ITs Happening

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Planning Career in IT - an insight

Some tips and suggestions to freshers

When I completed my college I didn't know much about the IT. I met up challenges as they came onto my career without knowing how those tiny issues could shape my career path. At that point I was not very informative to make decisions about my career.
I feel one should focus on his career plans at an earlier stage which gives him an edge on the longer run.
I should put up some info over here to let ppl know especially freshers, so they could make decisions based on as much as information they hold.
The following info also lets you know, how one could get drifted in search of good and quality career.
I believe each person has his own perspective on the importance of his career goals and may differ from one another. One may want to pursue higher studies or work in his core competency area.

For me it was a balanced need of quality work in terms of technology and good compensation. That’s what I aimed before I thought I should make a move.
There might be many issues that a person could face in the IT run. Freshers must know and choose the priorities accordingly to challenge the career ahead them

Being at Bench

In companies like TCS, Infy, HCL where the employer does the bulk campus recruitment, People are more prone to be in bench for at least 3-4 months (I was in bench for 6 months in HCL).

This should be compared to the smaller companies (not in revenue and not in business) but in resources!!! Apparently the truth is, in companies that has less resources are utilizing their manpower efficiently over time and projects. Staffing resources is a challenge in bigger organisation.

Work

Indeed "work" would be on the top priorities for most of the people, but not very true with some of my lady colleagues who are married (priorities change with your life).Well people may have varied interests in their career. Though being a CSE student I wanted to work in hardware projects. But currently working in ERP development at Oracle.

The opportunity here ranges from type of work and Technologies.
Development You could be working in two different fields here,

Project development -- Service oriented companies (Mostly people start their career here).

Project based s/w development involves projects in various domains like telecom, banking, networking for various clients like Cisco, Bank of America, which are carried out by MNCs like TCS, Infy etc. and the project scope varies from 3 months-3 years in Indian location or at onsite.

For fresher from Bulk recruitment I guess you don’t have the option to choose the domain or technology you want to work. Mostly it’s random in such companies. But there are very few(~none) companies, which do consider your college projects and area of interest and place you into projects accordingly.

Thereby if you apply directly, for a particular post/opening in a company you get to choose work in your area of interest. After getting placed via campus do not forgot to try applying for such openings and find yourselves a better career that you like.

The Most Prevalent Technologies in IT are:
Java/J2EE/Dotnet/Mainframes/C/C++/VC++/Oracle/PLSQL/DBA/....

Product development -- Product Oriented Companies, mostly these companies have bigger footprint in IT.

Companies for e.g SAP, Microsoft, Huwaei Tech., develop product and market those products to a wide range of customers from common pc-users to Retailers, bankers, manufactures etc.
These products can be applications (ERP) or systems (rtos/protocols). Apart from product development they do have their R&D projects lab - A good choice to seek challenging work. Some Companies do both product & project developments.
- SetLabs is an R&D enterprise of Infy.
- Oracle (Server Tech) B'lore is a Technology development division.

Testing (most of the non-cse background people land here)

There are two categories in testing, automation and manual. In automated testing you tend to learn tools like WinRunner, WinLoader and mostly write scripts to test your modules. Working in this category makes easy for you to switch jobs in testing field later.
But if you have landed in manual testing then its hard to find the same kind of work that you perform here with different companies. The experience that you gain here is limited within to the project itself. You can cheer only if the project is functionally important and bigger.

PayCheck

The compensation policies and the split-ups are necessary to be screened before you choose the company, most employees including me complain about the difference in CTC quoted and the monthly take-home pay we draw.
Take a look at the offer split-ups, which gives you a proper estimate on first hand and avoid disappointments.

In some companies the Annual components form a greater pie which u do not get in case you quit the company within a year.
There could be Superannuation components in packages which people become eligible only after being in company for 2 years or more.
Income tax is a significant deduction from your earnings. Seek advice from person who knows more about IT slabs and expect the take home accordingly.
ESOP Employee Stock Option Policies are indeed a good offer from companies like TCS, Infy, Satyam. Many of my friends made fortune by utilizing this option in these companies, where the dividends and profits are relatively higher than other companies.
Appraisals!!! Some company does it annually and some bi-annually. Switching jobs is the best increment you can ever make out.

