[FiestaST]

I worked for one of our Indian MNCs in India as well as US (transfer).

When I first joined them in 2017 in US, I have seen the team grow and stay in growth mode until 2020. I then worked from India for a different assignment and returned to US in 2021.

I was surprised to see that 90% of the team (40-50 size) is now new. I had extra responsibilities to train the new joiners and few others which are not part of my routine. I asked for 50% hike since one of the few seniors left.

My org put me through series of interviews with various clients and gave me a hike of 10%. Meanwhile we hired few juniors/seniors in the range of 75-150% of team’s average.

I found a start up in blockchain that was willing to pay on par/more than MAANG and I left. The only thing my previous org did right is to prepare me for interviews free of cost.

I won’t blame the companies entirely as well for this situation. There’s too many opportunities to pass on, anyone that’s not taking advantage of it ends up looking like an idiot at the moment. It’s tough to keep employees. Period.

[curiousElf]

Originally Posted by Ragavsr

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.

Nope, not NIT. A tier 3 college far from most towns. Had started on a low base but smart and was doing better than folks we hired from IIT/NITs. No point keeping someone's salary low just because they started low if performance is as good. They will just up and leave. We would have had to spend as much time and more money finding someone and then getting them productive and retaining them

[SoumenD]

Originally Posted by Simha.k

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?

You answered yourself. Yes, it’s purely supply vs demand. And they are not putting a gun on your head to join them. People can always go for startup jobs or create their own startups if they feel WITCH firms are not worth their talent.

They are private entities here to do business, not uplift anybody’s standard of living. Anybody expecting that needs to wake up & have a coffee to get out of the dream.

[born_free]

Have been in job search recently. Market is really hot.
There are apps where tech/consulting employees are anonymously posting multiple offers they receive, and seeking advice.

I have seen many people having more than 5 offers in hand.

Even though entry level salary is low, experienced employees are getting good salary and have good demand. Even the companies like HCL, Infosys, TCS are paying good for experienced folks . They are competing with start ups and product companies for same skills .

Typical rate is 3-4 * YOE lakhs per annum for most IT skills in big organizations. 5 yoe person is easily getting 15L to 20L salary. Product companies and start ups can pay more than 30L for same experience.

I too managed to land multiple offers at 16 YoE in software engineering and increased my salary significantly

Indian IT companies are also hiring senior folks as I had cleared all rounds of HCL and Wipro. Had received calls from TCS, Infosys, Tech Mahindra as well. They were ready to pay 40 to 50 percent raise on my current salary.

The long notice period and wfh have turned the situation in job seekers favor. Now you have three months to search jobs and use counteroffer to negotiate even more.


Many Fortune 500 companies are setting up their tech teams in india to limit the dependency on outsourcing firms. This opens up opportunity for all levels.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by born_free

The long notice period and wfh have turned the situation in job seekers favor. Now you have three months to search jobs and use counteroffer to negotiate even more.

Must say I am happy to see this extended-notice-period nonsense coming back to bite the companies that have them! Never expected this to happen this way. From what I've seen across the jobs shifts I've made, no knowledge transfer or training of the replacement happens before the last week, if it happens at all! Ironically, in the company I worked for with the longest notice period, they hadn't even managed to hire a replacement by the time I completed my notice period. I took it on myself to prepare a detailed hand-off doc and made sure enough people had it to send to the person who eventually came on board. Even then I ended up talking to that person to help out, at least once a week for a month after I left!

So the "notice period necessary for hand-off" is just a story spun by management, anything more than a month is just an outdated retention strategy to try and make it harder for employees to leave. Good that it's backfiring now. Hope it triggers a re-think across the industry.

[Arun Varma]

The angst is understandable from the employee perspective. But if we see it from the Employer's / Industry perspective, we will see a different picture. The work of most of the IT/ITeS companies are outsourced from countries outside of India where, thanks to wage arbitration, it makes sense for countries say, in the US / Europe to send work to India. Even though companies don't highlight this and make a "value"play these days, the reason why outsourcing is booming is because it is cheaper to send work to countries like India compared to keeping it back home.

