He began his career as a research physicist at the Palit Laboratory of Physics, Rajabazar Science College (University of Calcutta).

[citation needed] Mitra was the founder and first head of the Computing Machines and Electronics Division at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Calcutta.

In 1953-54, India's first indigenous electronic analogue computer for solving linear equations with 10 variables and related problems was designed and developed by Samarendra Kumar Mitra and was built under his direct personal supervision and guidance by Ashish Kumar Maity in the Computing Machines and Electronics Laboratory at the[1] (ISI), Calcutta.

Under the leadership of Mitra, the first second-generation indigenous digital computer of India was produced, namely the transistor-driven machine ISIJU-1, which became operational in 1964.

The Computer and Communication Sciences Division of Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) was started under Samarendra Kumar Mitra and has produced many eminent scientists.

[citation needed] Mitra was a self-taught scholar with wide-ranging interests in varied fields such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, poultry science, Sanskrit language, philosophy, religion and literature.

Samarendra Kumar Mitra known as “the father of Indian computer revolution" was born on 14 March 1916, in Calcutta, the eldest of two children.

Samarendra Kumar Mitra studied at the Bowbazar High School, Calcutta, and completed his Matriculation in 1st Division in 1931.

He was awarded an UNESCO Special Fellowship on the study of High Speed Computing Machines in the United States of America and the United Kingdom during 1949–50 and worked at Harvard University, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, United States and at the Mathematical Laboratory, University of Cambridge, U.K. During his time at the Institute for Advanced Study, he became close with numerous eminent physicists and mathematicians, such as Albert Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, John von Neumann.

[3] He was UNTAA Adviser on Computing, Moscow, and was responsible for bringing a massive technical aid to India from the U.S.S.R, amounting to nearly one crore rupees under UNTTA, 1955.