[VeyronSuperSprt]

Originally Posted by androdev

...the right incentive for engineers to strive for excellence???. Great engineers are essential for innovation...

^^^ Are you attributing this "phenomenon" to the Java developers who've joined Uber?

You wouldn't have made that statement if you were from the IT industry.

The reason those Java Developers have been paid a kings ransom is due to the pressure on HR to complete recruitments on time at whatever cost. (read that as lots of PE money lying around and no one knows what to do with it except that they have to meet the targets set by the PE guys). So they just offer guys any salary as long as they join. It has nothing to do with excellence.

It's just another feather in the HR Incompetence Cap.

Believe me, the only "excellence" those Java developers would "strive for" is for the package at their next job.

[devil_klm]

Originally Posted by SyncNest

Doesn't apply for testing I guess. Manual testing/Automation are in huge demand. With 4 years of automation experience in Hyderabad, people are earning about 7 lakhs per annum

Are you sure Manual testing has a good demand still. Automation testing using Selinium is hot cake i think. Manual testing on legacy systems are an abandoned area where number of skilled resources are less and the salary is on bottom side.

[adimicra]

Few points I would like to make -

1> 1:1 or 2:1 has lost it's meaning in today's world. Companies which apply these kind of formula will not be able to attract talent. People with right skillset and aptitude can get 3:1 or 4:1 or 5:1 or even more. Companies are willing to pay more for the 'right' guys.

2> Salary is a huge motivation where one like it or not. You pay someone well so that he doesn't think of changing job due to salary and focus on delivering the best he can.

3> Engineers are skilled people..they are not commodity. Yes, there might be some jobs which anyone can do but there are other kind of work where a skilled/talented engineer will make a lot of difference. Some people in this thread is missing the point altogether.

4>Not every high paying company is paying so much due to PE money lying around and pressure to hire fast. There are lots of established players who pay handsome salaries and they do it for a reason - ability to attract talent. These people are not fools. And if salary does not motivate people, why would these people pay such handsome salaries?

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by adimicra

Few points I would like to make

I have addressed all these points in the article. No point repeating it.

But, having been around the block for a long time, I have had the privilege of working with some great engineers. I can't recall any of them being motivated by money. For them challenge was the prime motivator to take up a job. If the challenge was not there, no amount of money would keep them. Heck, I am not even one of them, I am just a second class engineering graduate from a third tier college. Still, I was never motivated by money. I never made a single career move in 25 years looking at money.

https://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc

[girimajiananth]

Originally Posted by varunswnt

1:1 refers to Number of experience years : salary in lakhs.

Example - 4 years of experience : 4.XX lakhs salary

Hope this helps.

Thanks a lot for the information. In that sense, I should be getting a hike of 1L next financial year. I do not see this happening in my company. Maybe if I quit this job and lookout for another I should get that hike or atleast I must be in a position to demand that salary.

[androdev]

Originally Posted by VeyronSuperSprt

^^^ Are you attributing this "phenomenon" to the Java developers who've joined Uber?

You wouldn't have made that statement if you were from the IT industry.

The reason those Java Developers have been paid a kings ransom is due to the pressure on HR to complete recruitments on time at whatever cost.
....
Believe me, the only "excellence" those Java developers would "strive for" is for the package at their next job.

Good points. I agree some engineers who are terrible at work have learned to game the interview process. And some of the pressures you mention are true. I should also add that managers tend to over hire to make themselves more important but all these constitute a small percentage of hiring at product companies and we should not miss the woods for the trees.

I am from the IT industry Most of the discussion here is focused on IT services industry and as someone who does a decent amount hiring for product companies I want to share my perspective. It really depends on what you are hiring for. Till few years back, all that was happening in Bangalore was enterprise software development. But now engineers are working on really challenging/frontier stuff and there is a huge demand for highly talented engineers who can do magic. If you are a 2yrs experienced engineer who can tell Flipkart how to improve ad performance, or help a startup to build AI products to eliminate BPO jobs, or use computer vision and AR to let Paytm to pay your hard-copy bills you can expect to get paid lots. Such cutting edge opportunities didn't exist in Bangalore few years back, but now I meet people who are working on these type of ideas on a regular basis.

