~ Career Snapshot: Then and Now ~

(Click to view better)

I have been analyzing, over couple of weeks, the way my career has shaped up over the past 10 months i.e. the time I took up the oppurtunity to work in UK as a consultant/contractor. Today happened to channelise my thoughts to come up with this chart, which gave me the snapshot of my career.

~ Fantastic 4 ~

As of yesterday I completed 4 fantastic years after stepping into the IT profession. After graduating with a degree in Electronics & Communication, I landed a job in the vast software industry. Through these four years, there have been personal highs & lows. I consider myself to be lucky to have started my career with a small company, unlike the general trend of starting with a large MNCs. Had I joined any of those big MNCs, I would have missed out on - working on latest technologies; understanding the nitty- gritty details of operations; above all, some of my (eX)colleagues who have been the best buddies.

Having started my career as a trainee in ReadiMinds, a Web Services Product development company, to being a consultant/contractor for the Professional Services Group wing of Nous Infosystems, the journey has been a good learning process. I have had the chance to witness a lot of transformations in my thinking and approach to way the software is developed.

Spent most of my time working with product development companies - ReadiMinds, SourceN - RainingData collaboration - I am kinda biased over the services companies. The whole goal of developing a piece of software is to make our lives comfortable. You develop them so as to be used by someone. Even though I happened to be in product development working on some of the latest technologies, they never made it to the production stages & failed to reach the end user. So, I decided to take up the onsite oppurtunity, in the form of a consulting job with the Professional Services Group, Nous Infosystems & lead a life of nomad. This time I am working with the product & application development teams at MGt as consultant/contractor through Nous Infosystems, UK. Having been here for 6 months, I got the taste of production & the challenges which come along with it.

Following are few of my observations through the various phases of my career:

1. Technology never drives the business, its the business which drives it. Technology is just a catalyst, never really get carried away by any particular technology.
2. Time & Cost determine the life of the product development
   
3. Making every member of the company understand the objective/goal of the company in the nascent stages is very crucial for both the individual & the company to accomplish their respective milestones.
4. People, Patience & Perseverance are key for the growth of an organization.
5. Be passionate about what you do for a living.
6. Implementation of policies should be uniform, without any exceptions.
7. Some of the brilliant ideas often don't get selected, if the management board doesn't gives a nod.
8. Marketing & Development teams always seem to have differential views of the same thing.
9. Sometimes businesses seem to adopt complex processes over the simple.
10. Too much of red tape becomes an overkill.
11. The success of a software doesn't rest upon the Architects & Architecture alone. Having the right Managers & Art of Managing resources also determine the success.
    
12. Developing products around standards defined by the industry would provide an edge in maintenance & integration over home grown standards.
13. Hiring the right people solves half the problems in a startup.
14. Holistic approach should be adopted in design stage, which adds agility to your software.
15. Being honest to your job, definitely adds value to ones credibility.
16. Never get caught up with your designation, rather try to fit into different shoes, which gives you more growth.
17. Keeping the work environment similar to that of a home, does reduce attrition levels.
    
18. Social activities integrated with the regular work routines, help people de-stress.
19. Never run a software company like Italian Mafia ;)
20. Above all, try to follow this quote as a thumb rule 'Love Your Job, But Never Fall In Love With Your Company'. Coming from Narayan Murty, who has been successfull in putting Bangalore, India & IT on the global arena & been an inspiration to me as well.

By the way being a consultant/contractor has its own pros & cons (will save it for another post).

Adiós, amigos! weekend is almost coming to an end :(

Pragmatic software development

The urge to write this post arises from two articles which i read recently. First one being Basil's 'To Be or Not To Be Agile' article, followed by Joel's 'A game of inches'. Have always desired to work for a company whose prinicples & processes are oriented on Agile Maifesto. I am in a similar situation to what Basil describes 'I am an agile software developer doing non-agile software development'.

The other article is from Joel, whom I have been following for 2 years now. His thoughts have had a tremendous impact on my approach & thinking towards software development. This article 'A game of inches' in particular massaged my ego, How...?

All those who have worked with me over the past two years could easily relate to it. They know how critical I can be during the design & development phases of the product. I always wanted to ( & continue to) give the best to make the product better.

My constant critique on design of certain modules of the product, didn't go well with my peers in Silicon Valley (California) & in Silicon Valley of East (a.k.a Bangalore). They felt that me being critical on small things weren't that necessary. They missed the whole point, of why I was being so cirtical & true that I failed to convey the message. The failure on my part can be attributed to the manner in which I used to express my cirticisms. I realized during my farewell at SourceN*, that many of my colleagues weren't against criticisms, rather the manner in which I used to conveyed them. Another good reason why a team needs to adapt Agile principles, where feedbacks are a part of regular development life-cycle rather during farewells.

In Joel's words, 'It takes a mindset of constant criticism to find them. You have to reshape your mind until you're finding fault with everything. Your significant others go nuts. Your family wants to kill you.'

'There are thousands and tens of thousands of these tiny things. And as you fix more and more of these little details, as you polish and shape and shine and craft the little corners of your product, something magical happens.'

I have always believed, 'A person should have the passion in what he does. When the passion dies, just quit! '.


*SourceN, which provided me the fertile ground in honing my techincal skills, work with latest technology, presented me the ideal oppurtunity of co-authoring articles on Javaworld & the ability to manage was an ideal place to work..

Moving to UK

I would like to share this news with you, that I have quit SourceN India and have joined Nous Infosystems India 15 days ago. I would be joining Nous Infosystems UK next week & shall be flying this Saturday.

Change in Ecosystem:Pond to Lake

In my three and half years tenure in the IT industry, have had the opportunity to work for two product companies. ReadiMinds, a Singapore headquartered, which was one of the earliest innovative companies in SOA platform and SourceN Inc, a US based startup, specialised in product development. There were many similarities in the organisational setup and the work-culture in my previous organisations. Since, both of them were typically small sized when compared to my current employer.

It has been a week and a day since I have joined Nous Infosystems; though my official presence in the company has been for 4 working days. I feel like a fish which made its way from a Pond to Lake, which requires sometime to get used to the new ecosystem. In such a short span of time I have noticed a lot differences in the organisational setup & the work-culture. The size of work-force @ Nous is 10 times that of SourceN, so its obvious their would be processes for every functional area of the company, to manage the organisation function effectively.To get used to processes, so many people around, organisational hierarchy, formal attire, guess it would take some time to get used to this ecosystem.

In the coming weeks the fish needs to brace itself to face yet another ecosystem, which would be completely alien.