Leading the way

Srinivas Mellacheruvu ’06 credits his education at Wright State for his successful career working on cutting-edge products.

Like any international student who first arrives at Wright State University, Srinivas Mellacheruvu had to adjust to a new culture, learning environment, and teaching styles. As a native of India, he also had to get acclimated to a completely different climate with Ohio’s winters.

As he began navigating his new life at an American university, Mellacheruvu received support from faculty members in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. Henry Young, an associate professor, and Raghavan Srinivasan, the department chair, were especially helpful to him.

Young hired Mellacheruvu as a research assistant and later as a teaching assistant. He also sponsored Mellacheruvu’s master’s degree thesis and provided valuable mentoring and guidance throughout the process.

When Mellacheruvu encountered some challenges defending his thesis, Srinivasan came to his aid.

“He helped bring the thesis defense back into the intended scope of the project, and he provided the breathing room that I needed to have some offline discussions and wrap it up,” Mellacheruvu recalled.

Mellacheruvu credits Wright State with preparing him for the successful career he has today. He is especially grateful he was able to learn about product design as a student and gain valuable training on NASTRAN, a finite element analysis program.

“The software programs that I learned at Wright State were the cornerstones of my past few roles in the industry,” said Mellacheruvu.

Shortly after graduating in 2006 with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, Mellacheruvu landed his first job at Leggett & Platt, a leading manufacturer of box springs for mattresses. The company had recently opened a plastics division, and Mellacheruvu was the fourth person hired. As a mechanical design engineer, he worked on everything from chair bases and gymnasium seats to plastic components for automotive shops and lawnmowers.

In 2008, he moved to Chicago to work on product development for Motorola mobile devices. As Motorola’s mobile device business began to decline, Mellacheruvu became concerned about the looming possibility of layoffs and started job hunting.

When he received an offer from Apple to join their iPhone operations group, he relocated to California, where he resides today.

“Apple was pretty fast paced and intense, a lot of international travel. The treadmill started running faster,” recalled Mellacheruvu. “There were a lot of strong, type A people to work with in general. It’s a very competitive environment.”

While he enjoyed working on the cutting edge of technology, Mellacheruvu realized that having a long-term career at Apple was not the best decision for himself, his wife, and their young family.

But his achievements at Apple are definitely among the highlights of his career thus far.

“The iPhone will always be one of my favorite products that I ever worked on,” he said. “It’s a landmark product and a really successful product line that I got to work on very early on.”

After three years at Apple, Mellacheruvu moved on to Google, where he worked as a manufacturing process engineer on some of the company’s artificial reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) products.

With a different-paced environment than Apple, Google ended up being too slow for him.

“Both are very successful companies. Both have their own unique way of doing things,” he explained. “I learned a lot by working at so many different companies. Those experiences helped shape my personality and my way of life. Work is a big part of our lives, so I made the best out of all of those experiences.”

After four jobs, Mellacheruvu was still looking for a role that would challenge him enough—and a place where he could grow as a leader and do more for others.

In that pursuit, he joined Meta Platforms in 2017, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. As director of manufacturing operations and test engineering, Mellacheruvu manages a diverse team of 140 mechanical, electrical, automation, and software engineers who develop hardware for the company’s AR and VR product lines including Meta Quest—a VR headset for gaming and educational purposes—and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.

“It’s pretty cutting edge,” he said. “AR/VR is one of the biggest computing platforms for the future. We expect the technology to evolve beyond what it is today.”

Mellacheruvu says he feels fortunate to have found a position that provides a good intersection of what he was looking for—from expanding his leadership skills to developing exciting new technology that will change people’s lives in meaningful ways.

“This role keeps me on my toes. It challenges me in all ways,” he said. “Meta, itself, is a great culture. We are an extremely fast-moving company.”

Looking ahead, Mellacheruvu hopes to grow into more advanced leadership roles while still balancing work and family life.

“Self-development is a big part of who I am, and that has been a cornerstone of my success,” he explained.

His advice to current engineering students is to be bold, think big, and don’t take no for an answer.

“There are always ways around hurdles,” he said. “What might look like roadblocks now could be the biggest opportunities ahead.”

Managing energy for sustained performance, taking life one day at a time, and being patient and willing to adapt to changing times and situations are among Mellacheruvu’s core beliefs.

“It doesn’t matter what you do, but be the best at what you do,” he said. “If you’re not happy, move on and find something else.”

Over the years, Mellacheruvu has returned to Wright State to visit. He also gave back to his alma mater with a gift to the Mechanical and Materials Engineering Program Fund in honor of his mentors, Young and Srinivasan.

“The real beauty of life is when you donate your time and your money to serve others,” he said. “As long as your needs are met, then help humanity and the next generation of students at the university where we came from. Don’t forget the footsteps that we took to get to where we are today.”

This article was originally published in the 2024 issue of the Wright State Magazine. Read more stories at wright.edu/magazine.