shivaodin

As far as the equality argument, People just play to the galleries. It is a sham.

TW alumni here. I would say don't bother. It is a cult-ish company without any regard for software development practices not developed inhouse. Everyone is following agile now. It doesn't have any edge. The internal politics has taken its toll on the company's reputation.

I blog at http://www.ssushant.in I blog infrequently. I blog about using Julia programming language in OR and web development.

This is painfully accurate. With the recent barrage of sexual molestation cases against employees at Uber, Akamai and the ilk, it is all the more important to develop a transparent platform which rates companies.

Um, wrong. Mauryan Empire was bigger than present-day India. Even Mughal Empire under Akbar was bigger. So, no. Also, the forms of control of British were different than those of previous empires.

I couldn't agree more. I will not go as far as saying that India is the last place which values meritocracy, but it would be a wrong assessment that the general populace values meritocracy and hard work. The power structures in place give very little incentive to hard work and smarts. The managers, at least in IT services, are, to put it mildly, incompetent. The pay-offs of being a good developer are extremely small. The crabs in a bucket mentality drags everyone down. The odds are totally stacked against a competent software engineer.

You are spot on. As an Indian who's been working in IT for over a decade now, I concur. I am a software engineer and many people are surprised to see that I have not moved to a managerial role. Software Engineering is severely underrated and I have been on the receiving end of the dump work as you put it. It was frustrating to see the rampant nepotism and the rat-race to get to the US. I spent many a sleepless nights to gather the requirements from a US developer only to have the credit seized and see manager exploit us even more. With these new guidelines the so-called Onsite leads/managers are getting their comeuppance.

Akamai is firing people from all of its locations.

ec2

Akamai is firing a decent batch of people.

Akamai is firing a decent batch of people.

Akamai is laying off a decent chunk of people.

The Ascent of Man: A Personal View, by Jacob Bronowski should be on any list about Human Progress, especially technological progress. The book is about the progress, pitfalls and misgivings of technological progress.

Are you in India? From your credentials, it appears that you in the heart of US tech.

Which job market are you targeting? Indian Tech/IT Job market is vastly different from Western World. Despite the chest thumping by startups and cool kids in khakis telling you that talent matters, it doesn't. Indian job market is about numbers and back-office work. A tech degree is not a pre-requisite, but an MBA, even from a third-tier college will help you manage people. Indian IT management is different than other management mostly because, again, it is a numbers game. The managers make up metrics like hours on desk or hours clocked.

A tech-degree, even from a first-tier college, is not worth in the Indian market, an MBA on the other hand will provide you with numerous opportunities and fantastic compensation.

Appdynamics in US and India is firing people.

Please give examples of how this is working well in other countries with case studies. It does not appear to be a technically innovative product, just bundling of some open-source products together.

This is one of most common reasons to leave a job; unfortunately no one will acknowledge or admit it.

I wanted to succeed in my previous company and built rapport with my manager and other team mates. We had a reorg, and another developer from another vertical joined our team. He was not interested in coding and would not code review any code. I called him out once during a pairing session but he went defensive. He took up minor task and passed the buck around. At any rate, to my dismay he was promoted as our manager in a few months. Needless to say he would retort to berating me and other team members.

I left the job without trying to burn bridges. On the last day, he called me out during the standup and "hoped he would get hard working team members in the future"

Almost all of my team mates left the job or have moved to other teams.

Appdynamics is laying off people, sometimes by the dozen.

Do you have a family? A family, an SO or kids is the best way to understand life through other perspectives.