Push Pull Podcast

Samir Jain’s Path Through Engineering, Consulting, and Product Leadership

• Varun Rajan • Season 1 • Episode 1

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In this episode, I interview Samir Jain, Sr. Director of Product at Medidata Solutions, discussing his career journey and key transitions. We discuss how relationships, sales skills, and increasing levels of responsibility factor into career growth. We also explore what informed Samir's transitions: emphasizing the importance of mission alignment and finding the right kind of ownership (i.e. executing on the solution vs. defining the problem) in each Product leadership opportunity.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

super excited to share with you guys. The first interview I've done for the Push Pull podcast, it's with Samir Jain. He is currently the senior Director of product at Medidata Solutions. working at the intersection of healthcare and life sciences right now. Samir is someone that is very mission oriented and really committed to improving patient care in healthcare, and more so very specifically focused on what's called interoperability. it was super interesting to pick his brain on what was most valuable to his career progression. he talks about a focus on salesmanship, persuasion. which you always need as a product person. He talks very earnestly about the power of relationships and getting to know your colleagues as humans and friends and investing in them as people, not for any sort of transactional purposes, but just because that's how you should be operating in the world. And the other thing that I think is maybe a little bit more tactical advice for somebody that's trying to advance in their career. Something that he has always focused on was the impact that the work that he was doing was having on the organization that he was working for. in more recent years, I think has refined that vision for him himself. Not just being about, the. Magnitude of the problem, but also really wanting to define the problem space in service of the mission that he's serving, which is ultimately, uh, healthcare and better patient outcomes. So, without any further ado, I'm gonna let you listen in on my conversation. We're here with Samir Jain, senior Director of product at Meida Solutions, a one-time boss and longtime mentor of mine.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

Thank you so much, Varun. I'm so excited to be here. I mean, I love chatting with you in general. blast So uh, I really look forward to talking with you today

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

yeah, absolutely. We had talked about the structure a little bit, walking through your whole career and identifying some of the key interesting points of maybe transitions and also the through lines that you feel have really helped you throughout your career. So first and foremost, let's just start with like 30- to 60-second overview of you, your career and what you care about now.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

Sure. Sure, I've been in the working world for about 20 years now, so it's been a decent amount of change and Throughout, I actually actually started, Really young, like I taught myself how to code when I was 13, just'cause I was so interested in that.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

wow,

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

and so I had

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

I.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I had a very prescriptive, thought of how my career is gonna progress, right? So, went to school for Compsci, graduated took an engineering position and thought that I would, I. do that for a couple of years, maybe do consulting and then go back to school, get an MBA, and then potentially start my own thing or, do something of that nature. Didn't really work out that way. started out in engineering went into management eventually into product management. Went into consulting for a while and then, have been making my way back into product and product leadership specifically. right now. I lead one of our products that really operates on the middle space between what is typically considered clinical research and healthcare. my entire career has been healthcare focused and even within healthcare, a very specific topic which is interoperability and the ability for systems to speak to each other in healthcare and support of better patient care, right? Like that's been the through line you asked about the through line, right? So like that's been the through line in my career is kind of that and Leveraging Those capabilities to unlock value across, you know, various organizations. So love doing that here. It's a, it's really, it's a great organization. Great bunch of people we can talk about, medidata a little bit more. but it's been a really fun gig and it's been an opportunity to kind of take that through line forward in like a slightly adjacent space, which is life sciences. So it's been awesome.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

That's awesome. So a couple of things that are really interesting to me just right off the bat from even looking back at the beginning of your career, going into software engineering and having that be something that was instilled really early on, learning how to code when you were a lot younger at what point did you think you would have this lifelong career in healthcare? Or healthcare adjacent field that you're in now?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I had I have no idea. Honestly. I fell fell into it. Because I'd had an internship, with someone during college. And as I was graduating, reached out to him to see if he had anything for me as a full-time gig. And he had just moved to this company that was building EHR Systems, electronic health record systems in Raleigh. I was going to school up in Rochester. And he basically basically said, yeah, something for We're opening up an entry level position on my team. It's a software engineer come down and, work for us. and not only that, but His particular product that he was building really was helping connect systems that are typically used at like a small doctor's office with the hospitals. and that's also how I fell into interoperability, which has been just totally happenstance, but fell in love with it, and there were a number of reasons why healthcare is an is interesting For me, it's complicated. It, it's people. First off, there's so much mission orientation within it, but then it's really there's nuances and a key differentiator for a person operating in healthcare is their ability to really understand the domain. Which is something that I just like ate up at the time. the other thing that was really amazing about interoperability, specifically within healthcare was it gave me. The opportunity to work with so many different groups, both inside and outside of the company. I love building relationships, across different groups and that tends to be something that, I treat as really valuable. it very early on in my career, gave me the ability to do that and really start to make a name for myself across the company.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

That's awesome. And can you remind me what the name of the place that you were working at was at this point in time And so, okay.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

they eventually merged with a company called Allscripts. I spent I maybe somewhere around almost eight years, over there just working with them. it was all interoperability stuff that we did there. The team was laser focused on connecting our own EHR products together, but then also making sure that those were interoperable with other EHR systems that hospitals were implementing.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Tell, tell me more about how your role evolved while you were there. You were working as a software engineer, you were working on a specific subset of healthcare problems, which is interoperability that put you in a position to interact with a ton of different people. And how did that change over time? How did the acquisition by Allscripts influence that would really want to know how your priorities and responsibilities changed and how you even shaped them?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

