[adisan]

Originally Posted by Jaguar

IMO that is a wrong assumption. Even the best of minds with the best training would take time to ramp up to the same level of productivity as an average (for lack of a better term) experienced developer. But many in the top management fail to acknowledge this fact.

Assuming that the context of this discussion is backfill hiring: If the hiring manager takes care to select candidates with similar exposure/ skills/ experience levels, the training would involve only a Knowledge Transfer regarding the system and any specifics to be handled. Usually this training lasts a handful of weeks and is sufficient for the new hires to deliver.

The exception would be if the person exiting is an exceptional performer, in which case the hiring manager would have to look for a candidate with similar intellectual and/or creative abilities.

[nithin5497]

As someone who recently was on the job hunt, I would like to add/confirm just one point here that Infosys indeed does offer 3.6L for Systems Engineer role

But credit where it's due, they do put up the salary before instead of making you jump through 10 hoops of evaluations and then revealing the salary.
P.S. For ref, I'm an engineering grad from a T2 college from a metro city.

[Kln]

Originally Posted by dragonfire

Am serving notice period at one of the big four and I recently hired my replacement for the project - a subcon at thrice of what they are paying me.

If they eventually hire him full time, they still would have to pay him twice as me. Yet they don't want to match the 50% hike I am getting at my new job. Go figure!

In life generally speaking, you get a hike only if you jump. I'm in the medical field, and I know of a nursing staff who jumped through 4 jobs in 2 years and ended up back to his original hospital at nearly 2x his salary (20k to 40k) for the same work profile. Same with doctors. No matter how good your work place might feel, the only way to get a salary hike is if you jump.

[allinbalance]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

However, these non compete clauses usually apply to employees in critical roles or have a lot of strategic insight into the company. A lot of sales people get this clause too.

So it is not something that applies to all.

I agree. I have the same restrictions myself due to I handle a global P&L and what I know of the customer is strategic and business critical in the hands of competition.

This kind of restrictive clause on what can be legally defined as "core operations workers of the company" using the provisions of Industrial laws (IT having been defined as an "industry" - 20 years ago) is bordering on a PIL.

In fact, I believe there are several court judgements which ruled against such employment terms for "core workers" as being "exploitative" and "contrary to principles of natural justice".

I mean what can the poor guy who knows how to code, test or bug fix do - go work in a restaurant or a construction site?

[Astonite]

<<I don't work for Accenture anymore >>

The non-compete definitely must be for insourcing these people into the captive unit. This is there in the original contract as well.
Having worked with Accenture in the past, I would say they pay well (in 2019). Not sure about the rest.
The current trend is to do replace with freshers for the roles which experienced people were performing thereby saving on the project cost however, on a longer run this is going to be a huge problem.
The attrition rate is mostly from the experienced (and long termers) who on discussion finds out that their salary is way low. Today I think the cap is at 2L per year of experience in these service based companies and probably Accenture would pay a bit more.

From what I see, this trend will continue as long as these companies keep delaying the market correction for the existing employees.

And for those freshers who are joining these companies - the suggestion would be join smaller companies which might pay the same or even less, get the experience and then go into captive or service based. Personally my career path was paved from what I learnt in a start-up than what I had learnt for 6yrs in a fortune 500

[kadanaJ]

Back in 2010, the average salary for a fresher at a top-tier IT company was around Rs 3-3.5 lakh (~US$4,300-5,000 at that time).

In 2021, the average salary for a fresher at a top-tier IT company is around… Rs. 3-3.5 lakh (~US$4,000-4,500).

This is true for not just IT companies. I have seen a similar trend in finance as well. Starting salaries have not improved over time. Heck, my former company stopped giving regular employees even a basic annual raise.

And they could get away with it, because of the above-mentioned supply and demand mismatch.

My ultimate solution was to leave my job and start my own company (which I did in August 2021). It has been less than a year, and I'm doing quite well.

And with regards to my employee salaries, now that I'm a boss, on the other side of the table, I have realised "Labour in India is cheap!!! I have incredibly talented people working for me for less than they are worth. And because the job market is so bad, I can get away with it." Even better, I can get tax benefits on expenses which I never could as a salaried employee.

It was a huge and scary risk to leave my safe job and start something on my own, but many months down the line, seeing where I am now, I have no regrets.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by kadanaJ

...I have realised "Labour in India is cheap!!! I have incredibly talented people working for me for less than they are worth. And because the job market is so bad, I can get away with it."

Thank you for stating this, this is refreshing straight-talk.

I believe most IT employees are ok with the idea of different and sometimes unfair (perceived or actual) salary levels for even 2 individuals doing the same job. It's a free market and demand supply and the individual needs of the company/employee all play a part in determining what is "fair". That's the way it should be.

