Is it Bangalore or Bengaluru?
I asked the first driver of my trip.
Bangalore
He preferred.
He had always called it Bangalore, he explained.
Bangalore was officially renamed Bengaluru in 2014, ten years before my visit. However, in my experience, most residents and signage still referred to it as Bangalore. I used whichever label was being used around me when I was in the city
The Office & Working in Bangalore
Standing in the Bagmane Constellation Business Park of Bangalore, you might think you are in Silicon Valley.
The beautiful expanding infrastructure, bright corporate logos, and bustling tech workers remind you of modern tech parks across North America and Europe.
The three levels of armed security and constant credential checks were a little more heavy-handed than you will find in Madrid or Miami. If you show up the first day with no credentials, be prepared to wait for some phone calls.
Our coworkers in Bangalore had an excellent setup for collaboration. One key component to that setup was diverse lunch selection shared daily with the teams.
The Bangalore scrum teams worked two days each week in person together, and the shared lunch kept the spirit of collective progress moving throughout the days in the office.
I was part of the first group of Americans in our division to visit the Bangalore office, and I was tasked with introducing a new AI coding assistant tool to our FinTech development teams in Bangalore.
Given the roles I was tasked with, I tried to listen and learn from the staff onsite as often as possible.
Our coworkers told us that most of them preferred to work 10am — 3:30pm local time (12:30am — 6:00am Eastern Daylight Time) in the office. Then they travel home to finish work on calls with their American and European coworkers, as they navigate dinner and other nightly tasks.
This work pattern gave our employees significant time together in the office, maintained their ability to interface with America & Europe coworkers, and improved our employees’ comfort by letting them avoid the worst traffic times of the day.
Bangalore has a new and developing inner city rail system for transit. However, most commuters travel on scooter, foot, bus, or autorickshaw (tuk tuk).
I asked my coworkers which method they used, and most preferred to drive scooters. They also shared that weather and personal errands can impact their travel choice on any given day.
Touring the City of Bangalore
My visit included long walks across the city, an Indian Premier League cricket match, and a hike in Bannerghatta National Park with coworkers.
Bangalore is a vibrant city, with a lot of pedestrians, but walking long distances was a challenge given the inconsistent infrastructure.