So I started out engineering, right? was, it was interesting. knew I knew wanted to go into management. That was just, I just knew that, right. It was something that I had started to cultivate throughout college and, taking on leadership positions around campus and whatnot. coming into that role. I almost was a little arrogant, you know, like, I was kind kind of like, yeah, do this for now, but really I want to get into management. And actually, you know, my manager and, friend and mentor at the time, he kind of like had to come correct a little bit and was like, dude, you're gonna get there, but right now you're here and like, you need to nail this. Right. And that was a, it was a hard lesson for me to learn early on in my career. I'm so thankful that, you know, he and I had that really crucial and difficult conversation early on. And And so I really to focus on building out my engineering talent and doing the job that I was hired to do. I also understood that there's other value that can be added, Like, I'm not just a coder and, that's the only thing that I can do. Where I thought I could really start adding value for my team was deeply understanding the domain, deeply understanding the problems that we're trying to solve, what our customers are going through. There was no product management function at the time,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

can I interrupt you real quick? so when your friend, were you reporting into this person at the time also So when he was telling you like, Hey, slow your roll on this whole management thing you need to nail the role that you're in right now. I totally understand the kind of like gratitude and humility that came out of it. what was the thinking in the moment? Because I think. A lot of people have probably been in the situation where they feel undervalued in the role that they're in, or feeling like they are already punching above their weight class, or they deserve the next level already but are being told no in many different ways. what I'm trying to understand is why did you see, why did you at first see yourself being like, I'm gonna be a manager first. I have so much more to offer like, put me in coach, tap me in, promote me. And what was it that kind of like convinced you like, oh, actually the feedback that I'm getting back makes a lot of sense. Let me go back and kind of like expand the scope of the role that I'm currently in to make myself more valuable.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I remember this vividly, honestly, and this was almost 20 years ago he used the term, dude, you've gotta earn your chops first.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Okay.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

that was awesome to hear. I mean, not awesome at the time, right? But it was in retrospect like, yeah, that's what we have to do. And so as I think role expansion throughout my career, seniority is determined by the level of problems that the organization is entrusting you with, And the accountability that you have and the level of the value that you bring to that organization. And you have to demonstrate it, I mean, you have to be trustworthy in, holding those problems and owning those problems holistically as opposed to being handed, a A set of objectives and tasks rather, you really want to be owning the entire problem statement and building the trust to be able to deliver that a solution to that across the organization. When you can do that, you will get promoted, it comes with the territory. So if for folks that are maybe thinking about, Hey, I think I'm ready to take the next step or, why am I not getting promoted here? I think part of that is potentially introspective of saying like, what is the level of problem or what are the level of problem statements that you're owning that you're being entrusted with, and how do you start upleveling that? And if you can do that first, then the other stuff follows.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

that's excellent. I think it kind of dovetails pretty perfectly into what you were talking about before, which was like. You had realized, okay, I don't just need to be shipping code in this role. I can be owning bigger problem statements or more surface area when it comes to problem statements by, adding value for the team by deeply understanding the domain. And so this was the point at which you started talking about product management, which wasn't quite an established function at that point in time.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

know, you point a lot of the engineering leaders were, dual roling in terms of understanding like, what are the actual business requirements here? How am I aligning the team and their priorities to, to do that? I was moving into management. I had a I had a great mentor that first mentor the first guy that into management. And that was a really interesting, part of my life, I think and I, I. I think about how I would mentor a new manager, right? And a lot of that is modeled on what I had learned. You know, through this person. His name was Dave. He was really, formative in helping me kind of build up my management philosophy. But yeah, had, I had gone into management. I was being mentored into that role. I'm owning these business problems. I'm helping bridge the gap between how are we gonna align the technology and the solution with the actual problem that we're trying to solve. Allscripts was starting to formalize out their product management function. They had brought in some product management leadership. in was you know, for my vertical, right?

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

got it.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

and I were working very closely together to align the

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

And.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

and build it out

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

and when you were entering management, you were managing other software engineers at the time? Engineers. Got it. You were an engineering manager. Got it.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

So again, you know, I think I've seen the engineering manager role start to become more technical and delivery oriented now. But at the time it was really dual for, for us.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Gotcha.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

yeah, so,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

It's actually super interesting.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

yeah,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yeah,

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

And it's evolved, right? it's really, evolved over time as product management and engineering have separated a little bit, right? I really value engineering managers that can deeply understand our priorities,'cause they'll start to intrinsically guide the team towards the things that are actually very valuable to build. but you know, that's maybe less formal now. this leader was Was hiring a product. in his team to act as my counterpart, right? And so that I would own more of the technical stack. They would own more of the business and, you know, roadmap and prioritization and like all that stuff that, product management does today. So as we together, together, Is something that you, You know I know I know you're super technical. You also seem like totally obsessed with the business, right? So what's going on here? And so in a way it was almost like a 70 30, 60 40 split maybe of technology as like the majority and then the minority being business. And he was basically just saying, Hey, let's flip that, right? And you can start to focus a more on working with customers, build that, that skill set out focus more on the business, you know, problem statements, and then work Work leader to help technology be happier there which is true, right? absolutely loved Been a really good friend throughout the years. His name is Ami. He's been amazing. He's the guy

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

guy.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

me, you know, into product and we've kept in touch and, work together at Medi Data now.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

When I think about somebody going from engineering as a function into product management as a function, I see it as this kind of like horizontal jump. Were you going from a manager role to more of like an IC role? Was that something that had concerned you at the time? Were you feeling like you were like moving to a different ladder? and I know product management was really new as a function at the time too. Like what did that look like to you? and as you were making that transition, especially as product management was kind of a nascent function, was there some risk there associated with it? that's something that I'm definitely curious about?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

know that's such a question and it's something So. about, right? So I don't know if there was risk there. I actually saw opportunity there because when I look at, if, you know, I'm trying to ultimately get into the executive track, like every executive that I know is not. or may, they could be technical, You have got CTOs that are super technical, but they understand the business and the value, That's what gets you into that next level, in my opinion. And so going into product management was an accelerate for that, And so like I recognize that, so it didn't feel like risk, but the IC question is, is really interesting, right? Because on the one hand, you're going from a people manager position to a manager, but you're managing a product, right? and so the way that I have thought about it was back to the what's the, what are the levels of problems that the organization allows you to own, right? And so I was owning the delivery, right? And the alignment of a team. But Now I'm owning The the success of a product. this company.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yeah.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

in a way it felt like almost a promotion in the responsibility that I I right?