I guess what rankles is when employees hear their senior management who are making 20-50x what they make giving lectures on how all employees should be ok with low pay "for the good of the industry" and how "loyalty matters". Yes, your typical IT job has far better working conditions than most other sectors. And average pay is certainly better. But it's a business- both sides do what works for them. And unless it's something illegal, like misrepresentation on the part of the employee or cartelization on the part of employers, I don't see anything wrong with that.

[curiousElf]

Attrition in product companies is not much better. (in India atleast. Not including FAANG companies)

The place I work at pays fairly well and hire from tier-2 IITs and NITs. Fresher compensation is 15L (all cash). And we still have folks complain about how the pay is not in line with market.

Couple of conversations I had in the appraisal cycle.

I have 3 years of experience. So my CTC should be 30L. 10x of experience is what I am expecting

27L is too less. I am not settling for less than 35L

The quote just above is by someone with 1.5 years of experience during an appraisal!

Is the work being done cutting edge? No, definitely not. Its business code being written on top of open source frameworks.

The market for software engineering folks who are even semi decent at what they do has exploded due to remote work and international companies hiring directly in India. In my opinion - this is also a major factor contributing to attrition.

PS: We ended up paying the 3 year guy 10x his experience

[chaitanyakrish]

I would like to share an experience here. I moved to a Patented Product based company 3 years ago and our CEO visited once and he said, " All these Indian IT service companies made coding a low cost affair, and all companies are struggling to maintain their code during upgrades etc, and that's the reason for the move towards standardized SaaS based solutions like Salesforce, Workday, which makes maintenance easy".

It is very difficult maintain and manage monolith applications with huge customization in current agile era, where decisions and product launches should be done quickly to meet market needs. No Company affords a huge downtime as businesses run 24*7 now.

With emerging cloud based SaaS services, i believe the center of gravity of IT is shifting towards west again, whereas Indian companies stuck in age old services.

[chennai-indian]

I work for a small IT company and we offer a package of 4 to 4.5 LPA for fresh graduates. Mind you, we essentially get the so-called "leftovers" from tier 3 colleges as nobody would have heard of our company. I'm on the recruitment panel and we recruit about 50 freshers a quarter. To get 50, we end up interviewing about 150. The quality of the fresh graduates is pathetic, to say the least. My experience has been that out of 50 that we recruit, only about 10 or so remain after 2 years. The rest leave in spite of the fact that we give a reasonable 20+% hike every year.

[fast_n_curious]

I have been in the Indian IT industry for last 16 years, started as a developer and currently I am a director in my current company. Jumped ship once. IT sector has provided me many oppurtunities to grow and spread my wings, been to many countries it allowed me to learn and then relearn and learn again.
But the one thing I have come to know in this 16 years is always be truthful to the people you work with, dont be partial, appreciate good work, always remember all are in this together and finally always give recognition where it is due.
Finally always appreciate the fact that someone will leave the project for their need, just need to let them know never to bad mouth any of their previous employer

[prajwalmr62]

Originally Posted by nithin5497

But credit where it's due, they do put up the salary before instead of making you jump through 10 hoops of evaluations and then revealing the salary.

well, the salary you see is the MAX you'll get if you are the best employee. Most people who joined won't see this salary. Their payout ranges from 2.9-3.5L usually, not including multiple deductions.

[eyesice]

To companies:

1. Reduce notice period for employees from 60/90 days to 20 days.
2. Take care of your employees by providing enough recognition for their work. A friend of mine recently asked for a raise to which the manager asked him to get an offer from another company and then they can process the raise.

To all employees who feel stagnated:

1. Make hay while the sun shines. The free money printing press is not going to last for long. Take advantage of the crazy bubble before everything comes down crashing.

[Simha.k]

Originally Posted by SoumenD

Which college was she from? IIT/NIT? 2007 the standard starting salary in infy was 2.7LPA and before that (2005/06) it was 2.2LPA pan India.

Tier 1 college in Karnataka. I'm not 100% sure of the 3.0lacs offered. It may be a few thousands +/- give or take. But I'm sure it was around that ball park range.

OK, for a moment, let us assume I'm wrong and the salary was 2.2lacs in 2003, just look at the percentage the salary has gone up by. A mere 1.4lacs in 17 years! How do you even justify that? And how much has the cost of living gone up by? Price of commodities? A litre of petrol?

I know it's all about supply and demand. But still, there has to be some logic right?

[Ragavsr]

Originally Posted by curiousElf

We ended up paying the 3 year guy 10x his experience

Looks like I chose the wrong career.

I guess this level of pay applies only to the IIT/ NIT crowd otherwise there would have been a big boom in real estate by now. The increased salaries have to go somewhere and that somewhere is usually real estate.