Overview

• Abdul Alim recounted in a LinkedIn post that he left home in 2013 with ₹1,000, spent nearly two months on the streets, and then found work at Zoho’s security desk.
• Senior employee Shibu Alexis noticed him during a 12-hour shift, encouraged him to learn programming, and began mentoring him.
• Over roughly eight months, Alim studied after work and built a simple app that visualised user input, which his mentor shared with a Zoho manager.
• After an interview where he was told that skills matter more than a college degree at Zoho, he joined as a developer and now marks eight years as a software development engineer.
• The post drew widespread praise online and renewed attention to Zoho’s Chennai-based operation and its practice of hiring for demonstrated ability; Mint also referred to him as Abdul Salim.