![]() | #61 |
BHPian Join Date: Apr 2013 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 62
Thanked: 69 Times
| ![]() I'm from the 90's IT industry, and crossed 20 years now. So yes, I have weathered the y2k boom, the dotcom blast, the great recession, the start up dreams, the android boom and the "cloudy" environment. What I see now is the dire need of the naughty forty guys to re skill not based on the hot tech out there, but based on the massive experience they amassed over the years. Example: You were/are a hard core programmer and can literally type code with pinky fingers. Time to maybe re-skill to Security domain and write exploits or fix them or find them. One more. You were/are a solid testing person and could find a flaw on a clean sheet of white paper. Re-skill into automation and help orgs automate such corner difficult tests. The resume has to be marketable. Else you are under the sword of Damocles. |
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![]() | #62 |
Distinguished - BHPian ![]() ![]() Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Ranchi
Posts: 3,991
Thanked: 8,835 Times
| ![]() What a depressing thread! And unfortunately pointing towards the reality. And I would agree with the few here who said that this doesn't apply just to the IT. Same applies to most of the sectors where technology, methods and models are moving fast. At the cost of disappointing some people reading this (honestly no offence to them actually meant); Govt. jobs, banking jobs etc are the ones which seem to remain the way they are for some more time to come when compared to private/ specialised jobs. The level of increasing competency, the cost-control, the drive to earn more profits at all costs by the corporates, the lack of support & control by the Government (except for tax collections), lack of internal support systems like 'real' HRD/employee unions- all this is taking a real toll. The experience/ techniques that you learn in your career spanning 15-20 years can now be replaced with guidance from automated models, softwares & technology. And then you have no option other than to re-skill yourself all again but then it has 2 major issues- One, at that stage of life where you have a full-fledged family to look after, it is difficult to find time to learn completely new skills/ technology. Second, even if you do learn, there is no dearth of young guys already having those skills and willing to work at lower pay packages than you, since they have lesser responsibilities owing to their age and stage in life. Look at it in this way- the organisation would now rather want a team with 1 experienced guy with 3-4 freshers working under him rather than having a team of 3-4 experienced guys. This brings a huge reduction in cost with new skill sets. AI, as per my understanding, is going to the last nail in the coffin. The next generation may suffer more ultimately. |
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![]() | #63 |
BHPian ![]() Join Date: Mar 2017 Location: BLR
Posts: 805
Thanked: 4,228 Times
| ![]() True Story - 1 In the thick of the IT boom was waiting for the lift in a building in Bangalore and overheard this conversation. " I told the HR that if I don't get vada for teatime snacks I will leave the company." Sums up the warped employment priorities that were creeping into employee courtesy the employer and the HR dept. Don't know if that guy got his vada or he had to change his job. But it was the thought process of a guy who had been spoilt silly by HR. HR depts are single handedly responsible for most of the issues being faced by IT guys now - giving unreasonable hikes to retain them, giving substantial jumps to hire new staff and pampering employees beyond reason instead of giving them a kick up their a** at appropriate times which would have made them realise that contrary to what they thought, they weren't gods gift to mankind. The guy who wanted vada's probably is 40 by now. I don't think anyone will be giving him vada's for teatime anymore. True Story - 2 I was requested to see if I could take on a 50 year old software developer - an Indian working in the US. I was surprised that although the guy was an early adopter - being amongst the earliest software developers from India he stuck to being a software developer writing code all his life and made himself redundant although he obviously wasn't redundant in that small company he worked for in the US. Needless to add, I couldn't take him as he was way too expensive and would be out of sync with the rest of the coders who were just out of college. That was the only time I had a 50 year old apply for a coding job. (Not even a project manager!) True Story - 3 (Happening now) A large MNC IT company (not one of the home grown ones) is doing a project for one of the 3 German auto manufacturers. The project is handled by the IT MNC's Indian arm and it's German arm. The German arm realises that are there are lot of people in this project in Germany and India who aren't actually doing anything (This begs the question - why and how were these people assigned to this project in the first place?) so a lot of them are moved out. The project is then moved to a 45 year old Project manager from India who is receiving rave reviews from the German auto manufacturer. This project manager was earlier being stifled by the boss but is now being recognised and rewarded. The former boss has been moved aside. On another note, the German auto manufacturer makes such a mess of everything one wonders how they build one of the most desirable cars in the world. These three situations sort of sum up what's been happening in the IT industry. The operative words to survival are mentioned in Samurai's earlier post: Finance (if it's a medium to large sized company) / Sales (regardless of size) / Small company (for techies) You just can't go wrong with that formula. |
