Introducing the Visual Studio ALM Rangers – Nandu Muralidharan

Who are you?

My name is Nandu Muralidharan Nair (Nandu for short), and I’ve been working in the software industry for over 13 years now. I joined Microsoft in 2008 and have played various roles in consulting, software development and program management. During my developer days, I have received the prestigious ShipIt award, among other recognitions. I am currently a Sr. Application Development Manager (ADM) with Microsoft’s Premier Developer practice, where I help customers transform the way they build, manage and deliver software to their clients. As an ADM, I also help customers optimize their investment in Microsoft technology and provide strategic guidance on adoption.

Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my wife and daughter. I am an avid Squash player and also love skydiving, hiking or just exploring new places with my family.

What makes you “tick”?

The top 3 things that make me tick would be my family, travel and technology.

I am passionate about the use of what I call “just-enough-technology” to solve a business problem. Working with a varied set of customers and helping them bridge technology and business is what I love about my job. I am also an eager explorer and love going to new places and/or doing new things with my family.

Where do you live?

I live in the beautiful town of Skillman in NJ, bordering historic Princeton.

Why did you want to join the ALM Rangers?

I believe that when it comes to technology, there is no one ring to rule them all. Every customer is different and that is why initiatives like ALM rangers are so important.

I want to be a part of the community helping customers adopt a technology/platform by bridging gaps and to help customer realize the full value of Microsoft’s DevOps platform.

As an example, in the recent past, I helped one of our customers with a component (helper library) that helps them to add/remove users/groups, in bulk, from a TFS project and/or collection. This helped them remove dormant or erroneous accounts, in bulk, and also helped the onboarding process for new teams.

In another instance, I wrote a component, in collaboration with the TFS product team to help resolve a regulatory need that required an automated process to lock certain TFS branches for a period of time. In that process, any existing user locks had to be removed and a new lock be placed (by a Service account) without performing a checkout (no footprint/code on the server).

I believe these type of helpers/samples would help the ALM community in general, and would love to contribute to such projects.

This post is part of an ongoing series of Rangers introductions. SeeRanger Index (Who is Who?)for more details.