Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka Resigns
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
In my opinion, it provides challenging opportunities around how to manage large distributed teams. It is not a place to seek technical growth or high powered teams.
As an outsider, I feel, Vishal Sikka, was attempting to change the culture from within but was clearly facing considerable resistance from promoters/founders. I admire the value system upon with the Infosys was originally founded on; they originally went out of their way for employees, however, over time the focus has shifted and I feel they have failed to keep pace with evolving landscape and business models both.
Based on my interactions with Infosis, I beg to differ.
As best as I can tell, their business model is basically to convince clients that Infosys should take on IT projects at a fraction of the cost compared to the competition. Whoever gets them through the door gets hailed as a cost saving hero and is soon promoted. Meanwhile the projects that were given to them inevitably fail, and some new executive is sent in to pick up the pieces. At that stage the cycle may repeat with Infosys once again picking up the task of cleaning up its own mess.
They don't solve business problems, they just sell snake oil to organizations that have not yet learned to avoid them.
I also heard later that they managed to package it up and sell it as a product to other companies in the domain. I'd say it worked out well for all parties involved, even though my work hours got nasty at times.
An H1B is not a promise to the employer, BTW. It is a regulatory requirement imposed by the US Government, and not everyone gets it (you gotta have a college degree, masters degree helps, and then get it through a lottery process). If an employee gets a better offer, he/she should absolutely take that offer.
I'm not sure how savvy employees jumping ship is a moral failing of the employee rather than a retention rate issue to be addressed by the company.
You should see them as a Leasing system for Generic Development Resources: flexible and clear billing, fleet management, transparent reallocation of resources, economical and instant capacity to increase or decrease the fleet sizes.
Their line management reflect that, and their developers have to reflect that too. They are not in the business of delivering software or business feature, they are in the business of providing development hours in the most flexible and smooth fashion.
"Just do it" is what their client is buying.
But to each one their own, I guess
The only good thing about joining this company is good work-life balance as there is no much work for you to do.
Not only do these Big IT companies hire in mass, they also spend insane amounts of money and time training students who come out of college without exposure to real work.
Yeah they pay peanuts and yes you would be just a face in the crowd. But they likely give you the biggest break of your life.
People need to show some gratitude.
1. The training is useful only if you are allocated to the project in the same domain.
2. You are trained in some relevant tech so that you can look for jobs else where.
Both of this is not the case. Mostly everyone is trained in mysql, language(Java, C# etc) or maybe mainframe systems. What extra are you getting over a self taught programmer. (You would get very less in real because the later has some experience working with some project where as you have none). You are then allocated to some support project where you don't get a chance to write a single line of code.
Any company that is likely to hire can only give you base set of skills, beyond this its on you take it forward from there. Also in my experience these companies have routine training for most bleeding edge tech. Not many people sign up for it. During my time there, very few people had the inclination or appetite to take on technically intensive work and bulk of the crowd was in only because they needed a job and it was easy to get one here.
Plus the motivation of many people was getting easy abroad travel opportunities and ability to get by life doing low intensity tech work at a good monthly pay.
I have worked for a year in IBM. We had a two weeks training course on Lotus Notes, sub-contracted out to a training institute. In a dingy place, in an inner part of the city.
Even in companies like Infosys, most training is done in-house. So we are not talking about insane amounts of money. Additionally, if you need to really spend insane amounts of money to train freshers, then either you are hiring wrong, or you are dumping complex work on them. Either way, it's the problem of the company.
> students who come out of college without exposure to real work.
Of course, students out of college will not have any exposure to real work. There is no real internship system in India.
Also, training fresh students, just out of college is a process followed by literally every company on earth, which is hiring freshers.
> Yeah they pay peanuts and yes you would be just a face in the crowd. But they likely give you the biggest break of your life.
They are able to do this because, there is a huge supply of educated engineers, and an acute shortage of jobs. Companies like Infosys mostly outsource mundane work, to hastily trained engineers (to join Infosys, it doesn't matter what your major is, Electrical, Civil, Mechanical, Aero, anything will do.), essentially using them as mules. Fortunately, unlike the coal workers of previous generations, the domain of work allows for natural skill development. So yes, a break in life, but not the biggest.
> People need to show some gratitude.
They do. There is a lot of gratitude. But also simmering anger at the failure of stalwarts like Infosys for failing to develop business to move up the value chain.
Personally they should have improved upon the service business. All the present good frameworks etc does not need to be rewritten but has to applied in a better way.
However, BigIT in India could have latched onto that work and move into core product development.
Two reasons they did not.
One, their cash cow is service and moving people into product development would hurt their bottomline.
Two, they failed to see the obvious growing threat of automation. This I think is their biggest failure.
When you see the threat to your core business, its your responsibility to plan for the future.
Infosys provides free housing AND pays salaries for 4-6 month training period, during which you don't do a dust-peck worth of production work. This is for thousands of freshers. So yes its for all practical purposes insane amount of money.
>>Additionally, if you need to really spend insane amounts of money to train freshers, then either you are hiring wrong, or you are dumping complex work on them.
When given good work complain the work is too complex, when not given complain of lack of opportunities to learn.
>>Either way, it's the problem of the company.
Yeah, In India its always somebody else's problem.
>>Of course, students out of college will not have any exposure to real work. There is no real internship system in India.
There is. It doesn't arrive on a plate though campus placements.
>>Also, training fresh students, just out of college is a process followed by literally every company on earth, which is hiring freshers.
NO. In US you either perform or will be fired.
