Saturday, January 16, 2010

To all young engineering graduates.....

Just thought of giving some idea to young engineering graduates about IT organizations in India, as a lot of them, irrespective of their branch , end up with offers from IT firms.

When I say Indian IT firms I am referring to Indian players like TCS,,Infosys,Wipro,HCL,Mahindra Satyam, services division of IBM India (GBS) , Accenture, CTS ... etc

1) 99% people are absorbed into Software Services businesses. The key difference between a software product company and a software service company is that, service companies serve their clients using tools and technologies developed by product companies.

All technologies/products are made by US giants like Microsoft,Oracle, Apple, Google,...etc
And services firms use these technologies to develop custom applications to their clients.
For eg: Infy,TCS etc works in windows OS developed by MS, to develop a payroll processing application using java/,net (both technologies from USA) , with Oracle as database and deploy the same in servers made by Dell/HP. And in this very process, they make extensive use of VOIP phones made by CISCO and Internet powered by Google and Yahoo!..

So if you are hoping to work in developing high end technology applying engineering skills - aim for companies like Microsoft,Oracle,SAP... etc.. and not on firms which are purely 'service' players.


(An analogy with Automobile industry : The job done is IT service industry is comparable to the work done by a mechanic in a auto garage! Only difference is, your job is white collar and you can work in A/C cubicles with 10 times the salary! )

2) A major portion of the work done by Indian IT firms are maintenance work. The required applications are already developed and deployed by Accenture /IBM/US firms or developed in house, and the maintenance jobs are outsourced to Indian IT firms. Maintenance jobs are not bad at all , and you learn a lot if you work in maintenance projects, but it can be boring for smart engineers! So if you hate working in maintenance projects , consider offer from India IT firms as a last option only!!


3) A good amount of people will be working in support jobs in all these firms. And If you think that you are a high-performer and you wont be put into support jobs - you are damn wrong about it!!


4) Don't expect that you will be put into an area of you interest! Its not uncommon to see Sun certified Java people working in mainframes, embedded systems certified people working in web technology, and people from Computer Science branch with 'n' certifications working as software tester!

5) Don't expect that you will get an onsite opportunity just because you topped in training or your are excellent in technology- onsite is purely business demand based. So you need a lot of luck to get an onsite these days. People doing the job of Database/network administration/monitoring etc have more chances for an onsite.


Although I mentioned that most end in services industry, few get products firm as well. Not only in MS, Google.. but also in Indian firms. Oracle Financial Services (previously called I-Flex Solutions) is a product company, Infosys has a product - Finacle, Sasken - a technology player and not pure services, Subex- telecom products .... Some end up in software division of companies like Siemens, Bosch,Alcatel etc where a lot of high-tech projects await you.

Also all these IT service firms can act as a good place to begin with. There are lot of people who started off their careers with services firms and later got into high tech companies and of course, high salaries!

For people who considers themselves as average, and want to get into some job, Indian IT services is the best choice! You get good respect in society, an 'IT lifestyle' in cities like Bangalore,Hyderabad with plenty of money to hand around with friends.! (gf/bf's as well)

For people who dream bigger, aim for the top shots, like MS,Oracle.. etc.. :)


(
when people come and tell me that "hey I got placed in so and so IT company in India."...

What should my reply be?

If he/she is average type, then obviously , "Congrats! "
For high performers, the reply have to be "Congrats! and Condolences!"
)


8 comments:

  1. Nice article....Now a days there is no relation betwen what you studied and what you ended up doing...

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  2. he he.. nice and cynical at the same time.. nd a great piece of writing.. hope every new fresher planning to join an IT company read this..

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  3. Gud one Cijo....Keep going..A must read...

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  4. Hi Cijo,
    Thanks for explaining in plain English what most folks fail to understand.
    You should however also encourage smart people to join software product startups, which offer much better challenges than the ODCs of large MNCs.

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  5. thanks 'Anonymous' :-) will do my best!

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  6. Hey great post man :

    Totally agree to what u say... But luck plays like a very very important part.....trust me ..

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  7. Cijo,the article is really nice..I completely agree with your views...there is no point in selecting a job after completing degree course...A person should select his field of interest before joining degree....If so his passion will become his job and he will get paid for doing his hobby...LOve what you do and do what u love .....I just dont understand why peoples who are graduated in other streams consider s IT as a prestigious job,ignoring what they have studied for 4 years...I have seen very few percentage(infact only me and 1 of my friend) of people in the IT field around me saying that they are happy with their job and they enjoy what they are doing.... ONe more thing i would like to mention is i dont think that work is only that we do at office and only that we do for the company that we are employed in...There is no point in saying that my life is boring as i am working in a field which i am not interested in...You always have time to explore your interests..I have many friends who makes money doing their interest at free time-teaching,project guidence,blogging,share market and loads more etc ......So my suggestion is a person should be clear about what he want to become and work for that dream.We may fail to achieve our final dream.But we will be happy through out the way to acheive the dream.And at the end we will be strong enough to meet the failure incase it happens(Knowledgewise and financially) ...Believe in yourself

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  8. The best example for this is ur career....You dont lik the job,QUIT....Brave decision man.....you have other options,shifting the company,going for MBA etc....But many of the people working in IT dont have any other option and they are forced to bear the work they dont like as they landed upon to the wrong career

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