5 Things I Have Learned After 9 Months In Infosys
Friday, April 9, 2010
On this 13th I would complete 9 month in Infosys. It has been a journey where I have learned a lot, sometimes intentionally sometime unintentionally. Here in this post I try to enlist it in a 5 point list for dummies.
- 5 Points a.k.a A Grades are meaningless.
When you start training in Mysore it is a race to 5 points. Everybody slogs their asses just to get the all elusive full 5 point. Nobody knows why but still everybody wants a good CGPA. The reasons given by trainees who get involved in this rat-race vary.- Sometimes it is about that extra thousand bucks that you get as extra TPI,
- Sometimes it is about learning what you did not learn in college and
- Sometimes it is just because it will help in your career.
Believe me that all the reasons that are specified here are either totally crap or are simply just not worth it to walk that extra mile. Why should I know? It is because I am a 5 pointer, a person who not only did run that rat race but apparently won it as well. When I see the benefits that I have got I can state that it is just not worth it.
Yes I do get that extra thousand bucks, but it cannot and will not pay for the extra effort I ended up putting to stay top of the hill.
Yes you learn a lot especially stuff you never learned in college but would you use it in your life is another question in itself. To learn more about this refer point 2.
Help in career. Yeah Right! It might have helped had you worked on the same technology and even if you have worked on the same technology you may feel that you know nothing about it. For instance I was trained in mainframe and got a mainframe project but lo and behold it is HP mainframe (Tandem) instead of IBM Mainframe I was trained on and suddenly I feel as if I know nothing. - Technology That You Have Been Trained At Is Irrelevant.
The time when people get their stream allocated is a time of much heartburn for a large majority of people as they did not get the technology they wanted. My two cents on that is that is that technology you get is irrelevant to the your career in Infosys in particular and the industry in general. As soon as you hit production you would start hearing terms like adaptability. Adaptability can be deciphered to mean that HR had no clue about the demands production might have 2 months down the line and now you are expected to cover their mistake by unlearning your old technology and learning new technology. So buddy another reason to chill in training. - Technology Firms Are Not Only About Code.
Technology firm do code but majority of the work is related to documentation, presentation and pacifying some stupid demands of management. In the end if you feel like jobs related to coding are secondary then you are not at all mistaken. So people bring your expectations down and get your MS Office skills up - Technology Firm Don't Work In Cutting Edge Technology
When I was in college I was naive enough to lambaste my college in particular and education system in India in general for teaching us an "outdated" technology. If you check out the technology used in Indian Technology Firms technology taught in my college seems like it came from some star war flick. Some of us may say why the hell do these company uses this technology. It is not like they cannot use modern tech, it is more like they work in legacy technology because business they get is in these technology. So the bottom line is if you don't know ruby on rails don't fret. Chill. - Its Not "All Work And No Play Environment"
After complaining about my employer for so long let me give credit where it is due. It is not an "all work and no play environment". People here do know how to enjoy life. They party hard when they get time and company provides them avenues to do that. You are allowed to speak your mind. Work Condition although not great are certainly bearable. But if the deliverable is due the next day then it is advisable that you get your quilt with you as you might be spending the night in office.
hmmm.. nice post.. will recommend my mates who r abt to join in
@Rishi. Thanks Buddy.
You can stay tuned to get more updates about my job.
Post makes a lot of sense for even the Non-Infosys inclined techies out there!
@Nishant
I am glad you thought so.
It is a good post. I felt exactly the same when I was a fresher. Now almost 5 years completed in IT industry.
It is true that coding is not a big part in MNCs though many freshers think so.80% of IT work in Indian firms is maintenance and needs lot of time to spend on analyzing the impact on the system, rather than actual coding.
You can survive in corporate industry when you know how to talk and please your manager. This is want is required to grow up in Indian MNCs. If you know coding, that adds value.
Tough Guy you have nailed it.
I would also like to add to this that Infosys is creating havoc and shattering the confidence of young freshers with its policy of intense cut off marks during its training.
Talented youngsters are being shown the door on the basis of loosing out on 2-3 marks.They promised in the market that they will take in all 18000 candidates selected for batch of 2009 and fianlly only 6000 remained after training .
These freshers are being taken through useless stress and are completely loosing their believe once they are out.
The question is why have have such a recuitment from campuses when eventually net no of emplyed is so low .
You are creating trauma and nothing else. Your brand is already suffering and you will not survive long before media will takes its toll on you. Till when would you keep them im your pockets.
I personnally know people who are sitting at home and are not willing to fight back because this company of yours has shattered their confidence and believe .
Do not play with lives ...
Hi Rahul,
We are a group of software professionals from TCS. Would you be willing to publish some articles on our website
www.softkonnection.com
We are a startup software community.