Now, if the wages keep increasing to the tune of the expectations of the employees, this advantage will diminish over time. No outsourcing company will agree to price increases in lock step with the wage increases - at least beyond a point. Also consider that many of these big companies are listed in the stock market so they are also answerable to the shareholders. If costs keep going up, the margins diminish and the share value comes down. This is a double whammy. So what seems like a plus to be taken advantage for the employees in the short term, it is a minus, and a potentially huge one for the companies, the shareholders and the industry in the mid to long term.

If we push it this way, we may as well kill the proverbial golden egg laying goose, that is the outsourcing industry, which, as some have said, has been one of the largest employers in the country!

This is not taking away the fact that good governance practices are a must!

There is a need for a balance but it needs the perspective of both the tree and the forest!

[xantia]

Scrolled through the posts and accumulated the frustration quotient! Some of us who have been fortunate enough to be on the policy side of MNCs would know that joining salaries for freshers and interns are over 6L. Investment banking MNCs pay very highly along with perks like training at the HQ, diversity of experiences, leadership connect and sometimes very fast track promotions. Services companies pay way lower, but mostly top it up using stock options vesting equally every year.

If you have an overseas degree and were to join companies at international locations, the fresher salaries are way higher ($125K and over) and if you are fortunate (good team, good manager, visible cross-functional outcomes, and recognised as "talent"), then companies will go all out to provide you with opportunities and compensation that would be very difficult to find in the market. However, the work that these grads do and the responsibilities that they own up to is far beyond what is being done even at higher levels of the Indian software industry. Case in point, Silicon Valley and PNW. These grads are qualified, smart, demanding, committed and delivering at the leading edge of technology

Upwards in the posts, there was a question around "if the attrition is at 25%, where are they going?" A very small percentage oscillate within the big-4. But there is a huge startup industry that is VC funded. Unicorns vs. Niche Tech and others in between or even emerging. Most pitch-decks have a significant spend on headcount growth, talent requirements in the fields of AI/ML or Automation. And whether they have work or not, they have to hire as per the roadmap or the VCs will be unhappy. Salaries have gone through the roof for experiences over 4 years (5x multiples are not uncommon, 3x is par for the course)

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Arun Varma

Now, if the wages keep increasing to the tune of the expectations of the employees, this advantage will diminish over time. ...If costs keep going up, the margins diminish and the share value comes down.

Completely agree. This reasoning applies to senior management pay/bonuses too hopefully.

[charanreddy]

Read through the chain and sharing my 2 cents here. I don’t strictly work in IT ( Analytics ) but most of family does. About 20 years back, IT was a dream job. A student’s ultimate goal was to complete engineering , get into IT and go to on site. However as the aspiring candidates increased, so did the supply. So many engineering colleges and training centres mushroomed all over. Just go to Ameerpet in Hyderabad to understand the extent of the problem. Then malpractices started taking place. Students would submit fake experiences to get the job. At one point in time, I know of senior leaders in companies asking the hiring team to block CVs from a region due to high prevalence of fakes. This is not just in India. I know of a few usecases where on-site resources outsource their work privately to Indian SMEs for a fee of $1000 - $2000 while getting paid close to $100K salaries.

Bottom line is as supply exploded, companies are used to cheaper labour. They in turn started quoting extremely competitive rates to clients and this is a never ending loop.

The more talented ones got out of this cycle and started landing decently high paying jobs in smaller product/ service companies. In the last 2 years the market has comfortably moved out of the prior band of salaries and a hike of 50% pre covid is very normal. Hence the high attrition you see. Actually the problem is much bigger than the 25% to 40% attrition suggests. Weighted by the quality of talent this is more like 60% as the cream will leave. For the folks left behind in service companies, this hasn’t changed as much ( they did get some normalisation but much below market).