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![]() | #64 | |
Senior - BHPian Join Date: May 2010 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 1,028
Thanked: 3,349 Times
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Yep, there was and still remains a high level of entitlement among us. But I don't think it's fair to blame HR, they had requirements, they had the budget back then and they did their job. And BTW, they were the first to get hit; much before the managers and techies started getting laid off, companies had started outsourcing their HR and payroll functions to vendors and contract employees. Now the financial dynamics have changed and they're doing their job again. If we didn't look ahead and realize that this model (constant cost increases without proportionate value adds that translate into sales or revenue) was unsustainable, then it's our fault for not saving for a rainy day. Last edited by am1m : 18th May 2018 at 11:20. | |
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![]() | #65 |
BHPian ![]() Join Date: May 2010 Location: .........
Posts: 572
Thanked: 1,564 Times
| ![]() Many of the challenges expressed by veterans of the IT service industry are the result of absolutely ineffective human resource development policies in many Indian corporates. It is true that a person should be self motivated to learn new skills and upgrade his or her capabilities. But isn't the HR team supposed to manage this learning process? So far, I've noticed that many HR managers think their role is to hire talent and get rid of non performers. What about the rest of the journey? If we look at the employment scenario in the manufacturing or core engineering sector, it is actually worse than the service sector. You have people who graduated from great colleges being offered a pittance for working in harsh conditions, and most who take up these jobs go for an MBA after 2 years and try to break into a service/consulting company. The range of professions that offer a decent livelihood is so limited in our country! There might be some who'd say that this is a free market and supply demand rules apply. Not true. In any profession, there has to be a basic income for autonomous consumption. A person should be able to live in a decent house, eat decent food and get basic medical care. How can our society tolerate a doctor or a dentist being paid a 4 figure salary? Medicine is one of the toughest professions to get into. And after all the years of hard work, this is what they get? It is not that medical care is cheap. A root canal costs more than 20k easily. And the dentist, who spends at least 20 working hours on it gets less than 10k a month? Isn't that exploitation? The problem is that few value or understand excellence in this country. And 'freshers' are always available for exploitation. The first job is important for smoothening the transition from academia to industry. While working in India, I genuinely felt many companies have a truly top heavy structure in terms of compensation. If this were related to performance, it would still be justifiable, because a part of those benefits would eventually reach those at the bottom of the pyramid. Sadly, it is not always performance driven. There are so many examples of companies where engineers, maintenance personnel and mid level managers are the first to be fired, and replaced by contractual staff. The top management rarely gets to take the brunt of a crisis, although their strategic indiscretion might be responsible for sealing the company's fate. |
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![]() | #66 | |
Team-BHP Support ![]() ![]() | ![]() Quote:
Although, I wouldn't entirely blame the HR for this fiasco. High demand and cut-throat competition leads to desperate methods, and all the mature ideas gets dumped on the wayside. They really have no choice. Management says they gotta hire 1000 people badly and they can afford insane pay. HR has no choice but cater to it by making crazy offers. However, once they cross 5 years, they can be easily replaced by younger low tech workers for 1/3rd the cost. So the shelf life of these low tech IT services workers is limited, unless they pick up domain knowledge and move higher in the value chain, like business development or sales. Last edited by Samurai : 18th May 2018 at 11:45. | |
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![]() | #67 | |
Senior - BHPian Join Date: May 2010 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 1,028
Thanked: 3,349 Times
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I hope we eventually get there. But again, as long as we continue to be the 'back-office' of the world, I don't think so. Ultimately, like a Flipkart, we need customers and significant revenue in the same geographic region to remain relevant. | |
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![]() | #68 | |
