Vinay Gaba, Tech Lead, Airbnb. In the earlier decade, Vinay has formed a niche for himself in the Android development space and has modelled for companies like Spotify and Snapchat.
As a technology lead for Airbnb, 30-year-old Vinay Gaba directs UI Infrastructure and Design Systems on Android for the company in San Francisco. Possessing his hands-on working on Android systems for over a decade now, Vinay has perpetually had a definite preference for this specialisation.
He senses that his single-minded focus on producing what he is good at even got him through the ups and downs that AirBnB encountered during the pandemic year. He believes focussing on what one is good at and multiplying on that causes all the difference.
Vinay has always worked for companies whose products he uses. “For me, it then becomes personal. It is about making my experience as a user better, and you end up working harder to build a world-class product,” continues Vinay.
Vinay Gaba at Airbnb, San Francisco
He has built systems for Spotify and Snapchat and has been a speaker and panellist at various international conferences like Droidcon Americas 2020, Android Summit 2020, 360 and 2020, Multimedia University of Kenya 2020, Droidcon SF 2019, Droidcon SF 2017, Columbia University 2016, Droidcon Montreal 2015, GDG Ahmedabad 2014. He is also an active contributor to open source and author of popular open-source libraries.
An engineer by chance
Despite his expertise in technology today, Vinay’s tryst with engineering, as he puts it, was completely serendipitous. Born and raised in Mumbai, Vinay’s mother is a housewife and his father runs a construction business.
“My family has been completely removed from technology, and there were no role models as such when it came to engineering or technology. But, my parents always believed in supporting every choice of mine, and that gave me the strength and drive to be this passionate about technology today,” says Vinay.
He also adds that he was an average student, and there wasn’t any specific zeal or push to code from the first time he was introduced to computers in class five. And so, he never gave computers much
thought, that is until high school when things started getting more interesting, in terms of design and
building things.
“I got my first computer when I was in class nine, and I had to force my parents to buy me a PC. In all fairness, my parents had always associated computers with video games, and only when they saw me build things from programming did they understand why I wanted a computer so badly,” explains Vinay.
Interview redirected from- Yourstory
