Meet Divya, a developer from Rajasthan, from Hindi medium to SF

Most developers run on caffeine, but Divya skips on both Coffee and Tea. Divya clearly enjoys doing things the hard way.

She also left her role as an SDE at Amazon. She had no offer waiting and no safety backups and she was out of her comfort zone.

But she had a strong feeling she couldn't ignore

I want autonomy. I want ownership.
-- Divya

Autonomy and Ownership are two words, but there are a lot of things packed into them. For years she grinded through code she didn't understand. She learned English for the first time in college as she had studied only in a Hindi medium school until then. And the place where she comes from, a small village in Rajasthan, nobody communicates in English ever. Now she was living in a city that didn't feel like home. One of her products got 10k users, but there was not a single paying customer. Despite the highs and lows, she continued taking bold bets. One thing is clear, Divya is not an average developer but the one with exceptional talent and the mindset.

This is the .zip version of her story - how she got there, what she's building toward. The detour matters more than the milestones in this story.

Let's go back to the beginning, because context changes everything.

She graduated high school at just 12

Divya had a different start. She was home-schooled instead of going to school. And she ended up finishing her 12th grade at 12 years old. She then switched streams from medical to engineering, which meant repeating a year, resetting the clock, starting over.

Somewhere around this time, she received her first computer. It was technically her mother's, bought for work. Divya played games on that - Need for Speed, Age of Empires, etc.

That's where something shifted.

If I can play games, I can build them
-- Divya

Computer games got her to NIT Patna and made her an Amazon engineer

Thanks to her interest in computer games, she got interested in computers and that led her to NIT Patna. But college has its own way of showing you things that you didn't know you were missing.

Divya grew up studying in Hindi background and when she entered Computer Science department at NIT Patna, the lectures and text books were in English only. English was not only a barrier to study but to other things as well. She felt the first impressions were shaped through how you spoke and the gap was real.

As a developer, she became aware that it is not only what you build but the way you speak, that shapes the perception and confidence.

She didn't let this challenge hold her back. She treated English like any other skill: something you can learn, something you can't really be born with. She found friends who were good at it and hung out with them. She read books aloud. She watched English TV shows such as Suits, Vampire, etc. She kept going.

Talking about the other languages we developers speak - she had C++ course in her first year at the university, she found it tough. Programming everyday was not easy. She kept showing up anyway.

And her hard work gave her results and she got placed in Amazon as SDE in her university placements.

But the real education was her side hustle

While working at Amazon, Divya started experimenting on the side.

One of her side projects was DanceBuddy - an AI-powered app to learn dance. And she found its audience. 10,000 users. Real people, real engagement, real traction.

But zero paid customers!

No job prepares you for that specific feeling. You build the thing. People use the thing. They just don't pay for it. Metrics look like success. Bank account doesn't move.

The side project taught me more than a stable job
– Divya

She competed 70k people to win the first prize of $5k

This is where things got interesting.

Divya joined a 6-week Buildspace program – a global cohort where participants are tracked weekly, pushed hard, and ranked against each other.

70,000 participants.

She finished first.

A $5,000 grant came with it. But honestly, the money wasn't the point for her. The validation was. Because when you've just left a stable job, no co-founder, far from home, betting entirely on yourself – winning hits different. It doesn't just confirm your ability. It tells you that walking away from comfort was the right call.

Around the same time she presented at Founders Inc in San Francisco. Four to five hundred people in the room. Her project. Her voice.

She applied to another accelerator too and got the classic response – "we love what you're building, but come back with a co-founder." Stings. But it's useful.

Most recently she landed in the top 6 at a Y Combinator hackathon.

Remember, she grew up without a computer until 11th grade and English language was not even on her radar until she entered the university.

Who inspires Divya

In our Invide Spotlight interview with Divya, we asked her - who she looks up to, and we received interesting names.

Arvind Srinivas (CEO of Perplexity), Varun Mohan (CEO of Windsurf), YC-backed founders building at scale with a chip on their shoulder.

And then, her mother, a teacher who manages multiple schools.

Divya gets inspired from the ambitious startup founders as well as likes the quiet, grounded operational confidence of someone who just gets things done.

Her friends call her technical. They see her as a courageous person. Leaving a stable job with nothing lined up, that's just one of many instances of her showing the courage. Some might say borderline "delusional". But a little delusion is exactly what you need to attempt something most people won't even try.

She calls it bold manifestation.

What she's actually building toward

Right now Divya is in San Francisco, she's learning from accelerators, hackathons, early-stage teams. Watching how founders at this level actually think, make decisions, recover from mistakes.

She loves this journey in San Francisco. But she also loves being close to her family and plans to come back to India to build her own company.

Not yet though. She wants to do it right. With a team. With clarity. With the kind of foundation that takes time to build.

It's not about just being a founder. It's about real ownership, real customers, a real problem worth solving.

And she has all the ingredients to make it to the top - the DanceBuddy lessons, the Buildspace grind, years at Amazon, and the habit of betting on herself even when the odds aren't obvious.

Remote work and her unusual productivity hack

Divya prefers hybrid work, but remote taught her something she didn't expect. Focus without the social noise. No commute. No feeling judged for how you're sitting. Just the work.

Her productivity hack? Aggressively analog. A physical lock for her phone. Not an app. An actual lock.

And a routine. No coffee. No chai. Cold water in the morning. Asleep by 10–11 PM. Most productive hours? After lunch – one less thing to think about.

To wrap the interview, we asked the last question in YC style

One belief Divya holds that others might disagree with

Say the big thing out loud before it happens. Even if people call you delusional. Especially then.
-- Divya

Connect with divya

Divya is currently in San Francisco. If you want to talk startups, co-founding, or the early-stage journey - she's open to it. Find her through the Invide community.

This story is part of the Invide Spotlight series – stories of remote developers, indie hackers, and founders building on their own terms.