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My name is Anand Sharma. I was born in 1972 in Hindmotor, a quiet suburb of Calcutta, India. I’m the youngest of three brothers — Rakesh and Rajesh came before me, and growing up with them was a constant mix of mischief, learning, and life lessons.
I spent my early school years at Hartley’s High School, completing Class X in 1989. I then moved on to Jain Vidyalaya for my higher secondary education, graduating in 1991. After navigating the gauntlet of India’s engineering entrance exams, I earned a seat to study Mechanical Engineering at the Regional Engineering College in Kurukshetra (now known as NIT Kurukshetra). That chapter spanned 1991 to 1995.
Next came a leap — I moved to the United States to pursue graduate studies at Arizona State University. What started as a plan to earn one master’s degree soon turned into two: one in Industrial Engineering with a minor in Information Systems, and the other in Computer Science. It was during the summer of 1996 that I fell head-over-heels for a machine: a sleek SGI workstation running Irix. I was still a rookie in the world of Unix, but getting access to that machine felt like winning a golden ticket to geek heaven. Ironically, while it was a powerhouse for GUI-based Unix work, I found myself spending most of my time in the terminal — and loving every minute of it.
Decades later, not much has changed. My love for the command line has only deepened. These days, I wield its power not just on a single machine, but across fleets of cloud-based systems. And now, in the age of AI, tools like Codex and Claude have brought new superpowers to the once-humble terminal, turning it into a launchpad for intelligent automation.
That brings me to today. I take pride in staying close to the metal — at the bit-and-byte level of the software factory floor. I revere knowledge, and I’m moved by intellect and insight wherever I find them. Outside the world of software, I indulge in “shallow” but wide-ranging reading, enjoy music that resonates, and cherish unstructured time — whether it’s doing absolutely nothing with my wife Shannon, being silly with my two kids, Emma and Zachariah, or chasing after our wire fox terrier.