This level of entitlement among us Indians is sickening.
If people really think there are jobs and companies beneath them, please feel free to go work wherever you like.
World doesn't owe you a job on your terms.
> no growth
I've known people grow within Infosys just like any other big company
> they pay you peanuts and earn millions
Not sure which offices you are referring to - India or US. In India at least, they are at par with peers engaged in the same Services model.
> They treat you like shit
Subjective. Depending on what you expected and what you got in return.
> You'll be just another fish in the sea.
This I agree. But, that's just like any other big corporate company unless you know how to navigate your way out in the maze.
> no much work for you to do
Again subjective. I have come across people who complain of too much work.
The better alternative will be to join a product company if the OP has an option, rather than a services company, as other comments suggest. Any Services company operates predominantly on a head count / person hours model as against a product company or a product based start up which have completely different dynamics.
So if I go into a company expecting to be treated like shit, it's all good then?
To be clear, what I meant was - if you walk into a services based company with the expectation of working in a niche or a good product building experience, you may be disappointed. Peoples' expectation on the work they get and what it turns out to be (the project you are assigned etc.,) might make them feel like they are treated like shit.
If on any other ground (HR grounds, facilities, equality etc.,), they treat people like shit, then it's no more subjective, but subject to law of the land and corporate laws.
If I get a time-machine, I'll go back in time and avoid the mistake of joining services-based IT companies. :-)
That can get boring in the long run.
>> or consult with someone to build them their product
So freelancing? Hard to get interesting projects that way. Also, you'll have to travel, won't have colleagues and need to do sales.
>> Don't work for a company that consults for someone to build their product.
It can be alright if you're in the high-end, boutique consultancy market. New challenging project every x months, like-minded colleagues, fast skill growth.
But yeah, avoid the body-shops like the plague.
I worked with a person who asked me what PHP was.
If you are still not convinced,
1. There is a very small chance that you will be working on what you were promised when hiring.
2. Your interests or background doesn't matter(More true if you are fresh out of college). You know in and out of Java. Doesn't matter, go send emails for rest of your life.
3. I am not saying that there are good projects. There are but very few and the resource pool is very big that your chance of getting a good project is very small. If you have contacts, then you can get tagged to some projects based on their requirements.(This works only if you have enough experience)
If you really want to improve your career as a programmer, join a product company or a startup. You will get chance to learn a lot and work with awesome people who can motivate you to be a better engineer.
IT service companies are difficult places to work. Normally you have very little control over what you're going to work on. Where I worked, I came in as a C++ programmer and I was sent out for COBOL jobs. I ended up navigating myself away from the COBOL jobs, but it takes a fair amount of political finesse. In the end, I quit after about 7 months and they sued me for breach of contract :-) (Luckily, they backed down after my new employer offered me legal assistance).
The thing is that these companies have sales people whose job it is to land contracts -- any contract. They get paid based on landing the contract. So you may find yourself teaming up with a sales person and being told to say whatever you can to land the contract. This is unpleasant (and if you are lucky you can avoid that work, especially if you don't have much experience).
Next, once the contracts are landed, people are assigned to the contract. Square pegs, round holes... these are details that your manager doesn't want to worry about. The contract needs people. You are a person. OK, we're good to go!
Next (despite what you may have heard), most companies don't outsource interesting work. Big companies, especially, have permanent staff. If they outsource the good stuff, then the permanent staff will leave. Because they want to outsource something (to "save" money), it's the crappy, under-specified project that is guaranteed to fail anyway (i.e. no manager wants to touch it). That's what you get to work on.
Now, this can be good or it can be bad, depending on your point of view. When you are working in a body shop, you can pretty much suck horribly and not that many people will care. If your project fails miserably, you will be shuffled off to the next project -- because you're a person and project need people (Yep, we're good to go!)
Of course, your manager will be shouting at you. The sales person will be shouting at you. The person overlooking the project from the contracting company will be shouting at you. But, you can pretty much rest easy in the knowledge that since your main credential for being on the project is that you're a person, then you probably won't be fired.
Except... if you do something stupid -- like sign off on a code review and accept responsibility for something. In that case, your manager will love you. They will kiss you on the head as they boot you out the door, promising to name one of their children after you. After all, you have fallen on the sword and protected them from the same fate.
Yeah... I don't recommend working in a place like that...
You might think I'm exaggerating...
Key point is "some"
I have seen exceptionally brilliant people and people even dumber than rocks.
Taking my own example, I was interviewed for IBM, fresh out of college.
Qualifications for getting up-to the interview part : >5.9 CGPA, a bachelor's degree in any stream (Electrical, Civil, Mechanical, Aero, Computer Science, etc.)
Selection process :
1. Written test that is mostly aptitude questions, toughness of questions well below that of GMAT. So if you can manage to score a 400+ in GMAT, this test would be a cake walk. A few questions on programming, mostly C.
2. A Technical interview round, comically out of context to the needs of the current job. The interviewer was a guy, no more than 5 years older than me, asking questions about a few math puzzles, a few logic puzzles, etc.
3. An HR interview, mostly checking communication skills I guess. It went like this.
Q : What did you do yesterday? A : Watched Lord of the Rings trilogy at home.
Q : What is the movie about? A : [All my days of binge watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S made my English a bit fluent and, I guess smooth] Explained the whole trilogy, blah, blah, blah.
[ Note, I'm not a native English speaker, and this happened in 2007 ]
End of the interview.
I truly felt that If this is what they are asking everyone, then they are not here for recruitment, but just to fill up some positions with people.