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

overall

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

success of the to the right the right priorities under under understanding the the needs and needs. the product in all these different ways, like that was, those were bigger problems that someone can start owning.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Totally. Awesome. Yeah. That's so cool because it sounds like a lot of these transitions were very natural for you. Kind of along the way you had gravitated to wanting to be a manager, understanding that there were some, you know, the earning your chops was a really interesting conversation that you had had with your friend at the time. It led to this place where you were able to bite off more, chew more into the business problems and stuff And then that naturally led to you being able to, through your mentor transition into product management, which at the time, even though it was maybe a lateral role, going from manager to IC wasn't really the same way we would look at that maybe today. Going from like a manager, like a EM to ICPM role. It was more about like you had a big amount of impact that you could have with an official business ownership capacity as a product manager.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

You

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Very cool. And so at this point where you are kind of like being a product manager, owning things as a product person at Allscripts, what was next for you? Was this the last position that you had at Allscripts? And if there's more to talk about at all scripts, that's great. If not, how did you end up winding on your time there?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I think this is one of those key transition points, right? So through my work in interoperability external to the organization, making ourselves more interoperable with all of our competitors, I made quite a quite a bit of relationship,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

right?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

And And so. made a really, good friend along the way. he was leaving his position at a big company, starting his own thing. And reached out, was just kind of asking me like, Hey, I'm doing this thing. Is this something that you'd be interested in doing with me? And so for me it was the leap of faith, right? It was going from this massive organization that was well established, that was doing well, and where I was seeing my own personal growth into. Becoming a consultant right at a company. I think I was employee number five. It was this company called Ready Competing, and it was tiny, super niche focused, but he was sort of getting the bands together, if you will, of all these people that had been working, at these various organizations in a similar role to mine and getting them all together to start doing some consulting around this very niche space. So you

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

And that niche space being interoperability

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

interoperability.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Got it. Okay.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

Yep.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

tell me, and for the benefit of whoever might be listening, what is so cool about interoperability in healthcare? And why is it important? Well,

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I mean, why is it important? You know, patients see a number of different providers across a number of different health systems throughout their life, right? And if you believe that it's true that people should make healthcare decisions based on the largest amount of knowledge possible, right? Then interoperability is critically right. different, you know, in order to give that provider the the. at making the best decision for you. Now why is it so challenging? I mean, you know, there's all these different formats, there's different documentation habits. None of this stuff was standard back in the day. Like, we're moving towards standards now. But even then there's a lot of variability and so it's just a really hairy, complex problem of data liquidity, but also being able to deeply understand and use that data, right? So that, that's interoperability.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yep.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

And at the end of the day, I truly believe that an interoperable health system is one that's more safe, more efficient, less costly just overall better. So that, that's, that's really the end goal here.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

and as you were kind of, wrapping up at Allscripts in order to take this leap of faith and this is one of those places where I like to think about the push pull factors, right? So, and I'd be curious, it sounds like there was a really big draw, right? There was a really big pull to, where you were going next. what were the trade-offs that you were managing at the time to think about, like, Hey, I'm still getting X, Y, and Z at Allscripts, but at the same time I may not be getting, A, B, and C, which is what I'm really looking for. what would you say that were maybe the constraints or the things that you weren't as excited about given the fact that you were already there for six years? Eight, including the company that ended up being acquired?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

I mean,

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

it was more of a pull than a push for me on that one ultimately, the way that I thought about it was I've built enough momentum at Allscript and I've built. enough relationships and establish myself, there to where I could boomerang pretty easily if I needed to. it's, it was a reversible decision and that really, you know,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Interesting.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

it made a lot

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

A lot of,

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

it had a lot of bearing on My ultimate decision And and it was like, it it was, it was

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

I was young in my career and I,

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

try

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

something

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

I was giving up

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

The higher

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

profile

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

if you will, you

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

mode,

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

from a

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

the.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

a pretty visible product in this organization to this unknown company, right? As an individual contributor consultant, not really knowing what my day to day was gonna look like. It was a work Work from home. which was, you know, way before its time in that era,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Right.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

was in like 2012, that was new and interesting. It felt like I had negotiated that I could live anywhere in the world for at least a period of time,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Nice.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I decided to recruit a friend and move to Munich for three months, you know, as part of it.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

That's amazing.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

it was just kind of like adventurous, right? It was like, if not now, then when am I gonna do this kind of stuff?

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Totally.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

and so yeah, I mean, I took the leap of faith and Ready was an adventure man. It was, it really was like building a company like that. I think we were around 200 by the time I left which was like seven and a half years later.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

And you were employee number five ish. That's wild.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

Yeah. it was an amazing company. It still is, you know that's where, again, relationships, right? the through line in my career. But I really felt a lot of comradery with the folks that I was working with. We were friends more than we were coworkers, family even. And it was very tight-knit company. And that I think comes From that working together early and really being in the trenches together. that level of closeness and camaraderie, I've, I've not felt anywhere else.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yeah. And what do you think that that was a function of, especially as someone that's working remote? I mean, we talk a lot about remote work and RTO nowadays and the efficacy of having people co-located and stuff like that. So it's really interesting to hear that you were doing remote work for the first time, you know, as before remote work was such a ubiquitous thing. And also feeling like, yeah, actually this was the most connected I felt with a team and with colleagues. what do you think was the secret sauce of making that happen there?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

such a good question. I don't know. I mean, part of it was. We were all friends before we were coworkers. You know, that helps. But that's not it. You know, I actually, so may not the May, maybe not at the quite the same level, but I feel that closeness to coworkers here at Medidata as well. And you know, I think a lot of it is you're intentionally selecting the people that you're bringing into the company with a, like a really strong, like no assholes mentality. These are the folks that not only do you like to work with, but you want to hang out with. when you're working with people that you love working with, You can do amazing things,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

So a couple of things that are really interesting to me are obviously your personal career growth and how that changed over time. But also how did it feel moving into consulting, when I talk to folks that are designers or recruiters, a lot of the conversations that I end up having are about, hey, what are the key differences between, working somewhere in-house versus being at an agency where you may have a number of different clients?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I would say the biggest thing that I missed believing Allscripts was that deep ownership and connection with what I was building, you know,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Mm.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

a gun for hire, right?

