You should write code till late in life

Boston-based ecommerce company Wayfair sells furniture and home goods online. It started operations in its India technology development centre (TDC) two years ago and, unlike many other global capability centres (GCCs), it is not in any hurry to scale up its headcount dramatically. In a conversation with Avik Das in Bengaluru, Rohit Kaila, head of technology and site leader, Wayfair India TDC, talks about the centre's journey, how the lifecycle of a software developer is changing, and why an engineer must not stop coding. Edited excerpts:

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What were the main reasons for setting up the technology centre in India?

We were looking to set up a centre besides the ones we have in Toronto and the Bay Area. But we wanted a scaled location where we had good talent as we were doing a lot of tech transformation. We wanted talent of a certain bar and at a scale. That is how we centred on India when we started operating two years ago. The expectation was to build a TDC that is on a par with any other and it is now the largest for us outside of our Boston headquarters.

What are some of the critical functional areas of this technology centre?