Rahul Kulkarni

For Rahul, learning is an essential part of any role. That’s why, in 2020, he decided to join MSCI’s ESG Engineering function. Rahul heard from friends and colleagues that MSCI was a fast-growing company and that leaders were committed to growing the engineering teams.

“There is fast decision-making and lots of accountability – you get a lot of ownership. If you think something is good idea from a technology perspective, you’re free to pursue it. Everyone’s voice is heard and appreciated.”

The emerging pandemic also influenced Rahul’s decision to join MSCI. Having re-evaluated his priorities, he realised that he wanted to use his career to make a more meaningful impact. It’s not just about doing business; it’s about doing it in a sustainable and transparent way.

“I felt that I was doing great work at my previous company, but I wanted a lot more meaningful role. Working in ESG made a lot of sense and it was the perfect platform for me to contribute more.”

Rahul and his team combine integrity with agility and a technological mindset. Together, they’ve created a fair and challenging work culture where the status quo is disrupted, and everyone is encouraged to brainstorm ideas for the best proposals.

“It’s not about taking orders, but about brainstorming ideas and being open! Sometimes, others agree with your viewpoint, and sometimes you have to take a step back and learn from someone else.”

Over the last year, the ESG Engineering team has used this approach to guide their cloud migration. They know that it’s not enough to just move everything to the cloud, that’s why they’re redesigning their APIs and apps using the latest open-source frameworks to better serve their clients and colleagues in the future.

“We’re breaking down our legacy applications, pulling out the functionality and developing new, high-tech micro services. If you compare this to a large investment bank which has legacy applications, you’ll see that there’s a lot of aversion to quick change there. And I think that’s where our agility really stands out.”

Ultimately, Rahul believes that curiosity is the key to success. If you have a passion for looking beyond today’s problems to see how they can be solved for the future, you’ll fit right in.

“We expect people to try new things, fail fast, and see what works. When you come here, we don’t want you to design the system that will work for today, we want you to come and design and implement a system that will work 10 years down the line.”