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yeah.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

So yeah, you can say that you're making it your own, but it's not your own. you don't truly own the success or failure there. But the flip side of that is the variety of work that we were getting. You know, as somebody that just loves to learn and, craves a little bit of that variety, like that was a good way to scratch that itch. it forced me to get pretty good with customers pretty quickly,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Mm,

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

and you know, we haven't talked about this yet, but there's the relationship through line, but then there's also this like, aspect of being good at sales, right? It's something to intuit. on, right? was that I saw into the executive level no matter what. were in the organization, were good at sales. Right? and whether that That was selling to a customer or selling internally, right, that has been an important skillset. something that people need need to realize is you're in at, Doesn't doesn't matter if you have a, but if you're an engineer, you're selling, you you know, and you're you're selling the the need debt reduction and you're selling an architect, product. As a product manager, you're certainly doing the same thing. You're selling priority and whatnot. I started to realize that early like sales sales is, that I need to be building. and that's, think helped me get into management and into product. But at Ready, I. I I. much as a consultant, you're delivering the work, but the really good consultants are also selling in a way, right? Yeah. and that's And that's what helped me. level up at Ready as well was again, them entrusting me to start having teams of consultants, right? Because I was able to sell the work, I was able to bring in that business,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yep.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

and be

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

and were you also in charge of, as a consultant? like closing, a book of business? was sales actually a part of your role?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

no. no

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

No.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

but informally, right? And maybe indirectly, you

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

You consultant?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

looking to continue that relationship,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yep.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

if, part of that is just delivering good work. Like you have to deliver your deliverables, have to meet the mark, but it's also building the relationships. It's, understanding what other problems that customer has and trying to align your company's value with that, right? So it's intrinsic in the role in a way. you're You're building. enough relationship with that customer that they start trusting you with more of their problems. And so that's when a consultant is able to do that, now that consultant starts leveling up from just, billable hours to all right. You know, maybe you can start owning more of the business and maybe helping align other people's time and feeding them more work. And that's just how your responsibility stack grows within a consulting company.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

So let's talk about you making that transition into management at Ready Computing.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

Mm-hmm.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

At what point did you get to the point where you were advocating for yourself kind of being more of a manager than an ic? How did that, what did that transition look like? How did your responsibilities change?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

Yeah, great question. One was exactly what I just described, like being able able to be to to own the relationship and with her, start building that trust elongating those relationships with the customers. The the, that was really interesting. going back back to the size I mean, you have have build out all the infrastructure for the company.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

A lot of that was how

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

how are we

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

ready, what are the career tracks

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

And so as I started helping with the company's operations in that regard, like that was also a good setup for me to be able to take on more.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

It's again,

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

a,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Right.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

thinking about moving. How do you move just beyond your, your initial role into helping the company in other different ways, right?

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Very cool. And so when you moved into management, like how quickly did you go from, were you managing people that were hired to work at the company already or were you building a team around you? Combination of both.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I had recruited some folks that I had worked with in the past

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

And

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

so so there were folks that we were already working with I started to take on

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

on as well.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

And it

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

and it was just really flavors

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

types of consulting that we were doing were different across the board.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

flavor.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

some colleagues, had a different flavor and we were all kind of moving into this. structure of creating these different consulting verticals across the company.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

And were those how did those consulting verticals work? Like was it specific to the client type that you had or was it specific to like a vertical of work or something that you were doing across different clients?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

like doing what you know. So we

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

We were working.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

Like large health organizations, hospitals, and those that were trying to set up these exchanges to be able to exchange data more fluidly.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

I was working

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

within our, what we called our solutions consulting practice. And so that was really more targeted towards technology vendors in this space, the Allscripts of the world Where we were going in and helping them build out their interoperability stacks with this targeted group of people that had built these out at other companies before and were able to land in so they could focus on their core business value and not have to worry about the complexities of making their solutions more interoperable. So that was my niche, right? That I was.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

How did your management style or your outputs outcomes as a manager change? Or how did it compare and contrast with kind of working in-house at a place like Allscript versus like being a consultant with a book of business? how does that kind of change how you approach your direct reports and what you get them to prioritize as well?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

That's a great question. The feedback cycles are a lot quicker in consulting. billable hours is the key golden metric here.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Right.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

day, my team has to be billable, otherwise I can't justify the, resourcing. And so that was a pretty. cut and dry, you know, metric that we were measured on. And so we have to focus on that. And then some of the intrinsics there are the customer relationships that these folks are building with their customers, right? How are they starting to zoom out and see the broader landscape at their customers? And that's like the skillset that we were trying to cultivate. It wasn't just technical, but also how are you really working with customers to give them a delightful experience that they trust you with more of their problem statements.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

That's maybe a little bit,

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

measure.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

if you can think about that.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

how are you creating value for the organization, so that's how we viewed seniority within our consultants as well, was who do we trust to be able to really own those customer engagements versus who are the folks that are just like kind of there to deliver the nitty gritty technical work, And how do you start upleveling those people as they start growing in their career?

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

What did you like and dislike about that? Like, what are the pros and cons? Just from like the perspective of your own sense of job fulfillment that you saw coming out of it. Like one of the things you were saying was that maybe it's like a little bit harder to measure but I'm curious what you liked and disliked about it.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

biggest thing was around mission. And this is maybe the thing that ultimately, pushed me out, It was something that I was craving. the mission There while it was to build a more interoperable health system, it's hard to draw a direct line to that per se. You know the bigger mission was how do How do how do we cult? I love the way that, our founder, Mike, the way that he thought about it was, if we had 50 people, I'm putting food on 50 tables right now.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

right,

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

That was absolutely his mission. But, that wasn't necessarily solely mine over time, right?

