Influential Woman · AI Software Products
Shreemegha Thandra
AI Data Analyst and Project Manager, Orbit Systems
Columbus, OH
Her Story
About Shreemegha
My professional journey began with freelancing for startups in India, where I built websites and helped develop business strategies. I then joined Amazon as a risk analyst, handling everything related to seller portal risks. I was recognized as one of the best incident analysts, with my role focused on mitigating risks and preventing incidents rather than just fixing what happened - working with the known knowns and known unknowns. What made it particularly challenging and interesting was that I worked as a French language associate, doing everything in French. After 4 years at Amazon with multiple successful business deliveries, I discovered that risk management was part of project management, which fascinated me. I trained myself to become a complete project manager, a complete package. I moved to the U.S. to pursue my Master's in Information Technology Management because I felt I knew how to handle projects but needed the technical background to understand what's happening with information technology, AI, IoT devices, and how the world is pursuing technology at a faster but regulated pace. Immediately after graduating, I joined Orbit Systems, a startup where I serve as AI data analyst and project manager. We ship AI products to state government clients in a very fast-paced, liberating environment. Unlike Amazon where we had proper schedules and time to work on things, here if an idea is pitched, we're straight up chalking out a plan and delivering the product, with multiple products launching every other month. I handle all the projects, stakeholders, BRDs, risk management, and I'm also responsible for vendor management, whether it's data to feed AI or tools that complement the products we're building.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Shreemegha
01What do you attribute your success to?
If I had to conclude it into one thing, it would be being faithful to what I'm doing, being truthful to what I'm doing. It's a hundred percent - no shortcuts, no cheating, just giving 100% at a time. I believe in being completely honest and dedicated to my work, putting in my full effort without taking any shortcuts or compromising on integrity.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
One advice my mom gave me is to never be scared of doing anything. Unless you are truthful to yourself, just go out there and give it a shot, because even if something doesn't turn out in our favor, it's like a lesson learned for us, and we know it's like a building block for the success in front of us. I'll just suggest just give it a shot. It might become a hit. If not, it might become a lesson learned. That's all. Don't be scared, just give it your all.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Since I work in a fast-paced environment, the challenge would be time. Even if it is not a fast-paced environment, we are all lacking time these days, so it would be very strict to be disciplined. But then apart from that, the other thing would be the usage of AI. Whenever I speak to people, people think of AI as if it is either a very good boon or a very bad bane, but then I feel like we need to understand a middle ground where we can leverage AI and use it to our benefits. For example, if there is a presentation or content writing with AI, we tend to depend on it completely. Some of my developers just use these AI tools and not review their code sometimes. I feel like, even though your job is getting easier, just give it a glance and use it in a very hygienic way, and make sure that there is no discrepancies. AI and human in the loop are my current discrepancies and the issues right now that need to be solved.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
One would be having humanity. We are all humans in the end of the day. Just have that softness for everybody. Just be kind to everybody. Even though someone's not performing well, they might be going through something. Just be respectful of everybody, and that's the one thing I follow. If someone's being rude to me, rather than just going with a comeback, I will try to understand what happened to them, what made them say that or do that. Most of the times, it's just their bad day or a bad situation, which people don't seem to regulate their emotions much. Just being kind is the way to go.
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