Forged Stories: Meet R&D Engineer Shaleen Sharma

When we were thinking about Forged as a brand, we personified it as someone who is bold and acts with conviction, defies convention, is wildly imaginative but also is intentional and crafted in what they do. There are a few niche celebrities we could define our brand as – Donald Glover is a Forged favourite – but when applying these qualities to our colleagues, there was one person who really stood out as a Forger. Allow us to introduce you to our multi-faceted, multi-dimensional and multi-talented R&D engineer, Shaleen Sharma. Not only does he work here at Forged, but in his spare time he throws parties, is a music producer, DJ, photographer and now he's adding filmmaker and director to his list of talents. The ultimate multi-hyphenate (and all round chilled, nice guy), we delve into what makes him tick.

Forged: Let’s chat about work first. What's the difference between a Food Inventor and an R&D engineer here at Forged?

Shaleen: An R&D engineer, traditionally at Forged, is at the intersection of science and engineering. But if you're an R&D engineer stationed on the food team, like I am, you have one foot in food science and another foot in hardware engineering. I work with the food inventors, they do food science, and then I'll tackle the process to make abstract things happen in real life. For example, this might involve making a device that a food inventor can use to achieve a particular texture.

F: If you had to explain what your job is to a child, how would you describe it?

S: Basically, we think of foods and textures of foods that we would like to create and my job is to make that happen. So, whether that's through food science, formulation development and recipe development, I take those and turn them into real things we can eat.

F: OK, if you had to say you had a primary focus at the moment, what would it be?

S: My job right now is all about texture and shape. So, if we're looking at a fillet, we might be thinking about the fibers inside, what direction they're going, how thick they should be, whether they should stick to traditional convention or if we should have them doing something no-one has seen before.

F: We're all about being deliberately different here at Forged, how do you feel you're bringing this to life?

S: It's my personal goal working on the product development team to create food no one has ever seen before and isn't possible anywhere else. Maybe this is a controversial statement, but in my opinion, it would be a massive waste of talent, time and technology if we were only creating something that people already know.

F: Love that goal! Very Forged. So, how on earth did you get into this as a career?

S: It's not been a rational or straightforward path. I did my undergraduate studies in drug design and discovery, so my whole thing was I wanted to make a difference, in cancer especially, by being on the R&D side of that. So how do we cure particular cancers and diseases? That was my goal. Then I came across Vow (the parent company of Forged) and found this company that was doing something just as impactful for the world, in my opinion, but in a very cool and unique way. So, I started off as a scientist here, realised that while I do love science, I also love building things with scientists. And that's when I transitioned into engineering. I taught myself how to code, taught myself some basic engineering. Since starting here I've done everything from cell line development to media optimisation. Now I'm on the future products team. I've become quite a generalist here.

F: Sounds like you love to keep changing and learning?

S: Oh, I'm addicted to the process of learning. If I'm not growing or discovering new things and building at the same time I feel stagnant. I, like, really have that thirst to really push what I'm capable of. I'm in love with that contrast of my role. I can have some days where I'm all creative, coming up with ideas and experimenting and some days where I'm very much the nerd trying to figure out a really complex problem.

F: You've carved out a career you love.

S: I'm super grateful for having the opportunity to do that. I've had engineers here that have been such an amazing support system for me. They let me learn and fail in a non-embarrassing, very safe way. So, it's really nice to be able to find my feet in engineering while not being afraid to publicly fail!

F: And on the side you have a lot of passion projects. First, tell us a little about the party you put on.

S: It's called EKLA. Our most recent party was insane, there were about 170 people there and it was probably the closest to how I originally envisioned it. What I wanted to do with this party is something different, where we have a hub for art, music and film all in one place, which to my knowledge is extremely rare. For the most recent party, the community showed up in numbers and the feedback I got was that everyone felt connected, even if they didn't know each other. They knew they were in a safe space.

F: It was a warehouse party, right?

S: That's exactly right. It was tucked away at the end of a street in Marrickville, a suburb in Sydney's inner west. So, you looked at the address on Google Maps and you wouldn't think it's there because it's next to a school and there's houses nearby. But then you rock up and you can hear the music and there's this random garage door that's open and there's a party inside.

F: You DJd there, what were the top tracks that lit the place up?

S: I like to keep the genres quite fluid and have a good mix of energy and emotion. That's my thing. Energy is what gives people that adrenaline rush, but when they hear emotion and melody, that's what they remember at the end of the night.

So, the track I opened with was an instrumental of Timbaland's Bounce that he did with Missy Elliot, Justin Timberlake and Dr. Dre in the early 2000s. The genius behind that beat is he sampled someone laughing and made a beat out of it. People were in love with it on the dance floor, it was perfect!

The next one was one I wanted to play out that is a remix of the Nintendo Wii theme music. I reckon three quarters of the room knew what it was while the other quarter were probably too young to know it.

Another one was, if you remember the track Destination Unknown (Destination Calabria by Alex Gaudino), I started the saxophone melody to that about halfway through the set – I quietened everything down and then brought that in and people went crazy for it. The whole room was pumping.

I also played some cultural music from my heritage but flipped in a way that makes it modern. The South Asian and Indian people in the audience went crazy because it’s what we grew up with listening to on cassette tape in the car. And people who weren't South Asian were entranced by it too and that was the most satisfying thing to see; our heritage bringing people of all different backgrounds together.

F: And you screened short films at the party too?

S: Yeah, so the whole aesthetic of the party has a lot of influences from surrealism and horror as well; the whole intrigue and mystery. We wanted to elevate this to another level. And the best way we could do this was through films. So, my friends Nick, Ahmed and myself shot two short films over three months. We co-wrote the scripts together. I also did the score for it because I have a background in music production. One of the films, called Dosa Masala, is super experimental. It's basically about a girl who walks into a restaurant, orders food, unwraps it and there's a face in her food who starts talking to her. The second film, called The Barber, is about someone getting their hair cut and there's a room out the back where the barber's assistant is waiting to eat the cut hair. It's super weird.

F: Are you going to try directing next time?

S: Yeah, I'm shit scared, but so excited.

F: OK, now for some quick questions. Are you listening to any good podcasts?

S: I’ve been listening to the Critical Banter podcast. They’re friends of friends and I love listening to them – they talk about everything and nothing. Often commentary about Sydney. But they are blowing up on TikTok now and doing really well.

F: Have you read anything lately that has made you think differently?

S: Bhagavad Gita, it’s a sacred text in Hinduism that talks about the simplicity of life, how to ground yourself in the essentials. So, for example, if things get complicated, I have a way of reconnecting to what I find to be true like nature, community, family, people. They are constants no matter what arises.

F: If you could be anywhere right now, where would it be?

S: Japan. Definitely Japan. It’s a great place for someone like me. Outside of music and films, I love cars and vintage Nintendo consoles. I went there once in 2018, we went to Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima. At one point we accidentally got on the wrong bullet train and ended up halfway across the country.

F: What’s your favourite restaurant?

S: I love food, but I'm also happy to eat the same five things for the rest of my life. My favourite restaurant would have to be Foreign Return in Surry Hills. They do Indian food with a modern twist, so they’re reinventing old recipes that have been passed down for generations. I’m a big fan.

F: What inspires you?

S: Working here at Forged has made me push my boundaries, and this has bled into my personal life. When you are around people like our founders George and Tim, and when you see scientists you work with start things too, it’s a big source of inspiration.

F: Amazing. Thanks for chatting Shaleen!