The mantra for me is simple. We need to have the skills in demand at any point in time. IT industry is like your final year exams , every year. Keep learning and upgrading if you want to be paid high. It’s very different from being in business or management or medicine. The cycles of knowledge evolution is much shorter. I am expecting a lot of stress being in IT at 45 yrs + unless you are in a delivery manager / practice leader role. Younger kids with a lot more new knowledge and free time will challenge you and it will be a constant struggle to defend your job.

[Kochikaran]

Originally Posted by Arun Varma

If we push it this way, we may as well kill the proverbial golden egg laying goose, that is the outsourcing industry, which, as some have said, has been one of the largest employers in the country!

Salaries make up less than 1% of the revenues of these companies. I am sure shareholders won’t bat an eye.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by Kochikaran

Salaries make up less than 1% of the revenues of these companies. I am sure shareholders won’t bat an eye.

Which is this industry where salaries makeup less than 1%?

[Vishal.R]

Originally Posted by Arun Varma

If we push it this way, we may as well kill the proverbial golden egg laying goose, that is the outsourcing industry, which, as some have said, has been one of the largest employers in the country!

But why attrition is increased? There must be someone else to make an offer. This industry does not have any union or something similar who can demand higher pay without considering commercial rationale, but its pure demand / supply.

One important thing We sometimes forget in such discussions is that "Indian" IT "Outsourcing" companies are no longer the only employers for software skills, they may be most visible due to share market and media spotlight.

Today, if someone is having degree (fresher) or skill (lateral) in software development, following are potential employers,

• Non Indian IT outsourcing companies. (e.g. Accenture ,Capgemini, IBM each employs 1 lac+ in India )
• Captive IT units of big non IT companies. (e.g. JPMC, BofA, HSBC, DB, Citibank Nissan, GM, Ford, John Deer, Boeing, etc. etc.)
• Major International Software product companies. (e.g. Google, MS, Amazon etc.)
• Other international software product companies (e.g. Redhat, IBM, Tibco etc.
• Indian non IT Businesses (e.g. Reliance, Birla, Bajaj, ITC etc.)
• Indian product companies.
• International companies whose business is heavily dependent on technology. (e.g. Travel Tech, Fintech, HealthCare, Digital publishing / advertising etc.)

+ there are many other segments as well.

Initially Indian IT companies had free run in accessing talent pool but now (i.e in last 15-20 years) many of their clients themselves have started their offshore development centers, and they are able to pay higher as they don't need to pay any middlemen.

[born_free]

Originally Posted by Vishal.R

Initially Indian IT companies had free run in accessing talent pool but now (i.e in last 15-20 years) many of their clients themselves have started their offshore development centers, and they are able to pay higher as they don't need to pay any middlemen.

This is true. I recently joined a fortune 500 company which is setting up their Tech Team in India.
Their goal is to do most of IT development in house and cut down share of outsourcing to less than 35 percent.

And they are paying good money as well as offering better roles.

Few more companies which are hiring aggressively are:-

Big4(Deloite, EY, PWC, KPMG).They are no longer just tax and audit companies and have substantial tech presence.

Start ups like paytm, ola, cars24, cleartax, byjus. They are paying Google/Amazon level of salaries

Top skills in demands

• Data Science, Analytics, Data Engineering
• Backend development in Java/Python/Nodejs and microservices. This is most sought after skill specially java springboot.
• Frontend developers with Angular/React. Full stack developers have advantage.
• Cloud developers, ML Engineer, AWS/Azure development
• Dev ops and Site reliability Engineers.
• SAP Technical and Functional Consultants.
• Salesforce, Workday etc
• Agile practitioner and Coach
• Product Owners and Product Managers

Companies are also hiring for leadership positions (Engineering Managers/Directors) for above skills and expect deep technical and domain knowledge .
You can't be a non tech manager anymore.

