Host

Naman Pandey

One night in the ER gave me a very dumb kind of clarity: I was scared, sure, but I was more annoyed that I still had not started the podcast I kept talking about. (Not my finest moment. Definitely an honest one.)

Ready Set Do came out of that night. I wanted a show about the ugly beginning: the part where someone is making a career change, launching a side project, building online for the first time, or finally letting themselves go before the story looks polished.

I host the show between Chicago and India. The guests have included engineers tied to SpaceX and Microsoft, recruiters with Amazon and TikTok on the resume, founders building AI startups, creators who started from zero, and international students figuring out OPT, H-1B, and the next move.

Host of Ready Set DoChicago and IndiaStarted April 4, 2024

If you want my canonical home on the internet, start at namanpandey.me. This page is the Ready Set Do version of that story.

Naman Pandey

About Naman

Why I keep dragging people back to the first move.

I care less about the polished postgame speech. I care about the part where someone is still paying for the choice they made six months ago and can tell you what it actually felt like.

Hosted episodes107

Every episode is another crack at the same question: what does it take to begin before you feel ready?

Guests98

Founders, engineers, recruiters, artists, guides, and people you would never see in the same room somehow end up here.

Appearances5

Other podcasts, other rooms, same obsession with the first move.

What I keep coming back to

  • Career changes and job-market strategy
  • International student experiences across India, the US, and Europe
  • Building a personal brand from zero
  • Starting before you feel qualified
  • The gap between planning and actually doing it

Recent activity

The latest conversations carrying my fingerprints.

If Google or a human lands here and wonders what I have been doing lately, this is the cleanest answer.

Episode 107

How to Make $80K on Upwork (From a Top 3% Freelancer) - w/ Anas

Two years ago, Anas lost his full-time UK job. He went back to Upwork — the platform he'd already used to make over $80K while studying — and within months landed an 18-month Swedish contract that generated over $5M in client revenue.

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Episode 106

How To Get Hired For Agentic AI Big Tech Roles in 2026 (Amazon Sr Data Scientist POV) - w/ Surya

Agentic AI hiring is already past the point where saying 'I use Claude' sounds impressive. Surya Kari works on Amazon's generative AI team, so this conversation gets into what actually matters now: customer judgment, data science fundamentals, model evaluation, and the proof that tells a hiring team you can ship inside a real business.

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Episode 105

How to Build a Global Health Career (Public Health Master’s, Oxford & WHO Africa) - w/ Dyuti

How do you go from running tuberculosis programs in rural Bihar to studying at Oxford and eventually working with WHO Africa? There is no clean answer — and that is sort of the point.

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Episode 104

How to Vibe-Code 20 Production Apps in 13 Days - w/ Avi

That's what Avi Pilcer actually shipped while most of us were still picking a domain name. He built an autonomous system called System Zero that does the heavy lifting for him.

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Episode 103

How to Get Hired for Applied AI Roles in Fortune 500 Companies (Target Sr Data Scientist POV) - w/ Sowmya

Applied AI hiring can feel fake from the outside because the job market keeps asking for years of experience in tools that barely existed five minutes ago. Sowmya Podila, a senior data scientist at Target, walks through how Fortune 500 AI work actually gets staffed, what hiring teams look for, and how to build a story that sounds useful instead of buzzword-heavy.

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Episode 102

How to Get a UK Work Visa With No Lottery (H-1B Lottery Reject POV) - w/ Hari

Hari Prasad Renganathan got rejected from the H1B lottery three times. Most people in that situation spiral.

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Invite Naman

If you want me on your podcast, here is the cleanest route.

I made a page for this so neither of us has to improvise the basics in DMs. It covers what I talk about, what fits this show, and where to reach me.

Around the internet

If you want to keep up, start here.

Different app, same show. Pick the one you already open without thinking.

Podcast

Ready Set Do on Spotify

If you just want to listen, start here.

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Podcast

Ready Set Do on Apple Podcasts

Same show. Different app. No grand speech needed.

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Video

Ready Set Do on YouTube

This is where the faces, clips, and full conversations live.

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Profile

Naman on LinkedIn

This is where I think out loud in public.

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Playlist

YouTube Music playlist

If you already live inside YouTube, this is the easy button.

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Naman goes on other podcasts too

The other rooms I borrow when it is not my mic.

You should not have to scroll half a mile to find this. Here is the short version, and the full trail lives on its own page.

Podcast appearance

How I Upleveled My 9 to 5 With YouTubing 5 to 9

This one gets into the double life a lot of ambitious people know too well: the day job paying the bills, the other thing pulling at you after hours, and what happens when you stop treating that second life like a hobby you have to apologize for.

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What keeps coming up

  • Career changes and job-market strategy
  • International student experiences
  • Building a personal brand from zero
  • Starting before you feel qualified
  • The gap between planning and actually doing it