Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO of Snowflake, strongly believes that waiting to feel completely prepared isn’t the ideal approach for career advancement. Instead, he encourages professionals to take on new responsibilities, even when they feel underqualified.
In an interview with LinkedIn’s This Is Working series, Ramaswamy shared, “All of my success in life has come from people giving me jobs I didn’t think I deserved or was qualified for.” He emphasised that broadening one’s concept of ‘team’ and ‘success’ can increase the likelihood of being selected for leadership opportunities.
Career by bold decisions
Ramaswamy, an IIT Madras and Brown University graduate, was a key member of the engineering team behind Google Search. He joined Google in 2003 as a software engineer and rapidly advanced to Senior Vice President within eight years.
Despite his success at Google, he took a daring step in 2019 by co-founding Neeva, an AI-powered search engine aiming to compete with Google. Although Neeva was eventually acquired by Snowflake in 2023, it led to Ramaswamy’s appointment as Senior Vice President of AI. Just a year later, in 2024, he was named CEO another role he had never held before.
Elements for Growth
Ramaswamy acknowledges that ambition alone doesn’t always lead to success, but persistence is crucial. “Sometimes you can say, ‘Think ridiculously ambitious,’” he said. “It doesn’t work everywhere, and sometimes you fall flat on your face. But you’ve got to play the game of averages. If you try enough ambitious things, a bunch of them work out.”
Under his leadership, Snowflake has placed a stronger emphasis on AI, incorporating cutting-edge machine learning technologies into its cloud-based data solutions. Ramaswamy’s journey highlights the value of taking risks and stepping into challenges before feeling fully ready, proving that success often comes from embracing the unknown.