🔧 From Manual Maintenance to Full Automation — A Lesson from 2008
In 2008, I had just joined a new team as a Tech Lead when I was assigned a mandatory maintenance responsibility.
Every new joiner handled it for a year.
It sounded simple.
In reality, it meant being in the office at 6 AM, five days a week (sometimes weekends) to manually execute a chain of operational steps:
This process had been running like this… for five years.
⚠️ The Real Problem
The task was operationally critical — but not technically complex. It did not require senior engineering expertise.
What it did require was:
That did not sit right with me.
“Why are we still doing this manually?”
My manager replied:
“What is your solution?”
My answer was simple:
“Give me one week.”
⚙️ The Automation Approach
Using a straightforward stack:
I designed a scheduled workflow that automated:
With built-in:
🚀 The Result (In One Week)
A five-year manual process was fully automated in one week.
Impact:
But the biggest change was not technical.
It was cultural.
💡 The Lesson That Stayed With Me
If a task is:
It is a candidate for automation.
Engineering is not just about building new platforms. It is about challenging inefficient ones.
That single week in 2008 shaped how I approach delivery even today.
Automation is not optimisation. It is discipline.