Good read.

Though I have a somewhat different take on it. And it is tale of two techies from India, product vs services.

1. It is all in mindset.

Actually, in India it becomes more of a herd mindset. Wipro/Infy/TCS are very reputed [media a culprit], you get a on-site chance, you can become a manager after 6/7 years, etc…

Now coming to product companies, it is more of a tech work and it is very hard to build a product. At the same time product companies from India are pretty low profile. And of course, in product companies, though you have a very informal work environment, it is unlike Services [where it is more college like]

2. I have been to both (both from India and best in class). And actually, life in Services is easy.

As you get more process oriented, you build more documents, not tech skills. Rather you become a paper tiger.

However, in product companies, it is not that. (I saw you comments on Zoho for lack of information).

Actually, it more of tech skills, depth and knowlege; which demands good amount of dedication and determination.

3. It is very difficult to get into a product company.

I just put two simple statistics:

– A good product company take an average of 5 rounds of interview. In Services it is max 2/3
– Questions are directly from the book in Services. In product you have to sweat it through.

Having said all these, I have tremendous respect for the services companies, considering what they did to Indian middle class living standard (at least in the short term)

Actually, when I moved from a Prodcut to Services, it took me some time before it sank that where I am. And I have a funny description of it @: http://satya-dash.blogspot.com/2006/11/product-vs-services-software-comapanies.html

Btw, for Gordon Gekko “Greed” is good. Actually it is one my favorite lines and here it goes:

“The point is ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of better word, is Good.
Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms – Greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge – has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar corporation; but other malfunctioning corporation, called the USA. ”

-Satya

Nice post and discussions. An answer that makes me cringe when i talk to an IT professional about an opportunity is “ya, sure; i can do that”. Foreign clients use terms like ‘incredible energy’, ‘great potential’,'willing to stretch’ e.t.c to describe it, but to me, it comes across as falling in the crack between one’s competency and aspiration.

Have you seen IT professionals vigorously nodding their head to every request coming from their client or manager ? then you know what i am saying here.

To me, its about empowering the Indian techie to connect with their radar and pursue with passion what they really are about and care about.

the clock is ticking…

RB

In many cases, a full time people / resource manager is probably a more appropriate person than a Project Manager. A resource manager can easily handle upto 50 direct reports who are then deployed on projects.

Project Management is a science and art. Often, some life experience is necessary to bring a project to a success. Since the fundamental job of a Project Manager is to manage variations that can impede success of the project.

The skill gap is quite vast and unless new thinking is shed on how to address this gap, IT Project Management in the Indian IT industry will continue to be afflicted with infantilism.

I worked in India as a PM and am now a PM in the western world. The learning curve has been steep.

The last time I interviewed a few, they could not define a circle.

One more thing,which you have mentioned is about “Jobs other than IT in the US”.India has a similar scenario but very few people feel secure in those fields.And also,it is very difficult ot prove in that field as compared in IT.This makes me remind about a post by Dharmesh Shah on http://onstartups.com which mentioned “Working in a big IT company is a plus point for a professional who is searching for a girl for marriage!!!”.There are many people(who are not from the IT field) believe that “IT guys get more salary without working more but that is not true…In fact during deadlines and delievery,we work the most!!!”

-Himanshu
(Contributor to http://startups.in/india)
(Blogger at http://thoughtsprevail.blogspot.com)

Returned to this blog after long and pleasantly suprised at the deep discussions you have got started in last 2 months. Couldn’t resist a chance to add my 2 bits..

I have lately been working as a freelance Org Dev consultant to mid and large size IT/ ITES companies in India. I could not agree more with your thoughts on Indian techie ‘growing up too fast’ based on my recent experiences. Wanted to add another increasingly apparent dimension to it.

Being pulled away from technical depth into project management has had its rewards for the Indian techie in terms of sheer money, diversity of opportunities and ‘growth’ in the organization/ industry. However, the 40% growth has been just that – growth but no development. The very ‘project management skills’ that were responsible for flexibility of the organization and the techies’ career – are insidiously proving to be largely personal heroism. While this has and continues to deliver spectacular quarterly results for India-centric models – it also means a highly stretched, disengaged, authority-dependent, banal, internally-focused, self-critical, under-appreciated and control-seeking set of managers. Not to mention the mangerial/ leadership model that the rapidly growing workforce straight out of college is witnessing and emulating.

There is surprising hubris around this undiscussable of the industry (possibly because the top leadership in the companies anyway is familiar only with personal heroism given that is what it took to create the industry in the difficult Indian environment in last 2 decades?). While the techincal skills can be (arguably?) boiled down to 2-day-Java-101 (102,103…) programs – there are no known steroids to create a Super Manager/ leader for a 300-people-50mn$-SOA/ Web2.0-multi-country-multi-year-implementation (out of the $200mn-5 yr outsourcing contract) that is increasingly the profile of client engagements. And of course this Super-Manager will still need to keep up the superlative CMM-record, control the rising attrition, innovate to keep the client happy, collaborate across a bewildering set of external and internal partners…

So will this hubris mean failure of the model? Certainly not. There is still the 30%+ demand, the talent is still being churned out from Indian universities and there is but no option for a global corporation to participate in the immense value offshore model generates. That will ensure survival and indeed ‘growth’ for next few years. No guesses for who will be the winners in the stock-market for next 5 years.

The future may however belong to those who passionately engage the ‘whole individual’ and bring ‘wholeness and personal freedom’ back to their lives. The American Techie has had that for a while. The Indian techie wants it now. The irony is that this is the industry that has provided escape from wrenching hopelessness and financial insecurity to the young of this country. And now that these are taken care off well – there is no escape but to address the higher order needs of individual freedom, sense of mattering and making a differnce – very much alive in this community of brilliant Indian techies.

To me that is what sticks out besides the brilliance of the Indian techie – a passionate heart that wants to create an impact. I pray that the industry finds a way to engage these hearts.

Regards

“The software company encourages its developers to be technically deep and develop domain knowledge. They will typically not move around from one area to another.”

Firstly, the software product company encourgaes (rather, forces) its developers to be technically deep, but limited to the technology that the company is using. In most of the big software product company, the prevailing technology is 3 to 4 years behind the latest technology. It means that the developer is behind the market and most of the techies hate to be in that situation.

Secondly, it is also true that these companies do not move people around. But far from being a virtue, this leads to stagnation and lack of opportunity for learning new things, which leads to lack of motivation among the techies.

Therefore, I think that these two reasons are not the right reasons that make an American techie different. What makes them different is the ability of these software companies to provide a sense of empowerment even within an individual contributor role.