Only at McKinsey
Since joining the firm, I have explored new things and challenged myself every day. I have been exposed to exciting projects across different industries and businesses, while strengthening my technical skills.
My most meaningful piece of work so far has been on a Formula 1 project. We developed models to optimize race car tire performance in different environments like wind tunnel versus track. As a data engineer, I worked with data scientists to efficiently process data, finalize our modelling approach, and develop the solution. I set up real time communications and signal processing to run laps in the simulator. I got to do all this while honing my problem-solving skills. I joined numerous brain-storming sessions with my team leadership and the F1 team to solve some of their toughest challenges.
It was a new and meaningful experience to set up the communications between a model and simulator, and act as a bridge between the clients and our data scientists. It was fascinating to work with sensor data, gathered from the grand prix races I watched over the weekend. Having access to this information showed me how awesome project experiences at McKinsey can be. For this F1 racing fan, it was a dream come true.
Working with the best engineers
At McKinsey, I have an entire network of global experts and colleagues eager to support me. I frequently reach out to these folks to leverage their expertise, and I am always overwhelmed by the response I receive. I am grateful to work with some of the best engineers in their fields. I often reach out to QuantumBlack (QB) Labs for help customising solutions on Kedro—an open-source solution. The QB Labs team also helps me innovate, which was a key part to success on the F1 project. It isn’t an exaggeration to say the internal community of engineers at McKinsey supports my development; I believe it takes a village to raise an engineer.
Exploring different interests
In a short time, I’ve worked across industries and sectors employing cutting-edge technologies. I have worked with experts in banking, investment, mining, and F1 racing. As I worked through these projects, I grew my technical and problem-solving skills. In addition to working with race cars, I’ve worked as a data engineer on projects where I used my expertise as a software engineer to implement streaming solutions on AWS cloud and run batch jobs for data processing on on-premise servers. I have learned how to implement MLOps on Azure and analyze data on Google Bigquery.
The variety in the work and opportunities to make a difference make me excited about what lies ahead, and I look forward to charting my path at the firm.
More about Himanshu
Himanshu is a data engineer based in Singapore with QuantumBlack, a McKinsey company. She holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. Prior to McKinsey, Himanshu worked as a senior software engineer for Visa, Inc. in India and Singapore.
Outside of work, Himanshu enjoys dancing to the beats of Bollywood and Punjabi music, reading non-fiction (mostly history and philosophy books) and streaming Netflix.