Onsite opportunities

This is the other important factor u might consider to prioritize,, in most of the Indian MNC like TCS,CTS,WIPRO,Infy most of the ppl get onsite opportunity if your project has one and your stars are bright. This could happen with in a year or more.

Foriegn MNCs like GOOGLE, Deloite, Oracle, HP, Microsoft hardly have any onsite opportunity so think a while before you fall into to the handsome packages that they offer and you get to loose a chance of making quick money via onsite opportunity.
You could also get a H1B visa or work permit through H1B consultants (bodyshopers) and find jobs in US. But u need solid 2yrs exp here before you think you could sustain and market your resume in US, of your own. People if you’re interested in this, please research a lot on this to avoid falling into the hands of some fake H1B consultants.

Learning Curve

I would define learning in three different aspects with in an oraganisation

Technology

Functional (domain) and

Process (can also include Management with process)

Well the learning within a company depends solemnly on the projects you are onto, though being in a CMM-5 or CMM-i company u ought to learn all the SDLC processes only if your project spans across all the stages.
In some product development company where there is no new development, you get stuck with the support/maintenance cycle and never meet the other aspects of SDLC. where as in smaller projects there are more chances to meet all the processes (only if your company follows them). The more u learn out of the process the more the chances to climb on towards the organization hierarchy. Try learning and doing project metrics too.

The project in which you work may belong to a specific domain say banking, if you are working in such domain then gaining domain knowledge is an asset to your career and shapes your future as a functional consultant.

People with non-cse background can choose this path to overcome the technology.
Let me give an e.g. Say you are working for a banking solution project from TCS using Oracle Apps, though you may not be contributing significantly to its development, but if you learn the modules functionality, its installations etc... Then you become a functional consultant in banking domain.

Banking, Networking, Telecom are some of the highly paid functional fields. (Also a minimal technology knowledge is required to be a functional consultant).

You should also get to know the Technology in which you would be working with on a project. Java/j2ee/oracle/microsoft technologies etc are greatly used technologies that you can choose to work with.
A catch here is, how open is the technology you working on. Say if a person works in a java framework customized for the project requirements and environment, then that’s no longer an open technology. It becomes a proprietary technology. Though its java but the API it uses are company specific. Well & good if such technology is practiced in other companies too but if not, then your technology skills are limited to your project alone.

People are more successful if they work with open and multiple technologies and not just focusing on one. It increases your skill sets and availability of jobs to you.

People who take up their career serious in terms of technology and learning, my serious suggestion would be to join smaller startups in metros. The responsibility and allocation of work is undoubtedly encouraging and also due to smaller org structure the compensation is good.
People seeking good work should start their career here. The learning here is very significant than in other branded companies.

Higher Studies

If you plan to take up your career with higher studies by pursuing MBA/MS with work experience, plan your initial jobs accordingly. Find out if you can pursue your higher studies from your company sponsorships. Value those policies and courses offered.
It would be advisable to take up jobs relevant to the subject you ought to pursue for higher studies in future. Say you could take up a job in telecom domain to seek telecom as your specialization in your MS programs.
For MBA work experience counts. A s/w engineer working as financial consultant takes advantage to get a seat in MBA finance over a guy working in embedded programming, (considering their other skills being equal).
And furthermost make sure at these jobs you can prepare and quit at your convenience.

Well these were the priorities that I felt important to discuss out here.
Give 3Dimension to your priorities.
Priorities change over time. I did not give more importance to onsite opportunity when I made my move. But now I feel onsite opportunity being more important to me. So also give a thought to the priorities that might change over time for you and decided upon them accordingly to suit you life.

Let me give some interesting facts about companies that might interest you. These info are based on ppl talk and are not conclusive

TCS - Enjoyable training, lotsa projects mostly short-term. Excellent onsite opportunity
HCL - CODC, a good place for ppl seeking interest in networks.

WIPRO - (hyd) has many good projects in mobile embedded sys.(testing & dev)
Good package for experienced and good onsite opportunity.
SATYAM - (hyd) mostly mainframes. (chn) varied projects