BANNED Join Date: Oct 2013 Location: bangalore
Posts: 560
Thanked: 659 Times
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![]() | #69 | |
Senior - BHPian Join Date: May 2010 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 1,028
Thanked: 3,349 Times
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Irrespective of company - type, brand, size, pedigree, product/service, the one thing I have NEVER seen in the IT industry is loyalty being rewarded. Quite the opposite. Maintain good relationships with the people you've worked with, even after you leave, but don't expect the company as a whole- the higher-ups who crunch the numbers, to give two hoots about you when tough times come. Last edited by am1m : 18th May 2018 at 12:04. | |
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![]() | #70 | |
BHPian ![]() Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Mumbai
Posts: 204
Thanked: 118 Times
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eg - Telecom evolved from PSTN to a VoLTe - A person having domain knowledge in telecom needs to reskill himself for this shift in technology. Or, a doctor / surgeon to get abreast of the Robotic Assisted Surgery. People with years of telecom were shown the doors by incumbents in India when times changed. Ofcourse that is a different topic for discussion. But - All I'm saying is - "perform or perish" is the mantra. One needs to be constantly updated and keep eyes and ears wide open to know what's happening around them in their organization as well as outside the organization. Having an ostrich mentality will have them buried live! | |
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![]() | #71 | |
BHPian ![]() Join Date: Mar 2017 Location: BLR
Posts: 805
Thanked: 4,228 Times
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The fact that all of this was killing the business as a whole was something a lot of people knew but most couldn't care less as long as they were on the gravy train. There are still some IT companies making a lot of money and not in the least would they be effected for a very long time to come. But that is a story for another thread. | |
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![]() | #72 | ||
Team-BHP Support ![]() ![]() | ![]() Quote:
How do you recognize companies that do high-tech work? Easy, they will have >10 year experienced techies working as individual contributors in either part-time or full-time basis. TCS was founded before I was born. Yet the TCS founder (F C Kohli) was still running the show when I joined TCS. He had a favorite statement, that all the technology work in TCS is done by trainee engineers. Old time TCSers may remember this statement. He set the tone for Indian IT industry. In fact, he is considered the father of Indian software industry. Quote:
![]() Technology evolved, not the domain. It is lot easier for somebody with domain knowledge to learn as the technology kept changing. I moved across analog->TDM->VOIP/UC rather seamlessly. Thirty years ago, business requirements in enterprise telephony was B2C/C2B communication. That requirement remains the same, although enterprise telephony is now called universal communication, to allow for non-voice channels like chat/email/social-media. | ||
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![]() | #73 |
BHPian Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Hyderabad
Posts: 246
Thanked: 48 Times
| ![]() Imagine driving a 6-litre, V12, 650 bhp car with rear wheel drive on a hilly terrain with lots of blind twists and turns. And driving at the car's top speed. And driving without traction control. Scary, isn't it? This thread and the comments / posts / real life experiences are scarier than that. (And I too have enough experience to write a post here. But will do in due course; not yet) |
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![]() | #74 |
BHPian Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: HyderabadDeccan
Posts: 300
Thanked: 282 Times
| ![]() What a knowledgeable thread, and must admit, a tad depressing too!. It fits me apt - an "IT" professional, close to the mid 40s, in a "techno"-managerial role, in one of the big 5 IT Service providers. I have been applying to all those Senior Managerial level jobs in the job sites, but hardly land an interview. Am considering myself lucky that I don't have humongous EMIs to clear, and have lived conservatively, keeping a close tab on my expenses, still driving around in my 6 year old hatch back, and living in a 2 BHK. Trying to stay physically fit, reskill myself and keeping relevant, and considering myself lucky that I still have my job.. |
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![]() | #75 |
BHPian Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 338
Thanked: 561 Times
| ![]() My two cents: A lot of the people who are in trouble today actually never got into IT for the sheer passion of IT/Tech. It was more for the money, the way our society is structured with all the pressures of " family and relatives" etc. Same is the case with the airline industry. There are very few pilots in India who are nuts about planes, they got into it only for the money when there was a shortage of pilots. Imagine this website full of people without passion for vehicles. It would die out soon ![]() |
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