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yeah.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

and,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

And

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I loved making ready a great place to work and, building the team up and bringing more people into the organization. But ultimately I also was in love with the problem statements within healthcare,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

yeah,

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

tackle that

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

that's, yeah.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

kind of like what, that's what

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

No, but I think that makes sense, right? Like it's like what you were looking for. what you were engaging with was a very specific mission and what you had experienced at Allscripts was the ability to kind of like slice and dice that mission in pieces for specific clients, but like overall serving the growth and success of the consultancy that you were working for at the time, which like totally noble also solving problems in the space that you wanted. But it sounds like you were doing so by attacking the problem in probably more kind of like segmented ways that weren't looking at the entire problem of interoperability in healthcare holistically. And so that totally makes sense as a reason to push you when what's actually drawing your sense of fulfillment and energy and excitement was the strategic problem of interoperability in healthcare as a whole.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

And I mean, mean, other other thing is, know, I I love variety. I love to learn. you've probably heard of like the T-shaped mentality of

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

mm-hmm.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

a little bit about a lot, but then being able to go deep in one area.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Right?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

but eventually. you know, it's seven years at ready, so seven and a half years, it was, I think my longest tenure. I was starting to think like, I know interoperability really well, but healthcare is a wide vertical and I know one narrow slice of it. So what else is out there? Right? What else can I start learning about staying in healthcare? I didn't wanna leave healthcare. I don't think I ever really do. But Had started to formulate this thesis around the broadband is becoming ubiquitous. People are getting more and more comfortable buying things and having experiences online that they wouldn't normally have. Right? We're meeting our mates online. We're buying mattresses and cars online now. and my hypothesis was, all right, telemedicine and telehealth is gonna be the next big thing. And so had I had a, who was the leader in the, you know, in that space at the time. and they just happened to have a position in product leadership that owned one of their products. And so. I went through the process, landed there in March of 2020, which was an amazing time, frankly, to join a telehealth company.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

One thing I want to zone into a little bit more is maybe the motivations for joining Teladoc. You talk a little bit about this hypothesis that you have about the future of healthcare. And there's also this kind of sense of like, the interoperability niche was something that was really exciting to you. But at the same time it felt like you were being kind of narrow in your scope, like going really deep into one problem in healthcare. And that was also kind of a push factor, right? Like, so you're at this place where interoperability really interests you, but you don't feel like you're necessarily able to tackle that whole picture working client by client at a place like Ready Computing, right? How you were thinking about like problem statements and what you were excited about, but at the same time, here's how I'm piecing together the story a little bit. You're thinking, okay, I'm kind of tackling this mission piece by piece, but then when I'm thinking about how I could be impacting this mission as a whole, is this still kind of too niche of a problem that I've been working on for such a long time? Like do I want to expand my horizons a little bit within healthcare? Was that kind of how you were thinking about it at the time?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I I wanted to, what I I wanted to do. use interoperability to further business problems, not necessarily build interoperability solutions.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Oh, okay.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

was a big one for me. you could go one of two ways, like you could double down on working for For that companies that are driving. forward.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Mm-hmm.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

you could You could start, to leverage that deep knowledge in this one space to start adding value to the rest of the organization.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

this is actually really interesting'cause it feels like a lot of the kind of, more recent product management talk about like outcomes over outputs. I am thinking a lot of the more recent, Marty Kagan stuff and, when you say interoperability to solve business problems rather than products that are categorized as interoperability. Right. That, that sounds like the, the kind of distinction that you were making at the time and really trying to achieve the former,

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

Okay. Cool. That, yeah. you know, there, there are folks that need to lay down the track, right? Without a without a doubt. And That's, that's incredible. But But then there's also the the folks that need, how to build the trains on top of the track and get people from point A to point B. And, that's where I was starting to think about, okay, you know, that I know how this works and what the capabilities are, can I I start to use use that that knowledge, You

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

you know,

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

own

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

only

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

right? what does this, how does this actually help people better care? care at the

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yep.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

Right? So that where, where I was thinking Teladoc. would be a really interesting place to go was I was seeing this new delivery modality starting to really take shape. I hadn't done a telemedicine visit before I joined, but after doing it was it was amazing. It was such a good experience, and so I was a total, I drank the Kool-Aid pretty hard going into Teladoc, it was targeted. It wasn't like my resume out

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Right.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

one stuck like it was. You know, I wanted to get into this company. They were the leader. I knew what they were doing. I had a friend there, they had a position that I felt, was a good fit. and so that's the way that it went.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

It's very cool. Cool. And so tell me about the first few weeks there are chaos, What were the things that you shipped that you're super excited about?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I'm part of this Slack group where any new member, we always ask, you know, You know, what's the most, what's what's the thing that you're most proud of and what's, thing that you've ever shipped? This was my was my answer, of those categories. when I joined, know, it was like a normal onboarding flow for like a week. The, country shut down our visits quadrupled overnight, literally, and it was just absolute chaos. with the pandemic, people weren't able to go in to see their healthcare providers anymore. All of a sudden, everyone and literally their mother are coming to Teladoc. So I'm week two and a half or three on the job. I'm still still completely onboarding. I have no idea, know, know, left what's left and right or down and what was going on was there was a lot of people that, the worried well, were were coming in and saying, I've I've got the sniffles, have I have Right? And And they're just completely obliterating our kids, know? And so we And so we needed a way to try to try to, to, you know divert these people out, right? Like to really start, start to classify the folks that are coming in as high risk versus low risk. And if it's low risk, here's what you should be doing. So. built a screener in partnership with our medical leadership team and engineering that we We launched, quickly. I, I do I do think. it like, you know, week 3rd of March or, or, you know, week 4th of March, something like that. But it it was basically you a answered a set of questions and and based on those, you were either low, it was, I think like one of three outcomes where you were either low risk you don't don't need to talk to a to a provider, do this. Right. High risk actually. actually, yeah, stay on the line we probably want to talk to you you know, or somewhere. of, we're We're not sure. You can stay on the line. But also, you can come off and monitor for these things. And if you start to see these things like come back, and that was designed. with with our medical leadership team, who, by the way, at that time had like direct access to the CDC. And it and it was really cool to, you know, to, to work with them and and be really lines of what was going young. That's so cool. Wow. but But yeah, so that, it it was, a glorified switch statement at the, at the end of the day. And and it actually, an impact, right? Like it was the first thing that I I, super quick. I felt like I was contributing to the mission. I, I always think you don't really you gotta like earn your chop. you gotta do something Meaningful early early on in your career. so that you can gain the respect and trust of your coworkers.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Totally.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

