Kuchibhotla was an exceptional employee, recalls his former boss

Srinivas Kuchibhotla, the Indian IT engineer shot dead in an apparent hate crime in the U.S., was the kind of job candidate that every hiring manager wanted on his team, as described by his former boss Rod Larson.

"He was very sharp. A top-of-his-class kind of guy," Larson told Kansas City Star.

"His personality was exceptional. He was the kind of employee every manager would want."

Kuchibhotla was the top pick in 2007 for a software engineer position at Rockwell Collins, an avionics and information technology systems company based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

"Kuchibhotla was so exceptional that Larson ultimately couldn't keep him, because Kuchibhotla was moved from his auto-flight department and became instrumental in helping his company develop its first fly-by-wire planes, in which manual controls are entirely replaced by computers," Larson said.

"He was well-liked by anybody and he was excellent in all categories. He was a low-maintenance employee and did whatever was asked of him," he added.

Kuchibhotla was killed when 52-year-old Adam Purinton, walked into Austins Bar and Grill in the Kansas City suburb of Olathe and opened fire. His friend, Alok Madasani, and Ian Grillot, a bar-goer who tried to intervene in the attack, were also shot, but survived.