My point? Very interesting problems are being solved in Bangalore > needs great engineers > hence the high pay > more engineers strive to get into these places due to pay > overall bar raises even if some engineers game the system of hiring. During my college days, I could sleep through the four years and still get almost the same job as the topper. Not any more.

Originally Posted by Samurai

Are you trying to tell us that Great engineers are motivated primarily by money? or that innovation is primarily driven by money?

Just sharing my perspective on that changing landscape of IT hiring. From a company's point of view, in order to innovate it needs great engineers (among other things) and to get great engineers they have to pay premium. It's like Real Madrid, FCB, etc. they get the best players by paying premium but you also have examples of Leicester City and Manchester United where money doesn't seem to help.

[varunswnt]

Originally Posted by girimajiananth

Thanks a lot for the information. In that sense, I should be getting a hike of 1L next financial year. I do not see this happening in my company. Maybe if I quit this job and lookout for another I should get that hike or atleast I must be in a position to demand that salary.

1:1 ratio is maintained mostly while hiring people by major IT services company. But there is an exception to this rule most of the times while hiring and negotiations, 20-30% hike from your current CTC is generally agreed upon provided you are switching after a stay of 2 or more years. Anything less than 2 years will be offered lesser than 20%. This is what I have gathered from my friends and colleagues.

Once on-board, its different scenario, 7-9% is norm of major IT services firms. So its better to bargain hard while joining because bell curve just flattens out the growth every year. Frequent hops in first 10 years of career will definitely create a ratio of 1:1.5 or 1:2 easily and in some cases beyond that, after this ratio is achieved even a 7-9% will get you atleast 1 lac increment each year. Rationalization of salaries is just a farce and I have never seen it happen to much effect.

I have 9 years of experience with 1:1.5 ratio with only 1 switch in all these years. My younger brother with 6 year is having 1:1 ratio and no switch at all till date. So this is completely subjective topic and I know people who started alongwith me and are at 1:2 ratio still doing similar stuff.

Assuming you are a hands-on developer, I'd say the following are roughly the figures that a new recruit of 9 years experience should get paid depending on the type of organization :
1. IT Services (the mass recruiting ones) : 15-16 lakhs per annum (and this includes your variable pay as well)
2. IT Services (relatively niche ones) : 18-20 lakhs per annum
3. Product Development (Line of Business Product Development, not the niche ones) :* 21-25 lakhs per annum
4. Investment Banks (including niche IT services who body-shop you to offshore development centers of investment banks) : 25-30 lakhs per annum (+ another 10-15% bonus)*
5. Niche product development (not including startups) : 30-35 lakhs per annum (unfortunately hardly any niche tech players have dev centres in Pune)
6. Tech Startups with reasonably good VC funding : 25-30 lakhs per annum ( might include equity )


Above italic snippet has been taken from Quora discussion to which I can't find link now.

Check this below compound interest formula which I guess applies to us as well. For fresher joining at say 3.5 lacs PA and staying for say 4-5 years at same firm, this will take him to 1:1 ratio.

P = C (1 + r/n)^nt
where
P = future value
C = initial deposit [current CTC]
r = interest rate (expressed as a fraction: eg. 6% = 6/100 = 0.06) [ early increment % ]
n = # of times per year interest in compounded [1 per year so n=1]
t = number of years invested [total years of experience]


The above opinions are mine only. Hope this helps.

[VeyronSuperSprt]

Originally Posted by androdev

..or help a startup to build AI products to eliminate BPO jobs, or use computer vision and AR to let Paytm to pay your hard-copy bills you can expect to get paid lots.

One of our recent initiatives is in the AI space. We've also changed the domain name of that to .ai (from the earlier .io) so that it also sounds right. I wish I could tell you the exact salaries that we pay the brilliant guys in that area but suffice to say that it's a minuscule percentage of what Uber pays those Java developers.

On another note, my head of quality was taken on by Infosys. She was a hard worker. In the first year of joining Infosys, she was given three increments! And a lot of other perks. She came to meet me after a year. During our conversation, she tells me that she now switches off her mobile at 6pm and doesn't take any calls after that plus other statements that indicated a marked change in her attitude. She was the type who would work night and day and was always available. The increments and perks and the work culture instead of making her a better worker had gone to her head and she had morphed into the typical useless IT guy. Thanks to the HR guys at Infosys. Didn't tell her as much though.

