My Story

From a tea shop in Barhaj to building India's best AI engineers

I wasn't handed a head start. This is the honest version — the tea shop, the eggs, the late nights teaching myself to code, and the people who make all of it worth it.

Be a human machine. Don't look for Saturdays and Sundays — build your future brick by brick, with pure hard work, and with love and compassion.

— Abhishek Gupta

The beginningBarhaj, Deoria · Uttar Pradesh
A small town, a big appetite to do more
I was born and brought up in Barhaj, a small town in Deoria, Uttar Pradesh. My father sold tea, and our world was small but full of effort.
I grew up in and around that tea shop — it was my first classroom in how hard people work to feed a family.
Early yearsBarhaj
The tea shop, and then the eggs
I worked in the tea shop as a kid. Later I started selling eggs on the street to bring in a little more.
Nobody told me about hustle — I lived it before I had a word for it. That's where the discipline comes from.
SchoolBarhaj · UP Board
Topped my city — twice
All my schooling was in Barhaj, on the UP Board. I gave it everything.
I topped my city in both 10th and 12th, scoring 76%. In a place with few resources, that felt like a door opening.
2011 – 2015NIT Rourkela
Into an NIT — and teaching myself to code
I got into NIT Rourkela. I spent four years there in Biomedical Engineering — but I knew I had to earn.
So I taught myself Software Engineering on the side, working hard to support my family financially. Engineering became my way out and my way up.
First jobsIndia
YOM, Zoukloans, and Hindustan Times
My first job was at YOM, a small startup. Then Zoukloans. Then Hindustan Times (HT Media), where I worked as a Data Engineer and Frontend Architect on systems serving millions.
Every role taught me to ship real software for real users — not demos.
2018 – 2026USA · UK · Australia (Remote)
From full-stack to Enterprise AI Architect
From there I went global, remote. Plato Technologies and Token Metrics in the US. Absolute Labs building serverless backends for Clarks in the UK. Then AWS AI consulting — RevitPay, Naarm Consulting, Orthographic — and finally Pinpole as a Senior AI Agent Engineer and AI Architect.
Over a decade I grew from full-stack developer to building production-grade AI systems, autonomous agents and enterprise platforms on AWS.
Dec 2022
I got married
In December 2022 I married my beautiful, supportive wife — the person who makes everything else possible.
And yes, I danced my heart out.
Watch me dance One more dance
Sept 2023
Tumtum arrived
In September 2023 we welcomed Tumtum, my first kid. Everything changed — in the best way.
Dec 2025
And then Naintara — my jaan
In December 2025 came Naintara. Our family felt complete.
Tumtum and Naintara are the reason I keep pushing.
Along the way
Building a life — and giving back
The hard work compounded. It gave my family something we never had growing up — real security, and the freedom to stop counting every rupee. I even got to fix up our village homes.
But the number I care about now isn't in a bank account. It's how many people I can help climb the same ladder I did.
Always
The people who carried me
None of this was mine alone. My father, my mother and my younger brother did the hard work that made my path possible — I will be grateful to them for the rest of my life.
My wife gives me the confidence to keep doing what I do. And my true best friend, Girijesh Mishra, has stood beside me through all of it.
Everything I build stands on them.
June 2026 →
Nitmonk — building India's best AI engineers
In June 2026 I started taking YouTube seriously. The mission is simple: take developers from zero to production-ready AI engineer, and build India's best AI engineers.
And here we are. If a boy from a tea shop in Barhaj can do this, so can you.