Making the Most of Every Opportunity

Shardul Shinde’s official transcript says he earned his business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) master’s degree in December 2022, but what he truly mastered in his time at the Stevens School of Business was his time management and leadership skills.

Shardul’s academic success—nearly a 4.0 grade-point average and a scholarship from the Jérôme Lohez 9/11 Scholarship Foundation—elicits a resounding, “Wow!” The response to his list of extracurricular and leadership activities is more along the lines of, “How?”

After compiling an impressive list of activities at Symbiosis International University in his native India, he continued his commitment to service at Stevens.

In four semesters, Shardul was a research assistant, teaching assistant, graduate assistant, president of the Business Intelligence & Analytics Club, public relations chair of the Indian Graduate Student Association, a graduate peer leader, and just for good measure, the captain of his intramural soccer team.

“In all these roles I got a lot of exposure to the entire culture of America in general,” he said. “By being involved in all these activities and having these responsibilities I developed skills that I apply every day at my work. Stevens gave me that platform where I could actually practice these things and learn more about the culture, how to interact and how to find solutions to problems. It helped me understand how to connect with people from various backgrounds, which helps me a lot.”

Shardul is currently applying those lessons as a site reliability engineer on the CoreOps team at Virtu Financial in New York City. His role includes designing trading systems architecture, in-depth performance analysis, troubleshooting, planning and deployment new installations within Virtu’s trading infrastructure. Utilizing automation, he focuses on improving productivity, streamlining workflows and facilitating efficient technology deployment to address performance bottlenecks and ensure optimal system functionality.

At Stevens, he didn’t just participate, he achieved. He was “extremely grateful” to earn the SSB Outstanding Leadership and Service Award, and during his tenure with the BI&A club, membership increased exponentially from less than 100 to more than 1,000 by offering alumni events and panels, networking events and information sessions.

He founded “Learning Circles,” groups in which second-year graduate students offered first-year students advice and expertise in Python, SQL and Tableau, along with offering industry and career advice based on their experiences.

“The Learning Circles were very helpful because many of the incoming students were unaware of these skills and were not trained in applying these skills in day-to-day projects in school at Stevens,” he said. “They were new to the course, so this helped them to use this knowledge, as well as their job search and interviews. I'm really proud of starting that and the fact it is still in place.”

Shardul’s work wasn’t completely selfless. Through developing alumni and networking programming, he was able to gain valuable connections himself.

“I got an opportunity to network with many folks in the business analytics space,” he explained. “My interaction with them helped me, and I learned a lot from them. I had the responsibility of inviting them to our school and setting up these events so we could all benefit their knowledge. I connected to a lot of alumni through LinkedIn during my research about the school, and then when I became president of BI&A Club, I invited them to share the knowledge that they shared with me with all the students. I think that helped me establish more connections, do good networking and also be of service to the school.”

As implied in the name, his academic program taught him business intelligence. At the same time, his work outside the classroom boosted his emotional intelligence.

“There is personal development that has happened because of my activities at Stevens,” he said. “I’m really grateful for the school and the opportunities they provided for students. I’ve found it very useful and valuable for my career and my growth. Whether it is the soft skills, the confidence, the approach or the ability to troubleshoot problems, these critical thinking skills are developed when you are in situations where you have to manage things in the best and most efficient way.”

Juggling all his responsibilities was “very challenging,” but “the beauty of having limited time is how you use that time.” Efficiency is a requirement with a to-do list as long as Shardul’s was—and is.

“Everything that we do is in milliseconds. It's in nanoseconds,” he said. “We have to make sure that things are done within the given timeframe, and it has to be fixed as soon as possible because trades are happening. These qualities that I developed at Stevens help me in my day-to-day life because I was molded in that way, and now I’m comfortable taking on these challenges,”

His commitment to serving the school and its students didn’t end at graduation. He’s just on the other side of the table. Shardul recently returned to participate in a BI&A industry panel where alumni discussed how they were able to leverage their degrees and find success.

“I want to continue to contribute as much as I can as an alum now,” he said. “Being connected to school is something very important to me.”