Kaustubha Eluri, Aspiring Product Manager
July 30, 2024
Growing up, Kaustubha Eluri, 26, never wanted to be any particular thing, but he always knew what he wanted to do. “I never wanted to be a doctor or an astronaut, but I always dreamed of having a company that gave back to society,” he said.
Two savvy entrepreneurs — his father, Jagannadha Rao Eluri, and Rahul Tirumalapragada, a family friend and the founder of the café franchise Makers of Milkshakes, inspired him. “I always observed how these two people in my life operated as businessmen,” he said.
Studying architecture engineering at one of the top universities in India — and later working at a prestigious architecture studio in charge of, among other innovative projects, designing country pavilions at Expo 2020 Dubai — helped him dive deeper into the process of conceptualizing, iterating, and launching successful products. “I had to think like an architect, but also put myself in the customer’s shoes,” he said.
But the best education he received came from his family and culture. Born in the U.S., Kaustubha moved to India when he was four to experience Indian values and traditions and be closer to his extended family, including his maternal grandfather, who became one of his biggest influences. “He taught me that patience is key and that everything happens for our own good,” he said.
Kaustubha and other students dressed in traditional wear to celebrate Diwali at the Silicon Valley campus
In hindsight, the values instilled in him by his family and culture, the business lessons he received from his dad and his mentor, and his experience serving as a liaison between designers and clients at the architecture studio where he worked prepared him for a career in product management. This is the career he’s excited to pursue once he completes his Master of Science in Computer Science, Align at Northeastern University.
The Aspiring Product Managers Club
Although Kaustubha was aware of product management when he started his master’s, it was attending ProductCon, a large-scale product management conference, that helped him realize the career was a good fit for his experience and skills. After doing research and interning as a PM, he was sure that this was the path he wanted to pursue. “I understand business, design, and coding. Product management is the integration of all three.”
Kaustubha is currently president of the Silicon Valley campus’ Aspiring Product Managers Club (APMC), a role that inspires him to keep learning about product management through networking events, conferences, hackathons, and programming competitions.
Kaustubha and Anusha Kulkarni representing the APMC at the Silicon Valley campus Resource Fair
Tackling a portfolio of projects
Recently, he teamed up with APMC members in Seattle to enter a university-wide pitch deck competition. His idea of a social network for Northeastern students and alumni, the Husky Mingle, not only won the first prize but, at the request of the Regional Dean of Northeastern University Silicon Valley, Caroline Simard, has entered the building stage.
But Kaustubha isn’t just busy bringing the Husky Mingle to life — he’s also serving as a TA for a Mobile Application Development course; representing Northeastern as an official Student Ambassador; sharing his knowledge of Adobe tools as both an Adobe Student Ambassador and the Vice-President of the Adobe Club; applying for internships and part-time roles following a successful apprenticeship at Folio; and, in his (limited) free time, working to make his current living space more environmentally friendly. “We already use solar panels, and we’re setting up a water recycling system that’s going to start working next month,” he said.
An architect by trade, software engineer by vocation, and entrepreneur at heart, Kaustubha dreams of one day starting his own sustainable construction tech startup. “I would love to create software that provides a building efficiency model for the architecture industry.”
For the foreseeable future, though, he wants to continue growing as a software engineer and tech leader, preferably at a company whose work aligns with his interests and skills. “My main goal right now is to get an internship at Autodesk or Adobe. My major goal after graduation is to get into AI product management. After a few years, I want to start my own company,” he said.
Setting out on a hike at Alum Rock Park in San Jose with a group from campus