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With the growth of DevDigital, now entering its 11^th year in business with over 1,500 projects and over a million programming hours logged, there has been a need for the company to expand its staff. The undertaking of more projects means more programmers and specialists are needed at their company in Vadodara, India. However, as more complex projects are started, DevDigital has decided it has needed boots on the ground in Vadodara to help oversee the various databases and provide guidance on some of the information created by these projects.

The company hired Micheal Hunt March 1 for the role of Senior Data Architect and IT manager. As Senior Data Architect, Hunt will design schemas for DevDigital’s databases, oversee training for data access and storage, set policies related to same, and direct Database Administrators.

Hunt is a data architect with experience developing database solutions for critical government, defense, and corporate systems over a 24-year professional career. He has managed teams overseeing the data needs for maintaining billions of dollars of defense equipment and has worked on projects at every level in both corporate and government projects, ensuring the smooth operation and integration of systems spanning dozens of locations with critical uptime requirements.

“It’s an exciting opportunity to apply all the skills that I’ve learned over the years and do something completely different, as far as moving to a different country and building that cross-communication between our two offices,” said Hunt.

The hiring of Hunt is unique in nature, as he is the first DevDigital employee to be hired from the United States that will relocate to India for his position. Originally, he was asked by Chief Technology Officer Neal Barnhill to help conduct the interviews for the position. As time passed, however, Hunt saw the position as a new opportunity to make an impact for a thriving company. 

“I had asked Micheal to do interviewing for the data architect position as a favor for me. Over the course, he became interested and said he was ready for a new adventure,” said Barnhill.

No stranger to traveling as a previous member of the Air Force for over a decade, Hunt was ready to experience a new country.

“I took some time to think about it. I have traveled a good bit in my life. I’ve always been excited to learn about new cultures. To have the opportunity to help our company grow to the next level, by finding ways to apply the principles in development practices here in the U.S., is an exciting challenge,” said Hunt.

Hunt recently got the opportunity to see his new home in Vadodara a few weeks ago in anticipation of his move across the globe. He met up with Director of Operations Brittany Wegusen and Barnhill at the Vadodara office to get a sense of how things operate there, as well as learn about each team member’s unique skill set. It was his first time ever visiting India, and he felt more reassured that his move was going to be the right one after his initial visit.

“India is a wonderful country. It has a really growing economy and very friendly people. I think there’s a lot of opportunity there for American companies to partner with their Indian counterparts,” said Hunt.

“The most exciting thing to me about the office there and the team there, is how eager they all are to learn new things and improve their skill set. Working with a team of eager learners makes my job so much easier. When people want to learn, want to grow, and want to be better, they can do anything.”

In addition to Hunt’s experience, he also brings an important asset to the Vadodara office that it hasn’t had before: a communication bridge. With Hunt’s first language obviously being English, the Vadodara team will be able to better comprehend some of the words the DevDigital team in Nashville communicates with them thanks to hearing Hunt speak the language on a regular basis.

“He’s going to be so valuable there,” said Barnhill.

“There’s so many things he has experience in. He has a wide breath of experience. He was a developer for years writing different languages, in addition to database architect and working with payment gateways.”

Hunt is set to travel to India to begin work there once his employment visa is acquired.