During a visit back to RACE, Ajay, currently attached to F-drones as part of our Attach-and-Train Programme for R&A, volunteered to share his uplifting story with our current trainees. He also shared more on his attachment to F-drones, an exciting startup developing large-scale drones, and his company’s plans to expand to bring onboard more talents like him by the end of the year. 
What made you join RACE?
“I was previously contributing in a marketing role across various corporate functions. RACE helped me build up my programming skills and gain hands-on practice that I was lacking to truly make a pivot despite pushing myself to study computer science part-time.”What was your biggest takeaway?
Thanks to RACE Academy for helping me get into F-drones, and building up my technical skills. Beyond the classroom training, I got a chance to also involve myself in projects like Makadibot, a high-rise cleaning robot start-up founded by RACE’s alumni and incubated under RACE’s ecosystem.How much of RACE’s training was helpful to you and which part of RACE’s training was helpful?
On the technical front, the programming classes were valuable to me and parts of the Essential Mechanical Component Technology class by Mr. Sim helped me understand drones much better and I even managed to offer useful inputs to my team in F-drones. As for soft skills, Barnabas’s class on scrum project management was something I had assumed would be pointless. However, it turned out to be incredibly valuable when I joined F-drones because we abide by scrum daily – it makes a big difference! The project pitching module was also helpful in building up my confidence and I learned how to network and pitch myself to companies using platforms like LinkedIn – that’s actually how I chanced upon F-drones!Any advice for those graduating from training in another 10 weeks or who wish to apply to this programme?
Never discount what you can bring to the table. Always seek to apply your transferable skills to your new company so that you can start contributing right away and they will return the favour by helping you grow towards your intended career function. Tap on RACE wherever you feel you need support. Now, in F-drones, I get to contribute my existing marketing skills while applying and growing my newfound software skills where I get to practice on their Autopilot software. It’s been a month so far and I’ve managed to get all their marketing systems running, at the same time, I get to hone my new skills by learning from my colleagues and practising on my own. I’m excited to start working on the drones!How exactly did RACE contribute to your attachment outcome?
RACE, with their professional career coaching arm, Teddy Lloyd, assisted to validate and scope this pivot for me and assured my new employer that I would be a right fit for them while extracting their commitment to convert me into a permanent hire full-time if I do well in the function scoped for me. We loved how the Q&A just flowed out so naturally between our inquisitive pool of existing talents and Ajay! We’re feeling so uplifted by Ajay’s story, a great testament to the effort that we put in to build this ecosystem for all deserving talents and talent seekers! It definitely takes 2 hands to clap. And RACE is happy to provide a platform that enables this growth. P.S. We discovered that Ajay secretly also had another reason to visit us – his wife applied to RACE on her own without disclosing to anyone yet and got selected! What a surprise for us to make this discovery while nearing Valentine’s Day!
