Is service based industry dumbing down IT personnel in India

[ultra vires]

Indians have been known for their IT skills and the solutions they provide. Indian companies took over a lot of work that was handled by US IT companies, because we could do it cheaper. With time a lot of work has come to India and to meet these challenges they need a constant flow of IT people, but are these new breed of IT guys up to the game. The service based industries have adopted boot camps as a way of training resources within a short period of time to meet the ever growing demand.

They make the new college grads take 3 months course (it doesn’t matter whether you are an IT,CS or Biotech guy) and train them in languages and hone their communication skills. The problem lies in the fact that these guys are not trained to think about finding solutions to complex scenarios. These guys are trained to write lines of code learn syntax and most importantly search “GOOGLEâ€. Over a period of time they stop thinking and just keep coding mindlessly. I have seen a lot of people in the industry who just follow the specs that are handed down to them by the clients, there is no innovation, there are no questions.

I hope these guys realize sooner than later that computer programming is not just about learning a language; if you put enough effort in training a monkey then he can also do that. It is all about nurturing the mind to think out of the box, to innovate.

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[blr_p]

The problem lies in the fact that these guys are not trained to think about finding solutions to complex scenarios. These guys are trained to write lines of code learn syntax and most importantly search “GOOGLE”. Over a period of time they stop thinking and just keep coding mindlessly.

I'd say its not the job of companies to provide an education. All they are doing is training and the value of it comes with a sell by date ie generally of not much use beyond the project concerned.

I have seen a lot of people in the industry who just follow the specs that are handed down to them by the clients, there is no innovation, there are no questions.

Because the bulk of it is just that....grunt work. There is no innovation required.

I hope these guys realize sooner than later that computer programming is not just about learning a language; if you put enough effort in training a monkey then he can also do that. It is all about nurturing the mind to think out of the box, to innovate.

I'd say thats a way of thinking that could come from anything not necessarily linked to coding at all.

But the short answer to your question is yes, a company wants to dumb down the work as much as possible to maximise thier gains as it can be done by cheaper ppl.

Aftrerall we are not talking about R&D here are we

 

[thetoxicmind]

My friend,

Most of the so called "IT guys" look for positions where they can exhibit their talent and nurture their potential BUT finding a job these days is quite difficult as such, leave alone finding one where one can exhibit the above and remain satisfied.

Quite a few who end up with such jobs prefer to work in the monotonous scenario as they have no other options and also believe that it can still add up as "Work Experience" in their resume.It's better to have done something (work) close to relevant than remain a fresher and wait endlessly for your dream job.



Back on track...

People don't prefer the kind of jobs you've mentioned.

They simply take it up for the sake of earning a livelihood and gaining some work experience until a favourable job opportunity arises.

Given the current market & employment scenario, any kind of job opportunity is a welcome blessing for most.

"Something is always better than nothing !? " & "One has to get work done, One has to get paid !"

On that bombshell, I leave you to rethink your opinion about the same.

Cheers.

 

[Gurpartap Singh]

The innovation and the lack of it is due to money problem in India.

 

[axeman]

Well said all, a majority of people who do college/ engineering due to outside pressures fall in this category.

 

[vrd]

I hope these guys realize sooner than later that computer programming is not just about learning a language; if you put enough effort in training a monkey then he can also do that. It is all about nurturing the mind to think out of the box, to innovate.

Completely agree with you here.

These guys are trained to write lines of code learn syntax and most importantly search “GOOGLEâ€.

I am not happy with the way you are saying having the ability to search Google makes you a trained monkey. It should not be paired together with the other repetitive (mindless) things you have mentioned. In fact being able to find your own solutions to problems is one of the critical skills one must possess. What do you think?

 

[greenhorn]

if you put enough effort in training a monkey then he can also do that

Exactly. If they could do that, they would. In fact, why stop at monkeys. heck, even stones.

Demand is outstripping supply. So they're lowering the bar. Especially since the other options are not possible, since the only thing we're competing on is cost.

Btw, the scourge of incompetence is not limited to indian IT folk. I've seen enough of the foren variety too.

 

[ultra vires]

In service based industry only 20% of actual coders feed rest of the 80% coders.

I wrote this because this is what i have seen in my 1 yr of work with service based industry.

Product based companies look for people who can actually bring some real talent to the table unlike service based companies.

PS : I am not saying that all the guys working in MNCs etc are brainless.. they have it in them.. but companies dont want to bring that out.

 

[greenhorn]

there are so many anti patterns to blame that on, that I'm not even gonna start.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-pattern

Has a good selection

EDIT : the even better http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki?AntiPatternsCatalog

you'll love this wiki if you're into this sorta crap. I can read it for hours

 

[chic_magnet]

If someone has to do innovative thinking then someone else has to follow up first with grunt work. You cannot innovate if you do not have enough data to support your new idea!

I am guessing the grunt work happens in India while innovation happens somewhere else!

 

[Lord Nemesis]

In service based industry only 20% of actual coders feed rest of the 80% coders.