I was offered engineering director role even though I had no prior management experience. It was purely based on my engineering background

[NiInJa]

Just my two cents based on my own experience and the people around me:

While 3L per annum is an extremely depressing salary for a fresher or beginner in today's times, the hike one can get by pushing oneself to get the right knowledge and tapping the right sources of experience is immense. I myself, like many others have been a part of this, I started off with 3.25 Lakh per annum and in 3 years 8 months, I switched to one of the big fours which was giving 9 LPA (in 2013) when there were other start-ups which were offering between 12 to 13 LPA. I stuck with the big four simply for the experience and it was one of the best. Meanwhile, I was approached by Infosys twice, but they were simply not able to match my offers, heck the second time they had the audacity to say that they will give less salary than what I was earning currently.

The beauty of IT industry that it is very easy to go from 4~6 lakhs to 14~18 lakhs in a couple of years if you know how to play the game right and are smart enough to keep yourself dynamic, both on technical and professional front.

In my technology which is a bit niche, I've seen kids with 6-7 years of experience getting more salary than mine at 13+ years simply because of the demand plus the ones getting a good raise are really good at doing things.

So to conclude, the salary in IT industry is simply a matter of demand vs supply. At the level of freshers, there is a huge supply of engineers, but very few of them are ready to push themselves out of their comfort zones and the quality of work is just about average or below average, so their salary remains low. The second level where demand for right skills, knowledge and quality of work is very high, the starting salary offered is very high compared to the average. So beginners who are ready to learn new things, excel in their quality of work, push themselves beyond their comfort zones, willing to take risks and make the right connections will move into the second level very quickly and earn more.

[V.Narayan]

Dear Readers,

I’m not here to defend IT employers nor am I here to wax sympathy with disgruntled employees. As far as those who got rubbed the wrong way by HR departments of these WITCHA and FAANG companies I’ll hold my judgement till some member from the HR teams steps in and posts the other side of the story.

Instead, I’d like to share another perspective which a reader can dwell on if they find value. When we as employees in any industry are unhappy, we almost by default blame the employer, the manager, the HR department and so on. In doing so we deprive ourselves the opportunity to introspect what our contribution is to the situation we find ourselves in. An entrepreneur, like many on this forum are, has no employer or boss to rail and rant against even when market forces and unscrupulous customers or suppliers have caused him grievous harm. The entrepreneur has no choice but to introspect, cry in his heart and girdle up his loins and get back into battle. As employees we too are at least partly responsible for the unhappy situation we find ourselves in. Frankly far too many posts on this thread seem to indicate that the members writing don't seem to accept that and are therefore pouring bile in a gusher.

It was after all our choice to join IT coding after studying textile engineering or civil engineering and avoid joining the industry we specialized in. And for the large part we did it for the money, the hope of a foreign assignment (more money), a big name company (better arranged marriage prospects) and so on. Till we own up that our predicament is partly our own making we will spin our wheels and one day wake up at 40 and discover we are still relatively junior in the corporate system with no where to go. Just sharing my perspectives. Pick what you like or reject it.

I have a question for those who are so very upset with the industry and their employer - why have you continued in the industry? It is a free country - change track. Fact is the IT industry because it earns in dollars and enjoys a cost advantage pays significantly more than other industries. So folks hang in there and continue to crib. These are all conscious choices made by adults. Let us own our choice. Fact is as a software code developer we enjoy an air conditioned office, a great canteen to eat in 4 times a day, we are not sweating it in the Indian sun selling a product or toiling in a large manufacturing plant with its noise, grime & sweat or handling upset customers at a bank etc. For two years we worked from home while lakhs of others risked covid to keep the wheels of the nation functioning.

The poor work practices of the HR departments are not to be condoned and unfortunately come with the territory of those superior wages and employees with mercenary attitudes. I am not condoning the poor HR practices of these companies but before I condemn them I would like to hear what the employer/HR has to say. Maybe those Team BHP members who are in the HR departments or senior management can voice their experiences.

Originally Posted by Arun Varma

The angst is understandable from the employee perspective. But if we see it from the Employer's / Industry perspective, we will see a different picture......
There is a need for a balance but it needs the perspective of both the tree and the forest!

@Arun Varma, Thank you for one of the most balanced posts on this thread.