DISCLAIMERs -
D1. Sarcasm fully intended where ever the reader detects it.
D2. Nothing personal (don't get offended) its just so cool to document my journey.
D3. It's important to note that this post is necessarily in an Indian context. I haven't worked in any non Indian location so that is not in scope.
D4. Each of the underlined points below would emit a certain characteristic signal of its own so if you are in sync with what I mean you will pick it up and harmonise.
I stepped in the Indian IT bandwagon somewhere in August - September 1996. Exactly 2 years after a stint in manufacturing industry as a campus recruit. Back then those were the days of Charles Petzold, Windows, MFC, VS 1.5 etc etc. Times have certainly changed and so has the industry as a whole. But the label "Indian IT" remains the same. Here is a list of top 10 observations-myths-facts-experiences-oneliners... π. They are numbered according to their Abuse-Index (which denotes how many times they were encountered by me). 1 is top most and so on.....
1. Innovation is only for folks at the receiving end ---- Over and over and over I have been hearing one statement each year in the appraisal meetings, You gotta innovate. WTH !!!. Is that so?.
2. If you don't design an automation framework you don't grow --- π I had the opportunity to be a software developer only for first 6 years so my major remaining 18 years have been as a QE. And so you will be surprised I have designed 18 frameworks so far to impress my manager(s) each year π. I bet I can give an inferiority complex to many seasoned QE's , devs also for that matter.
3. In a status meeting with the manager if you don't recall what you did last week then its a homicide --- Remember the famous Sully quote? - I've had 40 years in the air but in the end, I'm going to be judged by 208 seconds. So remember no matter what you have done in that week you will be judged in those 60mins meeting π.
4. In a stark contrast with #1 if you think differently in every situation you need a buy in from almost everyone in your hierarchy ---- So manager(s) are gods as you have guessed right. If you don't abide to their godliness you are outcast. If you believe in their godliness then the same you are *incast* π.
5. You are mature and influencing masses when you talk like a parrot whole day ---- I still don't understand how influencing others affects positively on product quality-my ultimate deliverable at the end of the day. It was however a different thing if I was a sales guy who needs to crack tough deals interacting.
6. Automation of a feature is more important than the feature itself ---- π±The feature is not live or in-dev as yet and instead of chasing the dev team your manager(s) chase you because you haven't automated it in the same sprint.
7. In India (very specifically) you are a junior until you don't lead a team ---- Desi folks are trained like race horses - run, run faster, run fastest until your lungs can. Barely 4 years after a print("Hello World!") they become managers here. So at the age of 48 when I still am an individual contributor (thankfully) I am still junior, immature, cannot take my own technical decisions, need handholding and most importantly - don't deserve to be paid as much as an MS Excel / PPT trained boss. ππ .
8. You join an engineering team - so you are expected to solve their issues which they know but they haven't solved it because they were waiting for you to solve it and make you a hero ---- Go and use Steve Jobs quote all over about hiring smart people. π
9. Desi's will invariably bully/reprimand/overpower only desis at the end ---- π‘Because desi manager(s) do not have the technical guts/ability/capacity/passion to overpower the actual root cause defaulting non desi folks - given any situation.
10. You are un-ambitious, risk averse, passive if you are happy with whatever existing you have in life because in India every horse has to be a race horse ---- Nothing more to say on that. π
There could be many more but these were the ones most hitting me for last 24 years of my Indian IT career. I'd love to pen more experiences but in a different style than this. So stay tuned.....