I wrote this because this is what i have seen in my 1 yr of work with service based industry.

Product based companies look for people who can actually bring some real talent to the table unlike service based companies.

PS : I am not saying that all the guys working in MNCs etc are brainless.. they have it in them.. but companies dont want to bring that out.

I totally agree to what you say. In fact the ratio is more like 5% of coders feeding the rest of the 95% in most of these companies. These companies want numbers so that they can bill their clients showing the quantity of people and their experience rather than their quality.

As for your last point, I agree that companies are partly to blame, but in a different way. For some reason, software services industry is one area where out of the box thinking is frowned upon. In most cases, the clients have some Pre-meditated notions/concepts and anything drastic form that is not well received. So companies too have adopted an attitude that discourages programmers from bringing out their best other than in the number of hours they spend on working at the office.

However what I dislike is the kind of work attitude they instill. There are 5 kinds of people in the software industry these days.

1. People who have the necessary fundamentals and skills and the enthusiasm to put them to work, devise original solutions to problems when they see one.

2. People who have the necessary fundamentals and skills, but care more about the money, or would rather not work if they can get away with it.

3. People who don't have the necessary fundamentals and skills, but have the enthusiasm to work and learn and thereby constantly improve until they become part of the first class of people.

4. People who don't have neither the fundamentals and skills nor care about the work or care about learning.

5. People who don't have neither the fundamentals and skills nor care about work and learning, but have a intelligent brain to cook up crooked ideas of how they can butter up the superiors or claim the credit for some one else's work.

Most services companies are populated by the category 2, 4 and 5 and a very few of category 1 while product companies are populated by category 2, 3, 5, but also a fairly good quality of category 1. But for the most part category 2 and 5 are the bane of any company. Services companies are very lax about these 2 categories of people which is a major factor influencing this industry and people in it.

 

[blr_p]

In service based industry only 20% of actual coders feed rest of the 80% coders.

Another way of saying this is that only the consultants do the hard work whilst the employees coast. As if a conultant screws up you can always fire them more easily or better still blame them for any other probs.

I wrote this because this is what i have seen in my 1 yr of work with service based industry.
Product based companies look for people who can actually bring some real talent to the table unlike service based companies.

Both are very different categories. All that matters is which environment you like and what turns you on.

Some ppl are not that keen about programming microsoft calculator for a living or working in an army numbering in the hundreds and prefer smaller teams working with a company no matter the industry.

You say there is no innovation, well what is the innovation here you refer to.

Can you give some examples in the software world ?

Most of the time they lock their customers into them in one way or the other see M$. Much easier to get paid and less sweat isnt it

The innovation in the services line is automating things that were not previously. So it speeds up processes. Thats it.. Thing is you are not going to be the one that spots this usually, it would be someone in the company that does so and then specs the requirements out.

The challenge then is creating that solution. It can be as simple as a process port / rewrite or more complex as integrating many different systems together. This is the usual donkey work we excel at. Its monotonous (at times), necessary and someone has to do it.

 

[greenhorn]

TBH, in the services industry, customers want predictable results. And any deviations , even the good kind are not accepted.

Analogy. You work as a PC assembler. You get an order to put together a system with two 500G hard disks. You have an idea - why not raid them together

option 1 - tell it to your manager/their manager

Result - Idea is shot down. do not deviate from spec

option 2- tell it to the client directly

Result - Client is pissed. "Why is this guy talking to me . Cant you control your own resources?" Your managers pissed because you went over their head

Option 3 - do it your way, ship it without telling anyone, knowing it will be better for the end customer.

Result - customer is furious that he got a 1T HDD(since thats how it shows up somewhere) instead of 2x500G. Your ass gets fired.

While this is not a great analogy ( not too sure about how RAID works :ashamed . point is , innovation is not expected in the service sector, unless specifically asked for

Wait, I have a better example. I gave my car to a workshop to paint my car ORVM top halves body colour, and wheels matt black.

I got the car with the entire ORVM assembly painted instead of just the top half ( why? because it looks better saar) and the wheels painted gloss black instead of matte ( why? its easier to wash and more durable also). Suffice to say i was pissed.

From the perpective of a Client who is giving you some legacy java app to maintain. He just wants you to add an extra field. he doesnt want it to have a an ajaxish autocomplete or drop down list. In fact , in one case we had business users who were pissed because we did something like that , because they want it to work "just like the old system" which was an older AS400 app, which the folks from the client side were using , had gotten used to. this explained the weird UI. Apparently it had been made to be an exact replica of the AS400 screen, accurate down to the field names , positions , and other UI features.

You seem to have confused IT services with programming. while some amount of coding is involved, there is a huge difference.. Its like thinking that since a desk job at a govt co involves writing in english, there is scope for someone who is good at the english language to do something good there. Once you start deviating from the known formats, the letters will end up literally unrecognizable to other babus, and you'll end up sans job. pretty much the same here. code as you're told , and when in doubt, dont -thats a maxim in our co.