Engineering with Impact:
Data Platform at TRM

You broke new ground for TRM. Tell us how?

I was TRM’s first engineering hire in India.

Why TRM?

I studied computer science and have been a data engineer my whole career. I was working at LinkedIn when I first heard about TRM—my first thought was, “Hey, this company operates in the blockchain space, but I don’t really know what it does.” 

Then I started reading some case studies and learned about the victims TRM helped recover funds for. As an engineer, it can sometimes seem like “I’m just writing this piece of code.” But if your work can impact people’s lives like that, it’s very humbling. 

The blockchain space is a reality in today’s world, and it’s here to stay. TRM is making it safer—working towards long-term, social impact. That’s a noble thing to be a part of. It just feels right.

What makes you tick?

Data! TRM is powered by data—that’s where it all begins. As a data engineer, to work for a company where the very core is all data, that’s very exciting. 

What are you working on at the moment?

The engineering teams here are fluid, but we all have areas that we primarily look after. I helped take real-time streaming infrastructure from zero to one, and I am currently helping to build the next-generation data platform based on a data lakehouse architecture: an enhanced, more cost efficient, and scalable version of the current setup. 

What’s your favorite part of the job?

It’s not every day that you get the opportunity to help revamp a company’s data platform, let alone one where data is so central to its mission. It’s been an amazing chance to go back to first principles and think about scale, technology, and latency requirements for the future.  

It’s also very rare that someone joins a company and is given the responsibility to help set up a new tech architecture from scratch. There aren’t many places that are this bold! But TRM instills confidence and ownership in everyone that works here, right from the self-driven onboarding process. 

And the biggest challenge?

It can be daunting to work in a fully remote environment, but TRM provides many tools to make decisions collaboratively and provide quick, ongoing feedback. We also have a really good set of practices regarding asynchronous communication. For example, to deal with the time difference between and within teams, tools like Loom help us continue working so we don’t have to wait until a teammate wakes up to get answers to detailed questions. 

And because the company is spread across so many time zones, there’s always someone online somewhere when you need help or advice. It’s a team effort and we make it work. Everyone helps you succeed—that’s what I really enjoy about TRM’s culture.