+1 for standing by your opinion and the truth.

I completely agree with your first blog post and this one too. This and the previous blog post completely relates to me. After finishing my engineering studies, I did not join TCS (by luck because of recession). I know many friends who did and were later not happy working there. My friends in TCS and Infosys want to quit these companies as soon as possible.

I joined a product startup and learnt enormous engineering problems and solutions. After that experience I have decided that I will join only product companies. Now, I am working with another startup.

I've also had debates with my friends who give similar kind of arguments.

+1 from me for writing this blog post.

Susam,

I am really surprised to see your honest introspection for a post written months back. I see a difference in perspective between then and now. Do you really see an engineering challenge in working for one of the big houses which you vouched for? I will wait for your answer.

You are able to write this because a handful of Indians merely a couple of decades back thought of doing something which gave path to millions of people like me, an average guy. Drive to engineering excellence is not an only driving factor. We have come a long way and I am able to say this because once in my career I was part of a darling of silicon valley startup and to your surprise that picture is no more on the technology map. That shop is shut irrespective of all their cutting edge engineering solutions.

Please do not take me in a league where you see me denying the fact which you have already talked about from rooftop. I am not advocating anything but I have a question for you. How many institutions are here in our country which produce quality engineers? I guess you are counting on your fingers. Where do you see an average engineer like me who all his life memorized some notes and was busy living others' dream?

Hi Vijay,

You asked me,

> Do you really see an engineering challenge in working for one of the BIG houses which you vouched for? I will wait for your answer.

Yes, I do. I have expressed my views about this in the 4th point of my post.

I agree with other things you have written in your comment. This post is only about an individual's pursuit for excellence in engineering. Yes, it is not the only important factor in life. There are many other factors in life and career which are important. This post is neutral about such factors. This post neither speaks in favour of nor against such other factors.

I was one of those who slammed your previous post. I honestly thought it did not help in calling a spade a spade. But I've learnt a few things since then and you have too. The biggest thing I see is the confidence you get by working in a place that gives you hard problems to solve, not software abstractions, just hard problems.

I know a few really smart engineers who feel they are average in Google. You can't guess how your job will turn out. A startup might drain you and a big IT company might not be able to meet your aspirations. I believe that if you feel average in your workplace, then you are in the correct place.

Startups by nature have low politics. They provide decent money, perks, holidays, and everything. It's a different kind of lifestyle. But there is noise in the quality of problems that startups solve. Before joining a startup, evaluate the problems it solves. Don't do it to be cool. Do it to become cool.

Apart from the purely technical part of engineering and career potential, don't you think ethics is also important to engineers?

Of course, Satyam is no longer on our radar but Infosys has the US authorities chasing them and I'm sure there are other stories across the board which NASSCOM is also taking up.

Your post makes sense. A very good example of bad programming by Infosys is www.bobibanking.com. You can only make transactions on the website using Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Is anyone ever going to blame the training and placement cell in colleges?

In my college, students were forced to sit for the first company which came, Infosys. 315 of us were eligible. Aptitude test really was the only place where you could get kicked out. By randomly marking answers you might actually get selected in Infosys against your wish, so you must solve and mark the wrong answers if you don't want a job in Infosys.

Not surprisingly, 210 of us cleared and 202 got the job. 8 did not get the job because of missing paperwork.

Then the next company came. The remaining students were again threatened to try for this company by generating a false sense of insecurity. Another 84 got selected. Another two IT companies came following this and picked up the best of the rest.

After all this happened, the first startup showed up, and thanks to the brilliant placement policy the only people who sat for this were people with multiple backlogs and year drops. I am sure the startups were flattered and will visit next year too!

Along the lines of what Prashant said, I blame these companies for creating standardized tests as a barrier to entry, and for becoming reliant on these tests to sort potential employees. Worse, I was floored when I came across the concept of "placement papers" which appear to be prevalent in India. Unbelievable!

If a company hands you a standardized test in your field of study, it says a lot about that company. (Unable to judge talent. Blind to the fact that their tests are being gamed.) It says a lot about their confidence in your education. (Is the diploma worth something, or does it just say that you've gone through the motions?) And if a job seeker goes along with it, it says a lot about them, too. (You really want a job and can't do better. You went to a school that a company doesn't trust, and you're willing to work for a company that is demonstrating to you that it is poor with cultivating talent.)