Need your opinion to seize this interesting opportunity with my new employer.

[Shubham1401]

Hi Members,

I have joined a big analytics services based IT company just 3 weeks back. I have a very interesting situation which is developing in my project which seems like a great opportunity to rise through the ranks instantly in my new company. I've come for your expertise to advice me on how to play in this situation.

Before explaining what it is, let me give a little background about myself. I have 1.5 years of corporate experience in the space of business intelligence and I work on a tool which is fairly new in the market. As a result, the expertise in the tool is very scarce in India and it is very hard to find good people who know their stuff. Prior to my new job I was working for a startup and it was a place where you could get as many responsibilities as you can handle. I have experience of 3 end-to-end project implementations for clients and used to handle a team of 7 people (some having more experience than I had). I have a solid hold on the subject and can even give most people with twice the experience a run for their money.

So, in my new company, we have 12 people (most of them senior to me as they have ~4-5 years of experience) who are working on the project. While I was given the business and technical KT, I came to know that there are massive mistakes that the team is making in the project life cycle. The team is setting wrong expectations in front of the client that the tool is not made for a lot of his requirements and they are only delivering the simplest of requirements (for ex: said no for a slowly-changing dimension implementation). On top of that, no one knows the concept of code optimization and hence the dashboards are loading with ~3-10 seconds lag. I have myself made a copy of that application in which the dashboards are loading in less than 1 sec ( which is how its meant to be). I'm just scratching the surface of the situation here.

So far I've not shared these findings with my project manager. He is also new to this tool and believes whatever the team tells him.

What I want is to get position and salary on par with my seniors who have 4-5 years experience as they don't have even have ~20% knowledge needed. Is it doable? If yes, then how should I approach for the same?

 

[tommy_vercetti]

Just my 2 cents, even if you are good compared to your team mates, it will take time for your appraisals/increments, providing your inputs would pave the way for the coming appraisals/increments but it won't be overnight. Your inputs would get you a good standing and recognition, but then you would need to be consistent as you would have already raised people's expectations, again this is my view

 

[vishalrao]

Well, I guess it mainly depends on your assessment of the people in your company (peers and bosses) - is it a meritocracy or will they get offended if you go ahead and propose the improvements - which means openly identifying the inefficiencies in the code etc.

Some people take it personally and will try to hinder you, while others will be glad to acknowledge your know-how and reward you (with position and salary) fairly.

If it's a fair environment, it will be easy for you, if not, then maybe you should play safe and, for example, "announce" (in written emails/presentations/meetings) to wide audience that these are YOUR ideas and hope you get rewarded for them soon enough.

 

[vishalrao]

Also concur with tommy's comment - don't get ahead of yourself and expect overnight promotion/salary... first demonstrate your expertise, implement the improvements and in your appraisal explicitly mention this achievement was your sole contribution. This will help you get a good raise and MAYBE an early promotion. But really you should stay patient and you need to show sustained contributions in ideas and growing your own skills more.

 

[Shubham1401]

Hi thanks for your inputs guys.

Right now the project is struggling a lot. We are having difficulties in making the client happy. He has even postponed the go-live date as he thinks that the application is not up to the mark to show to users.

Now, I have tried to communicate these problems to the senior developers and suggested the ways to solve them. But they dismissed my points. They are following their own custom project architecture which deviates a lot from how things are done in the rest of the industry.They are giving me mundane tasks which don't require me to use any brain.

So, I have developed a replica of the application based on my new architecture which works fast and took just ~5% of the development effort. I don't expect the rest of my development team to understand anything. I want to approach my manager who is actually responsible for the whole project. I want to demonstrate this app to him and tell him what are the things we can do better (as i have lead 2 successful projects myself whereas this is my team's first project on this technology).

But I think the manager will use my expertise in developing the new apps and ask me to train the rest of the team. But the problem is, the team won't listen to me fully as I'm a level below them in seniority. I just want to be on even grounds so that people can take me seriously and earn at least on par with them.

 

[nRiTeCh]

Just keep polishing your skills even though you seem to be the only one knowing the tool well. Make sure you do not go into any over confidence and that in the end if anything goes wrong you have to pay the price or the team will point all fingers at you.
I'm in a similar situation right now, in fact ever since I joined this co. the manager is jealous of me coz of my communication skills both written as well as verbal and also documentation and analytical skills.
The co. had a bond of 15 months which thankfully I surpassed. Now I'm looking for a change. We often have heated arguments and what not and that has affected or say have shattered my mental peace completely.
In fact he didnt gave me appraisal. ever since I was hired dont know why but he was always rude with me, I dont know why even I got confirmed and even got multiple appreciations.

As for technologically my brain rusted here as he always put his fav. sluts in all projects and leaves me just sticking to limited tasks or boring projects just6 to yell that I havent completed those. No point complaining to HR as well coz they dont even take sexual harassment seriously and instead ask the employee to leave if she/he got problems, so forget my issues.

So always keep polishing your skills and try to improvise and if the co and the team and seniors are good you will definitely enjoy all the perks and appraisals.

One valuable tip: People dont leave companies/organizations they actually wanna leave their managers/teams which make them think for a secondary opinion.

 

[sharktale1212]

As someone who was in your position, let me say this - Don't do anything. Project not going well, customers not being happy is not your problem. It's your managers. If he is not interested in asking people's view then let it be. Development is a one time pay for service companies, they make money on continuous support. So most of the time teams deliver shoddy and incomplete work so that they can bag longer projects.

Telling you manager, he will think of you being cocksure and so will your teammates. This will also sour your relationship with the team, think about it if it's worth it? You might be hating your job but just hang on and try to get it over with and find a new job.

Remember this, while your seniors might not know anything they still are seniors with contacts in other companies. Sooner or later, you will get a job offer where they might be asked for an input from them. I know its not a comforting thought when you think about an ideal world but things are what they are, unfortunately buttering in India goes a long way.