And what was really cool, we put some reporting around it, and it started to become predictive of where we were seeing clusters of covid infections. So we could see, in this area, there's a bunch of people that are categorizing into high, high risk. And we would we would see that before the government. you know, the news outlets would start to report clusters of infection.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

That's crazy.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

so one of One of the stupidest things. I've shipped, but also like one of the coolest, right?

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

That's amazing. Okay, so

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

Yeah.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

that's so awesome. And so on the heels of, that success, how did the rest of your time in that role specifically,'cause I know that you had a little bit of a transition while you were at Teladoc too, right?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

so I loved, I. loved taking on leadership in that role. So it was our virtual second opinion business. Something that was actually kind

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

kind of a departure.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

interoperability. Yeah. it It was nice to be able to just prove that that I had was not like a one trick pony,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Right.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

that being said, Teladoc had really, they didn't have a lot of clinical technology DNA at the time. Consumer technology and they had, you know, they built their own system. it was good for what it did but but it you know there was a lot of. interest in the company, to become a little bit more aligned with a typical healthcare organization,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

right.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

really what we were becoming, right. and so was another niche that I was able to carve for myself or, you know, in the company, was bringing that deep like EHR knowledge from my allscript stays And so I started to take on do to help more problems. of our technology stack. To be more aligned with what a hospital would use, right? know, before that capacity became official for me, I was doing that on the side of my desk while, you know, trying to manage this product as well. And one of the cool things there, we were trying to launch our virtual primary care practice and found that what we had done our, what we call general medicine, which is almost like virtual urgent care at the end of the day, wasn't necessarily gonna translate well into primary care. I was I, on the shoulders to do the kind of like build versus buy versus partner analysis here. You know, and we ended up bringing in some technology that really helped us launch the product and launch it in a way that was safe, gave our patients a good experience, but also the providers that were working on it gave them the right amount of technology to be able to deliver, effective medicine to their patients. So that was, that was really cool. I mean, ultimately ultimately. I ended up taking on just clinical platforms, you know, for the company. And it felt like a very natural thing. It was like pulling back into what I just knew, right?

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yeah. And so it sounds like when you made the transition to Teladoc, there was this question about interoperability, the outcomes of interoperability versus like, you know, the products that are categorized as interoperability. But you know, when you encountered this opportunity, you were thinking actually this could be a good bet generally for my career because this is the future of medicine, right? Using interoperability can still be done at a company like Teladoc, but this also gives you the opportunity to flex those product muscles outside of your current domain expertise. And you were able to prove that out kind of in the first few months. Before transitioning into something that was able to leverage that domain expertise that you had built up over the past 15 years of your career, let's say.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

And it's like a new, it was a slightly different world, you know, it was in the same domain by talking back about those relationships, you know, I mean, when you're When you're working for, firm, that world is limited, right? and then with Teladoc, it's a much wider world. we were working with so many different people, payers and startups that were innovating in the field, and it was it was just a new new set. Brain muscles that I had would have to flex and, and all of this, like all these new relationships that I was able to, like, had the opportunity to create and learn about. And I mean, it just, it kind of came down to not Not so much. It was just, can this gimme an opportunity? something staying within, you know, my domain,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yep.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

learn something vastly different and start to build like new connections in my brain and, hopefully level up that way over time.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Very cool. And then so how did, how did your time at Teladoc, how did you end up wrapping up your time there? What were the kinds of things that you were, you know, what were the opportunities that came your way?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

Teladoc is becoming a huge company, you know there had been a lot of growth right through the pandemic and. was a well timed inbound you know, from someone at Rubicon that, you know, had one of my coworkers at Teladoc moved over there and she had recommended me for a product leader role there. So they reached out. went through the process, and it was just like, it was hard for me to say no to that,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yeah.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

it it was the same sort of every Every transition. it's it's probably you you know, maybe not always the case, but certainly at that point it felt reversible. If I needed to come back to Teladoc, I could, but again, it was a leap. It was a big, it was a much larger responsibility. obviously organization,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Mm-hmm.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I you know, know it was, I had a product role, right? So I was owning a lot a lot of the problem stack for that org. And that's that's actually where Yes. and so so. That was, part of it really go going back where I can make a a bigger and really help us from, a single product company to something that had a portfolio of products that we were delivering and in a space that, a new pretty well, right? And where a lot of that interoperability background would really start to come in handy. So that was, that was a pull into to Rubicon.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

when it came to leaving Teladoc, like what were the things that you were leaving on the table? In order to kind of like join a smaller company, totally understand the kind of like pull factors there's more ownership here. Even if there wasn't anything necessarily pushing you away from Teladoc, right? there were trade offs that you're making with every decision. Like you're leaving this gigantic company that's having explosive growth. You know, how do you come down to the side of, Hey, maybe this is more of a risk and I'm taking a leap of faith here. what validates or fuels that faith a little bit when you're weighing the trade offs of leaving something that feels maybe a little bit more like stable. I'm not sure how you would've categorized Teladoc at the time, but

