Skip to main content

The Road most travelled

Being a software engineer in India is like being on a Dominoes menu card. Indian IT industry is a baking oven where fresh crust (boys) and cheese (girls) are fermented into a classy double cheese crunch pizza (computer experts).

Now there are a lot of varieties in Dominoes.

Chicken barbeque spiked with onions (Tech Support)
Seventh heaven pizza (System Analyst)
Chef’s Chicken choice (Q A Analyst)
Mexican Green Wave (Network Operation Controller)and many more. 

With the advancements in the technology, newer types are under discovery. The chefs (CEOs) of various restaurants (organisations) ferment their yield (employees) in cooking ranges (ac cubicles). The more time invested in fermenting, more is the increase in the number of pizzas (more the experience, more is the rate of billing of that employee). And if the pizza gets lucky, it gets a chance to showcase itself onsite to foreign Market. (Spicy masala crunch in U.S)

Being a pizza, you get a lot of attention in the social community, merely due to the price (salary) and the taste it offers (cool tech stuff you show off). 

But in reality what is the plight of software engineers in India? Are they actually skilled? 

Take for example any metro city-Bangalore would be the best example. If you throw a stone in Bangalore, chances are that 99 times out of 100 it will hit a software engineer. These so called software engineers would have actually specialized in any other branch of engineering apart from computer science or IT. But since Anu Aunty’s obedient son decided to go ahead with the safe TCS-INFOSYS-WIPRO placement, the rest of the lot decided to follow suit.

The problem arises when a supposedly highly qualified resume gets hired based on the performance criteria of a college and can’t cope.

And the day comes when our Indian programmers are finally sent to fulfill the great Indian dream. Many a time they are considered to be very low quality employees. This usually happens when unscrupulous Indian outsourcing companies send over empty heads with made-up resumes as "5-years of Oracle expertise" when it is clear that the person never touched Oracle after doing the 3-month Oracle course. 

In India, practical knowledge isn’t given priority. Students learn things by rote and practically they know nothing. People with 6 years of experience wouldn’t know how to write a Fibonacci series program.

Software engineers usually don’t keep themselves updated. If you ask a developer what are the books they have read, chances are that the answer would be none.
And finally another one of the software engineers dream is to become a manager at the drop of a het. Once he becomes a team leader, the next aim is to become a manager by hook or crook. So without having any knowledge of programming our Indian software engineer fulfills his dream.

Who would want to go through the gruesome task of reading, learning and experimenting when shortcuts are available? In India software engineers just seem to happen by chance and not by choice.

Isn’t it high time that the software engineers of such a skilled nation adopt a methodology that includes more reading, writing and listening?

Two roads travelled in the woods, I took the one most travelled by and finally, that made no difference. Robert Frost would think otherwise.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trichy Police - “Redefining Peace”

ATTENTION! According to the statistics for 2007, released by the National Criminal Records Bureau, Tamil Nadu had a total cognizable crime rate of 261.7 per one lakh population, while that of Chennai was 256.9.  The crime rate, defined as the number of crime trends as it balances incidence with growth in population. Chennai’s crime rate ensures that the metro is ranked a creditable 24 th among 35 major cities in the country while Coimbatore stands at the 22nd position and Madurai at the 30 th .  However the situation in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru can send a chill of apprehension down anyone’s spine.  Delhi has earned the skeptical distinction of being the most unsafe metro in the country, topping the list of the number of crimes. According to latest government statistics, Delhi accounted for 13.2 per cent of a total of 3,43,749 crimes reported in 35 mega cities across the country in 2009 followed by Bengaluru (9.4 %) and Mumbai (9.1%). Now picturise the following situation: Cha
3 comments
Read more

WASTE MANAGEMENT- WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY IS IT?

What’s Bangalore’s biggest nightmare? Those in mansions and bungalows can escape it once they are inside their homes. The roadside, slums, villages are filled with it. It is the city’s most dreaded enemy. With rising piles of garbage across town, Bangalore is on the verge of saturation with added pressure on landfills and age- old technologies. Solid waste management takes committed and responsible implementation of waste collection, handling and disposal. With the deep corruption and irresponsible officials, which includes regulators and engineers, it will be very hard to solve this crisis. All those contractors mishandling their contracts should be jailed and be kept away from getting such contracts, so future contractors do an honest job, hopefully. But can anyone point out the exact reason for this crisis? The success and failure of waste management can be attributed to several factors that may seem obvious such as proper disposal of waste, participation of the community, hiring th
2 comments
Read more

Think Global but Eat Local

The urban population in India has cut down on literally everything from their diet especially sugar, ghee, oil, carbs. Little do they know that it comes as a package: A slow cut down of nutrients, vitamins, essential minerals. Even hair, skin tone and energy level! Ask them what motivated them to do so and the obvious reply would be “To keep fit” Of course eating idli and chutney, poha or paratha does not sound half as cool as eating salads, soup or oats. Packaged, ready­made food have all been advertised as healthy. They have been marketed under various brand names. It is but of course a gimmick. One season the aisles of supermarkets will be filled with packets of wheat based cereal. The next season it would be gluten free followed by super nutritious sugar free cereal. A consumer who has been dying to lose some weight gets confused.
Post a Comment
Read more