No degree, no coding school: How Abdul Alim became a Zoho engineer

Abdul Alim became a software engineer at Zoho Corporation without ever attending college or a formal coding programme, relying instead on evening lessons from a mentor he met while working as a security guard, according to a LinkedIn post describing his journey.

Alim, who studied only until Class 10, left home with Rs 1,000, spending close to Rs 800 on a train ticket before finding work as a security guard at Zoho’s Chennai office in 2013. A senior employee, Shibu Alexis, noticed him during his shifts and, after learning Alim knew basic HTML, offered to teach him programming.

For eight months, Alim learned to code each evening after finishing 12-hour security duties. He eventually built a small application handling user input, which impressed Alexis enough to recommend him for a technical interview with his manager.

Alim had assumed his lack of a degree would rule him out, but was told: “At Zoho, you don’t need a college degree. What matters is you and your skills.” He cleared the interview, joined the company’s technical team as an Engineering Trainee in 2014, and has since spent more than 12 years at Zoho, now serving as a Member of Technical Staff.