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by VeyronSuperSprt

During our conversation, she tells me that she now switches off her mobile at 6pm and doesn't take any calls after that plus other statements that indicated a marked change in her attitude. She was the type who would work night and day and was always available. The increments and perks and the work culture instead of making her a better worker had gone to her head and she had morphed into the typical useless IT guy. Thanks to the HR guys at Infosys. Didn't tell her as much though.

I think she has grown smart and found what to do in the rest of 16 hours, after 8 hours of work and glad to know 8 hours of work is paying her more.

[VeyronSuperSprt]

Originally Posted by msdivy

I think she has grown smart and found what to do in the rest of 16 hours, after 8 hours of work.

Of course, I was waiting for that smarter guy to respond this way when I posted that. In fact she's even smarter now, works for less than 4 hours a day.

[girimajiananth]

Originally Posted by varunswnt

[i]Assuming you are a hands-on developer,
The above opinions are mine only. Hope this helps.

Thanks a lot. Are we talking about developers only? What about other IT folks? Does this formula hold good ?

[ashokrajagopal]

Reading this thread, I remembered this blog piece from Seth Godin I read a while back.
"
A career is often based on one of these three stances:
The Scientist does experiments. Sometimes they work, sometimes they fail. She takes good notes. Comes up with a theory. Works to disprove it. Publishes the work. Moves on to more experiments.

The Engineer builds things that work. Take existing practices, weave them together and create a bridge that won't fall down, write code that won't crash, design an HR department that's efficient and effective.

The Operations Manager takes the handbook and executes on it. Brilliantly. Promises, kept. Hands on, full communications, on time.

The scientist invents the train. The engineer builds it out. The operations manager makes it run on time.
Operations managers shouldn't do experiments. Scientists shouldn't ask for instructions on what to do next. Engineers shouldn't make stuff up...
Which hat do you wear?
Hint: you can change hats as often as you want. but be clear about the task at hand.
[Update: Joe reminds me I missed a critical fourth hat: The salesperson. She's the one who provides the vital last step, the bridge to the customer...]"

From Seth Godin's blog link http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_b...s-manager.html


Why is this relevant here ?
If you can think from this perspective, it would be very clear that finding scientists is the toughest, engineers follow and then comes operations manager. If your work can afford a learning curve your company can create great engineers with experience. Meaning they join, and with many years they get better and better. If its for this category of work that you are recruiting paying astronomical salary, (whatever be the reason), you are not helping yourself. Scientists are the type of people who are hard to get and must be paid any amount to grab, but then they are the people least motivated by money. If a company hires about 100 graduates in a calendar year, they are not expecting scientists, they are expecting really good engineers for a faster growth hoping that the money will pull in better people. The entrepreneurs in this forum have many times explained why putting out more money doesnt get better people.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

If your work can afford a learning curve your company can create great engineers with experience. Meaning they join, and with many years they get better and better. If its for this category of work that you are recruiting paying astronomical salary, (whatever be the reason), you are not helping yourself.

Well said, that is why I only hire fresh engineers and train/mentor them for years. If and when we lose them to high paying companies that need ready made good engineers, we just step back and create more of them. We really enjoy making them, it feels much better than just making money. Hard to explain this, one must experience.

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

Scientists are the type of people who are hard to get and must be paid any amount to grab, but then they are the people least motivated by money..... The entrepreneurs in this forum have many times explained why putting out more money doesnt get better people.

Couldn't have summarized better.

[varunswnt]

Originally Posted by girimajiananth

Thanks a lot. Are we talking about developers only? What about other IT folks? Does this formula hold good ?

That's a good question, but honestly I am not aware of other IT folks as my group consists of developers only. But I think test automation IT engineers are paid at par. May be other members will be able to shed some light.

Formula should hold good for almost any person joining IT service major firms.

[reignofchaos]

Originally Posted by VeyronSuperSprt

Of course, I was waiting for that smarter guy to respond this way when I posted that. In fact she's even smarter now, works for less than 4 hours a day.

And since when has the number of hours one works got anything to do with productivity .

One can be extremely productive working 4 hours a day and completely unproductive working 16 hours a day.