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Hello Acast.
My name is Bharadwaj Kulkarni, but my friends have called me “Bawa” since I can remember. So please, call me Bawa. I’m very excited to be applying to the UX Designer position at Acast!
Three years ago, I moved to Munich to do my masters in industrial design at TUM after having studied mechanical engineering in India. The course was challenging—especially because the medium of instruction was German that I had to learn quickly—but it was life-changing. I’ve seen myself evolve from a mechanical engineer to an industrial designer to an experience designer to what I can only call a “holistic designer”. Aside from the regular lectures and courses, every semester we were encouraged to work with real world start-ups and companies, on real world problems. During the evaluation of our projects, the question asked was often not what we designed, but why we designed it.
In the last three years, I’ve worked on multiple projects that have been wide-ranging in terms of their deliverables. Each project had its own requirements, and I was encouraged to push past the competencies I came in with. I’ve worked on a film/augmented reality museum installation, the industrial design of a robot arm, an animated product explainer video for a robotics company, the user interface of a web app for an IoT startup and developing a methodology for researching the emotional aspects of sustainability. I’m currently working on the UI/UX design of a podcast app for “power listeners”. I had to learn most of the hard skills required for these projects on the go. But when I look back, I realise that the common thread was that it was always about communication. Design is all about storytelling. I translate this passion for storytelling into clean, intuitive design that clearly illustrates functionality and brand aesthetic. Here are two of my projects that I think might interest you the most.
Podcasts are a big part of my life. I think the first podcast I listened to was Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast and I fell in love with the long-form conversation format that a podcast affords. This was six years ago. Since then, I’ve listened to podcasts almost every day (about 20 minutes a day on average for the last three years). I find the medium fascinating and think about it and talk about it all the time.
In fact, I like the medium so much that, during the pandemic, I finally decided to take the time and try my own hand at it. I started Cognitive Snap, a documentary-style podcast on design, technology, philosophy and economics. I’m three episodes in, editing episodes 4 and 5, and I am loving it. (I’m hosted on Captivate.fm for now, by the way.)
Screenshot from my Pocket Casts app
Working for Acast will be a perfect mix of two of my passions: podcasting and design. I’ve already worked on one project that involved the two (Highlighting Audio) and I learnt a lot about both disciplines from doing that. I’m looking forward to working more at Acast, where I can actually make a difference in the real world and improve the podcasting industry.
All of these projects that I’ve loved doing were done in multi-disciplinary teams. I’m a naturally curious person, which I find almost always leads to empathy. I enjoy seeing patterns in other fields and spotting the same ones in my interests. This means that I’m drawn to not only understand other points of view but also to help people voice these points of view. I like being in a culture where everybody looks to succeed together. This is the culture that I expect to find at Acast, and I’m very excited about it.
I’m looking forward to getting to know you all, and hopefully visit you in Stockholm. Thank you so much for your time and consideration.
Best regards,
Bawa Kulkarni