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I wasn't necessarily looking for stability anymore. It was like if I if I, and I go go, even like a larger company, like a Google or something like that what I ultimately, if I if I do that end up in the position or or I'm gonna be chasing the position that position. offered at Rubicon, right? let's start, let's short circuit that and just do this. It's gonna be a stretch, And I'm gonna be uncomfortable, right? And there's gonna be a learning curve. But see how I do, And if it doesn't work, then, hopefully I've got something that I can fall back on.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

yeah.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

was again, it was that leap of faith,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

One of the things that I also feel, so there was like a couple of things that are like through lines in your career that we've talked about so far. Like one of them is relationships, the other one is sales and the ability to sell effectively. And the other one that I think that I'm hearing a lot, and I think you have really pointed to as something that you would suggest and advise other people to think about is the level of responsibility that an organization is willing to give you. And that being kind of like not only a sense of your own ability to grow in your career, but that also like, it feels it really resonates with you in terms of a sense of fulfillment. Maybe talk about the distinction between Teladoc and Rubicon MD at the time, where it's like, hey, like you're gonna just, like, you're gonna own product here. Like you're gonna be the head of product, VP of product for this company, and come in at smaller organization, but like total ownership of kind of like where this thing goes. Versus like, here's where you're leveraging your expertise at Teladoc, which is a much bigger company, but maybe your sense of ownership or the ownership that you were being entrusted by the company was not necessarily as big or as bold as what Rubicon was giving you. is that fair to say?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

think that's very fair to say

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

yeah.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I mean, it's the level of problems and impact that you're entrusted with in the organization is like really interesting. And then it's changing changing the mindset to to being able to, drive and we're maybe to start creating clarity out of the unknown. it's like Teladoc I knew what I needed to do, the problem statements were obvious to me. I knew these are the things that we need to solve and it's a matter of figuring out how to solve them. But then there's like, knowing which problems you should actually consider, right?

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

yeah,

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

the problems. And that's where, you know, a role like. at Rubicon, you know, provides me, in a way, it's almost more to the original role at Teladoc where I was owning, a product line'cause, and to a to a certain, unknown problem statements there that you're trying to figure out.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

yeah.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

And so there was that, delivery focused versus something that's more creative and exploratory.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

That makes a lot of sense. I think we, especially in the moment, have this sense of, oh, okay, I have a new opportunity. I want to go into that. it's not totally bad where I am or I'm not necessarily looking to run away from something. But when we're thinking about the push and pull factors, they are all there. And it's really interesting to hear from you about your time at Teladoc when you were choosing to leave and you know, well timed call somebody that was a former colleague of relationship that you had built, but like ability to own not only a full problem stack, but the thing that you just said, which was being able to go into asking and defining what problems there actually are rather than just the execution of solving a problem that you've been given. That's huge because you actually had what you were joining Rubicon D four. Uh, At Teladoc when you were first joining. And so when you had moved to leverage your expertise, like that was really cool in some ways because you were already an expert in that field. But what you were really yearning for and what you were not getting anymore was the ability to actually define the problem. yeah.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

you summarized it perfectly. I mean, that's exactly what it was, you know, and my time at Rubicon was pretty short. You and I actually started, what, like the Same week,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Same week apart.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

or

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

you interviewed me before you started there.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

And I was like, you gotta hire this guy. he needs to be on our team let's get it done. But as you know, a month after we both started or something

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Barely.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

crazy short amount of time Rubicon was acquired,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yep.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

by an Absolutely incredible. by the way, rogue Street Health is, is amazing. Their mission is

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Of course.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

The way that they've structured the way, they solve their problem statements is really amazing the team there was outstanding. And so that was interesting into this job, I think, I can I understand. to be done, right? Um, To, all right, like the fundamentals have actually just totally changed here,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yep.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I've gotta start to create know, stability for the team.'cause I've been through a, a shitload of mergers in my life, you know, and I know this, and we can, we can take the fear out of this a little bit, So there was that which I thought was really cool actually. I enjoyed doing that. But then. Going back to the, what are the problem statements that we're trying to identify and solve versus what does Oak Street need us to do, you know,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Right.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

those were two different things. And so I had reached out to the guy that got me into product management in the first place. We had kept in touch, throughout my career. I was like, here's kind of kind of the situation. It's it's been like, you know, how How should I think about. Right? What does timing look like? what are the things that I'm really looking for at this point? I he gave me some really good advice. But, you know, one thing that he. He said was, Hey, listen, by the way, if you're even remotely interested in just at least talking with us, doing something that's right up your alley here. And, you know, one thing led to another and, I couldn't say no to medidata. the way it had been positioned for me, there wasn't an open role. my manager, the guy that leads healthcare literally just flew out. We met it clicked and what they were trying to do, where my background fit in. It just completely made sense. And so he created a role for me,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

just so people understand, what is the difference between what Medidata does and where you've been in the past, what is that kind of overall mission? Like, how have they, what has been their bread and butter and what are you coming in to do?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

