Coding for Healthcare Technology
By Karan Bhatia
I’m Karan, and I am a software engineer at a healthcare technology company called ZocDoc. I build software that improves an otherwise stressful experience.
I studied Computer Science at Cornell University, where it was almost assumed that post-graduation you would end up as a software engineer. The only questions were — What industry would you join? Would you do front-end, back-end, or full stack development? Would you work at a startup or a bigger company? A lot of these questions make more sense now, being 4 years out of college and having a better idea of where I want to bring my career.
Right out of college, I joined a trading company in Chicago. We traded complex financial instruments, whose intrinsic value was the result of a multitude of formulas and levers cooked up by some really smart PHD Math majors. The good news is that I wasn’t being paid to do complex math, but to write software that would be used to allow our own traders to make decisions during their day. Our software was only consumed internally. I wrote tools and services in both R, python, and C# that showed graphs highlighting good trading opportunities. Some projects even gave me the chance to be the lead developer, which was a huge confidence booster for me.
I later worked at a software consultancy, focusing on web development. My main project was assisting a non-profit in building an app to help low income families. Being one of the only developers on the project (and at times, the only developer) put me in a position to have the flexibility to make a majority of the technical decisions that went into the project. The company coded in mostly ruby and javascript, which two languages I had no knowledge of prior to joining. If there is one thing I learned on the job, it is that language choice is just a means to accomplish a goal. Lots of languages have the same pillars that comprise them, so when being tasked to learn a new language for a project, it is ok to not have all the answers right away. It is all about asking the right questions — such as, how do I write a for loop in scala? Or how do I throw exceptions in python. Going with that attitude has turned what could be a daunting process (learning a language), to an opportunity: to learn another language could come in handy down the road.
I love coming into work every day knowing that my work leads to a product that is used by millions of people in the United States.
That brings me to today — I work at ZocDoc, a healthcare technology company that eases the process of finding an insurance covered doctor and booking with that doctor right from your computer or phone. Specifically, I work software that surrounds our “sponsored” doctors that you may see at the top of your search. I love coming into work every day knowing that my work leads to a product that is used by millions of people in the United States. Work days go by fast when you are engaged in building something that you actually believe in.
What tools and languages do I use?
- Scala
- Python
- C#
- Ruby
- React JS
- Sql
- Postgres
- Mysql
- Redis
- Neo4j
- Docker
- Ansible
Outside of work, Karan enjoys attending concerts, salsa dancing, playing the accordion, and doing yoga.
