpeakerHardik Pandya is a senior designer currently, he works at Google Search leading the user experience of the Search box & Autocomplete. He previously designed enterprise experiences in G Suite for Google Cloud. Before Google, he has helped multiple companies in India shape the experience of their web & mobile products – most notably Olacabs, Instamojo & Wellthy Therapeutics.
A Perspective on Design & Recession
Karthi Subbaraman, Chief Instructor & Founder – Xperian
Episode Released: 9 Apr 2020
Episode BriefPandemic related or not, we’re hearing a lot of bad news around us layoffs, recession, market slowdown, hiring freezes and more. This is an exciting episode which is all about big picture and on how to learn and equip ourselves with new skills and information on what to be ready about and what to expect and be ready for this new normal.
About the SpeakerIn this episode, we speak to Karthi Subbaraman, who is chief instructor of Design & Product Management at Xperian School and has almost 65000+ hours of experience in designing 140+ products, conducting 400 master classes and hold 19 patents. She is a technologist turned into a multidisciplinary product designer and design educator focused on human cognition and behaviours. Her work focuses on designing meaningful systems with an emphasis on experience design.
Learn about User Research Careers in India
Dharmesh BA, Head of Research – Setu & D91 Labs
Episode Released: 2 Apr 2020
Episode BriefIf you are considering a career in User Research or you are already a User Researcher, there might be many aspects you have questions about. It can range from your career path to convincing stakeholders, conveying the importance of research for product development and eternal questions like how much research is just enough?
About the SpeakerDharmesh leads the research and strategy initiatives at D91 Labs from Setu, a user research lab that documents the financial journeys of people in India. Dharmesh has also been an active contributor of design in public infrastructure projects through iSpirt and also volunteers to organise DesignUp conference and IxDA Bangalore meetups.
Becoming a Design Manager
Aprajit Kar, Design Lead, Mobility – Gojek
Episode Released: 29 Feb 2020
Episode BriefIn this Two Parts AMA episode, we covered about learning nuances of becoming a Design Manager at a High Growth startup like Gojek. Know about when do you transition to a manager role to how much hands on work do you do in this role and what does a portfolio of a Design Manager look like? Do they face an impostor syndrome and how do they learn to work with people day in and day out.
About the SpeakerAprajit Kar started out as a Visual Designer working with Sapient, then graduated as a UX Designer working with 'Design for Use' and Appster where he built and mentored a team from 2 to 30 people. He then started working with Myntra as their Lead Designer for their consumer apps and worked on PWAs, Design Systems, Intelligent Filters & Curation. Currently, he’s the Design Lead of Mobility at Gojek.
Working in a Growth Stage Startup
Geetaa Bhatt, Head of User Experience – CleverTap
Episode Released: 11 Feb 2020
Episode BriefIn this, two part AMA episode we covered about learning the differences in working with a regular company and a growth stage startup, dealing with Ambiguity, sharing objective updates with your team during standups, A perspective on ESOPs and types of designers to hire in a growing startup.
About the SpeakerGeetaa Bhatt has been with the CleverTap since it inception days. Prior to CleverTap, Geetaa has spent early significant years of her career with Human Factors International, Burrp and Network18. She is a Computer Science Engineer and has a Masters from NID in software and User Interface Design.
Understanding Startup Design Careers
Sidharth, Head of Design & Product – Headout
Episode Released: 28 Jan 2020
Episode BriefIn this AMA episode, we covered a wide range of topics and perspectives from the speaker on getting a design certification to what do hiring managers look for in a designer's portfolio. Listen in to hear the speaker's unique perspective on design careers.
About the SpeakerCurrently, Head of Design & Product at Headout. Prior to Headout, Sidarth scaled Instamojo design and core product to serve from 100 to 6+ Lakh customers and was an entrepreneur and design consultant for digital product startups & companies. He is also a TEDx speaker, artist, a youtuber who speaks of careers in startups, and a plant lover.
Equities Tax Calculator
A Tax Calculator created for you by Equity List.
About EquityListEquityList is a product to help Indian startups manage cap tables and administer ESOP grants. It is designed to be an all in one tool that serves the needs of founders, investors, employees, and internal finance teams.
What’s unique about EquityList?EquityList is the only fully featured cap table management product designed specifically for Indian startups. In addition to equity administration, EquityList helps founders manage shareholder communications and helps employees understand the value of their grant.The EquityList team brings their experience managing the two billion dollar AngelList portfolio of over 4,000 startups and 150 venture funds.
Reach out EquityList for more detailsYou can schedule an onboarding call using the “Schedule Demo” button on EquityList.co
Learn about ESOPs in India
Sahil Talwar, Head of Customer Success –Equity List.
Episode Released: 6 Sept 2020
Episode BriefIn a country that is low on Financial Literacy, Equities, ESOPs can be confusing for someone who has been offered some or has an opportunity to take them up. In collaboration with EquityList, we bring you this episode which gives you the basics of ESOPs, Tax structure in India & some must knows.
About the SpeakerSahil Talwar is the Head of Customer Success at EquityList. Prior to AngelList, Sahil was part of Squad Inc and soon realised his love for building a customer success driven Organisation Culture. With roots in Business operations, Sahil went on to Head the process of customer success for India and US at Squad before leaving to join EquityList earlier this year.Sahil firmly believes that a company’s entire culture should reflect a customer first approach from product building to delivery. Building and maintaining cordial relations with customers and business partners paves a strong path for growth.