Employee Spotlight – Vada Pav with Venkata Wunnava
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If you’re looking for someone who embodies Kenna Security’s values of Character, Customer, and Trust, you need not look further than Venkata Wunnava. As a Quality Assurance Engineer at Kenna Security, Venkata helps to make sure the technology behind our vulnerability management solutions meets the highest standards so that we can deliver the most value possible to our customers—and it’s a job to which he gives his all.
Venkata’s dedication, attention to detail, and willingness to go above and beyond landed him a Crush-IT award in the first half of 2020. His nominators sang his praises, emphasizing just how much of a positive impact Venkata makes to his team and to Kenna’s ability to proactively deliver innovative risk-based vulnerability management services to our customers.
Q: Where did you grow up?
A: I was born in Kolkata, in West Bengal, India. Due to my father’s job, we later moved to Berhampur, in Odisha. That’s where I spent most of my childhood.
Q: How did you come into this field of work?
A: I studied computer science for undergraduate and graduate studies, and I started off my career as a developer for PeopleSoft. They had some openings in their QA department, and that’s when I ended up moving into that space. I’ve been in QA ever since, and I’ve been at Kenna now for almost two years.
Q: What is your favorite thing about your current position?
A: I’m on the Connectors team here at Kenna, and that’s given me a really unique opportunity. Connectors are used across our products, and in a QA position, I’ve built up a wealth of knowledge. We use a lot of tools, too. It’s given me a chance to learn how to use Linux, Docker, etc. There are always things to learn in this position and it keeps me engaged.
Q: How do you think your 10-year-old self would react to what you do now?
A: 10-year-old me would be very shocked! When I was young, I wanted to become an officer in the Indian Navy. In fact, on the day that I got my first job, I also had an interview with the Navy. It’s funny—you never know how things will turn out!
Q: If you had to describe yourself as an animal, which one would it be?
A: A Golden Retriever!
Q: What’s the most interesting thing you can see out of your home office or kitchen window?
A: Apartments and apartments and some more apartments.
Q: Do you have any unusual hobbies or interests?
A: I collect fountain pens. Ever since I was a kid, I loved writing with fountain pens, and I started collecting them as I grew older—even bidding on e-Bay for special ones.
I also love model trains!
Q: Top 5 songs for your road trip playlist?
A: It’s too difficult to pick just 5! I’d go with any top-trending songs in my music app. Fun fact: I can speak 6 Indian languages so my music collection has songs from different languages.
Rapid-Fire Round
Q: Fancy restaurant or food truck
A: Food truck
Q: Train or airplane
A: Both!
Q: Truth or dare
A: Truth
Q: See into the future or travel back into the past
A: See into the future
Q: Batman or Superman?
A: Batman