Yeah. Yeah. So, many data. It's, one of the leading technology providers that powers clinical trials. a huge amount of new drugs that are brought to market have been brought to market on our platform. I work with, the top 18 of the top 20 pharma companies,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

wow.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

run their trials on our platform. it's a pretty amazing amount of impact. Those companies are, the drug manufacturers typically they're, or the CROs, the ones that are running the clinical trials, where we intersect with healthcare is is the trials are are typically being run at those research sites, which are also like academic research centers, you know the hospital systems. And so those are our users at the end of the day. But our primary customer right now are the farmer companies, and then the other thing that I've noticed about why I like it so much here is there is that strong, like no asshole rule. The people here, the culture here is amazing That comes from the top, you know,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yep.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

folks that they've hired the willingness to. really get into the dirt, you know, with you and, and help out. And I just, I've become very good friends with a lot of my coworkers here. And that has made a huge amount of difference in impact and my enjoyment to work and what I do. I mentioned early on in my career, I started to intuit that sales is probably something, it's a skillset that is gonna be important,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Right.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

where I was

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

I.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

to one of my mentors there. He is a guy that was leading the primary care business and just asking him for feedback. After working together with him for a while, he was like, all right, let me ask you a question. Can you sell? I was kind. Yeah, I guess I don't, and I've never been in a sales role, and he was like, the most dangerous guy in the room that I've ever met is the guy That's super technical, but can sell. like, figure out how to sell, And that made it click for me. this is a skillset that needs to be formalized. and That's something I head into at, at medidata here. My position here as as much as it's, the product, it's able to work with customers to help them understand the value and to align it to what the problems that they're building. and I've had the opportunity to really work very closely with our customers and with our sales team and, really build out that part of my brain really in a way.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

yeah.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

that's been awesome. It's been so much fun to do that.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

That's really great. you were talking about how when you had this conversation and it really clicked for you about sales you start looking back and like applying that filter to all of the times that you were kind of successful in different parts of your career. Like you were talking about the time. At Ready Consulting that you realized like you were actually being really effective at selling, either internally to your team or externally to your clients, and maintaining that relationship Which I think is so incredibly cool that you were able to actually lean into a skillset that you didn't quite know how to articulate at the time. but now you have a framework for that. is that fair to say, like how would you kind of define that or how would you suggest someone think about sales as someone who's not in sales.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

So great questions. Number one. Yeah, that's accurate, right? And then number two, sales. isn't necessarily. Just selling a product to a buyer. I think that's a mentality shift. it's the power of influence at the end of the day, And persuasion when you realize that is a part of your success in a role is the ability to cultivate that skillset, then you can start learning, to do that. So that doesn't mean that you have to go as an engineer and try to get customer face time, But it is understanding, as an engineer for example, to understand the folks around you like, what are they thinking? What are their problems that they're owning? what does their world look like? And then start to align your own thoughts into that, And that starts to become. how you persuade and, I think about, seniority in engineering, it's it's not just technical, right? Like it's it's the ability to explain some deeply technical topic, some stakeholder that's not quite as technical a way that they grok it and can understand what you're trying to say. That, to me is, in engineering. and in order to do that, you need to understand like, what is the information. looking for, it's understanding statement. what is this person and and can I can I deliver? what they need, right? In a way that's gonna be, that they'll trust me and, you know, is gonna add value to them. that's the skillset that people need to cultivate, I think. And that's universal. If you can do that, you will level up in your career,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Totally. That's that. That's wonderful. we've covered a lot and a lot of the big transitions, and even in recent years, which are like maybe shorter 10 years than the kind of like seven to eight year, 10 years that you had had in the past at Allscripts and, and Ready Computing. But still incredibly meaningful work and also Really thoughtful decisions as to like why you made transitions maybe sooner than you would have, right? So like the push factors from Rubicon MD make perfect sense because obviously when the scope of your role changes as a result of an external event, like an acquisition, right? Like you were finding the things that were like, well actually I could be a big support to the team in navigating a merger. Like, I've done this before. That's fantastic. But then you also get an invitation to be working on something where you actually can, like, define a problem space which is what you were looking to do more of regardless, right? And so when you see that trade off, you're gonna join a new company. And then, you know, it sounds like along the way you're building great relationships and like, you know, this no assholes mentality like, makes a lot of sense, but it also sounds to me like, you know, the reversible decisions that you see at multiple times during your career. A lot of it is because you're not an asshole. Like, I think, like at you, you attract, I do think like attracts like, and you end up in situations where you're a warm person as someone that's worked with you and for you, I've noticed how quick you are to shout people out and give people their props. I really think that's all good karma that you put out there. not, to get anything back out of it. you end up doing that a lot it builds a lot of goodwill very quickly. Which I think is really wonderful.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

if you can start to people more more than just coworker. as humans and you know, people that you actually enjoy interacting with,

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yeah.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

then that really starts to go a long way. So I think You have to be genuine in that you can't like, you you know, be the the typical, know, being super nice, complimentary but but having, motive that you want to try to motivate this person to do what you need them to do. you have to be more genuine about it, I think yeah.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Anyway, a a lot of that is, is, is just me kind of reflecting on this conversation so far and trying to lead into like, you know how are you thinking about the next phase of your career?

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I want I wanna continue, here, you you know I I think that there's lot to to in life sciences. Coming from healthcare and seeing the differences in life sciences. a lot of really exciting innovation, in in healthcare, like we were pushing the the, up the, the hill. Mm-hmm. And it's just, it's difficult to build solutions Life sciences. we get a lot more shots on goal and, and you know, there are companies that are really willing to go on like an innovation journey with you. So yeah, yeah, it's really continuing to build in this space and to the way that people think about clinical research as like this silo and healthcare delivery as this silo. Because in reality they're so intertwined

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Right.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I don't think the world has truly realized that yet. So to me that's where a lot of the opportunity lies in our future.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

I think that this has been really cool conversation. This is one of many that we've had on the topic of career. And so thank you for taking the time and all of the extra time to prep with me and really think about what's really salient. I feel like we could keep talking for hours.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

I know. No, this has been so much fun, man. Thank you for the opportunity. I just so enjoyed working with you and, the energy that you brought to the team, you know, talking about, but no asshole rule, right? Like you met that in spades and I mean, I mean, you're like top top three. karaoke partners that I've ever had. Right? we've, had some really fun times together

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

Yeah,

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

been one of'em, man. Thank you so much.

varun_1_03-04-2025_080902

thank you for being so thoughtful and, and candid and also like letting me dive in and kind of get into the nitty gritty. Thanks Samir.

samir-jain--he-him-_1_03-04-2025_110902

a blast, man. Thank you so much.

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Varun Rajan

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