Director of Data Science at First National Bank (FNB).
Part of Advice from the Board, a HAIL series where we ask advisory board members the three questions students care about most: what skills to build, how to stand out, and what to go try. Here’s what Sundeep had to say.
Sundeep makes a case that’s easy to lose sight of when everyone is chasing the newest model: know your domain deeply. Domain knowledge, he argues, matters more than constantly switching to the latest technology.
“If you don’t have it, you can still survive, but you will be left out, left as a technologist, but not define the value of what you are trying to implement.”
To stand out in his eyes, pay attention to the questions a candidate asks back. Jumping straight to “I can build this” signals a tech-first mindset. The students who impress him ask who the users are, what the thing does for them, and whether it reduces time, increases revenue, or improves the experience. That kind of full-spectrum thinking is rarer than technical skill.
On the technical side he’s specific: build real strength in Python, cloud across the full spectrum, and SQL. Pair that with the functional side, the basics of whatever domain you want to work in. If that’s banking, learn banking 101.
His own career runs through both worlds, from implementation work at consulting firms to the business side at PNC, and that mix is what lets him judge whether a new idea actually delivers value.
Want more? Explore the rest of the Advice from the Board series.