Abdul Alim, a man from Tail Nadu, wrote his untold story on a professional social networking site, an untold story about him which has now become a motivation for people and set an example of "hard work never goes to waste." In his story, he describes how his career upgraded from security guard of a company to a coder at the same company through his self-determination and hard work.
Alim is now a software engineer at the tech company Zoho. A Chennai-based global software company that offers cloud-based business tools such as CRM, email, finance, and workplace solutions to enterprises worldwide. The company, which is in headlines nowadays for its Zoho mail and WhatsApp-like messaging platform Arattai. Zoho Mail was promoted by Indian government officials, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who wrote on X (formerly Twitter) about the platform and praised its features.
Also Read | HM Amit Shah switches account from Gmail to Zoho Mail.
Coming back to Abdul Alim's untold story, in his LinkedIn post that has now gone viral, he detailed his journey from 2013 till now. Alim said in 2013 he boarded a train to leave home to earn money by taking just Rs 1,000 as his pocket money. He spent 800 on a train ticket from it. As a jobless, he spent 2 months on the street searching for a job, before he was recruited as a security guard at Zoho.
During his shift, a senior employee of the company asked him about his qualifications. "He asked my name and said, Alim, I can see something in your eyes," Alim wrote on LinkedIn. During their communication, Alim told him that he had studied till 10 and knew a little basic HTML coding. Alim was keen to learn HTML, but due to financial conditions, he had left home and stopped his studies.
The senior employee of the company approached him and offered him to teach him the full HTML language and his 12-hour shift as a security guard. Alexis offered to mentor him, and for the next eight months, Alim would complete his security duties during the day and learn programming in the evenings.
He built a simple application through his learning that visualised user input, which a senior employee took him to the Zoho manager. Impressed with him, the manager asked him to come up with the interview. Despite his initial hesitation over lacking a degree, he was told, “At Zoho, you don't need a college degree. What matters here is you and your skills.” Alim cleared the interview and joined Zoho as a developer.
Today, eight years later, he continues to work at the company as a software development engineer. In his LinkedIn post, he expresses gratitude to his mentor and the company for giving him an opportunity despite a lack of a degree. “I want to thank Shibu Alexis for all the knowledge and lessons and Zoho for allowing me to prove myself. And on the final note, it is never too late to start learning,” he wrote.