Thanks
Karan
Hi Rahul,
Rightly said, you are correct in some of the context. But the mistake that you are doing here is you are expecting a service based company to give you the benefits of Product based company.
Answer few of the below questions :
1. Right from your KinderGarten, how many times have you topped the class?
2. If only a few times, where are the other toppers of your class doing today and what is their job profile ?
3. Have you appeared for the engineering entrance exam after your 12th ? and what is the profile of all the other people, who scored much better than you ?
Well, these are just to make you realize about what you have.
Scoring GPA as 5 on 5 is a great task, but bringing high GPA does not always displays your attitude towards work ,in the practical life , apart from the great theoretical knowledge, you should also have a positive attitude to excel in all the work that you are doing.
Infosys is a company who is mostly joined by an average student of a college, and by the rigorous training, they mold you for the upcoming load that you will have to bear in your coming days.
We can easily comment on the drawbacks of a company, but we forget all that we learn during the stay @ Infy.
Ask all of your friends who are in the other service based companies , ask about their experience and learning in their firm, i bet more than 90% of them will reply with Disgust.
Now about your point in the difference in technology, this point looks like "you were promised to give Bread and JAM, but they gave bread and Butter with Cheese" and still you are unhappy.
This is all because, Infosys has N Number of clients which demand their applications in all different Languages/ Technologies.
After the completion of training , Infosys Plans to utilize your knowledge/learnings as soon as possible, so probably , when you completed your training in some other Technology, and the work for that technology is not available at that moment, they have provided you with the best available option. Rather than just keeping you on bench and let you waste your talent.
I am in touch with many juniors of mine, in other companies, they are still on bench after around 1 year of their training completion. Some of them have got the internal projects , with very less exposure. And possibly this will be the same case with your friends in some other companies.
I still wonder why people throw stones "When they get Bread/Butter instead of Bread/Jam".
I know many of you guys will not accept this Bread/Butter funda, but just a point, Infosys have not picked you from the top 10-15 of Engineering colleges. They expect you are an average or just above average student and have given you the support to go on and explore IT by your own wish.
I could have said more, but i think you have got the point of what i wanna say.
Either Make yourself capable of taking calculated risk (or sometimes blind risks) , step ahead and search for the better service based companines in India or appreciate with what all you have been provided by your Luck and Infosys. Because in any company you wish to work with, it will be your attitude that will help you to grow and not just your GPA. And Working with Infosys will help you to learn more than you can except.
Signing off,
No Offence meant.
ALJ
One of the Employee of Infosys.
"It is you who can make the difference and climb at the pace defined by you".
@ALJ
Infosys is what it is because it is a service based company. I will go on to say that there is nothing wrong in it, its just that some time a staary eye kid straight out of college doesn't quite get it. This post may help set their expectation correctly.
To answer the questions you put on me.. lets take it this way, I wasn't very good in chemistry which screwed my chance of getting into a good college but I my DNA is probably cast in binary.
As for GPA, my sincere advice to people who undergo the Infosys training is to enjoy Mysore. Don't worry too much about "5 point". It doesn't really matter if it is 4 or 5.
Regarding the rest of your comment. I stated what happens in infosys and you stated why. Infosys or rather any service based company is what it is because of the reasons stated by you. My post seems like a rant, or rather I should say it is a rant because I was just 3 months into production and was heartbroken to see what was happening. My expectation were clearly different. Since then much water has flown in Ganges. I stand by my post because it was what
i felt then. Anyone who reads this post and is about to join Infosys should understand that Infosys is a nice company. I have loved my stay here but you should probably correct your expectations.
ALJ, I am planning to write another post on infosys soon. Would you like to review or contribute to it. in case yes please shoot me a mail at rahul (dot) burman (at) gmail
Your being a hypocrite Advising ppl not to work hard n enjoy lyf @ mysore.. I'm pretty sure you would have heard the same advise from ppl! But still you chose to work for your 5.0cgpa! :-) Two things help in getting that.. One is hard work n the other is luck.. When someone wants to do it, they will! I completed my training with 5.0! I had to sacrifice a few weekends I agree.. But I never regret it cos I enjoyed working and learning with friends :-)
It never was difficult..
The reason your unhappy is cos of the obvious human behaviour to not be content with anything we have!
We need to change this attitude.. But yes I do agree.. Gotta enjoy at mysore campus.. :-) gotta have sensible fun.. Its an awesome place with loads of fun things to do.. Work lyf balance is very very important else we'll get dead inside!
Nice post btw :-)
@bala Yes I am preaching what I didn't practice. So may be I am a hippocratic. I would rather call it benefit of hindsight. IMHO it was not worth the effort. You are entitled to hold your opinion and respect that.
And I am not unhappy at all. I did what I did and I am what I am today because of what I did. But you need not loose your sleep if you get less marks. It won't impact your career.