Change in the definition of growth ? Not just number of employees or revenue, but also quality !!!

(Please don't think I am biased to favour the Indian IT industry, I am a part of the bandwagon so I include references to it)

Recently while talking to a senior executive at a company I came across this question written in the blog title, he mentioned that companies have recently started to realize that while growth is important, but increasing number of employees into the firm is no good way to achieve it.

In the last decade companies hired lots of graduates and staffed them into various projects outsourced from abroad. The resources were shown to the clients as resources waiting to start executing the projects. More the resources more chances of getting newer projects. 

One good thing which the recession brought in was growth of analysts and consultants.

10-12 years down the line HR analysts realized that companies have grown to fat sizes and that this is no good way to grow. By simple high school math one can figure out that by increasing resources and doing the same amount of work reduces productivity per resource !

This meant improvising the existing talent so that productivity and revenue both could be increased.

This doesn't mean that we need to stop hiring at the entry levels in the future but we need to definitely get the best people at entry levels itself. By hiring quality people at the entry level, companies will get better people at higher levels in the future. Better people means more quality work is done, ensuring client satisfaction and finally growth in terms of revenue.

So it seems, gone are the days of rampant and blind hiring at colleges during final/pre-final years of graduation. If you are reading this and if you are looking for a job then its time to be not only talented, but also to do your work in a qualitative manner rather than just quantitatively. To tell you the truth, if you are good, people will like to stay with you and companies will make efforts to retain you (in cash or in kind). But if you ain't good nobody cares, there is a huge ocean of people waiting to showcase their skills and talent.

Reasons why IT industry isn't the same anymore

Back in time 10 years back, being a part of the IT industry in India was considered uber-cool and elite. The profession commanded respect and even the mention of the word computer science engineer sent bells ringing in the ears of neighborhood aunties looking for grooms for their daughters. Onsite trips for a few months or sometimes years were the norm and people got richer and richer. Property prices zoomed up in cities and suburbs and property brokers thought of different techniques to fleece the buyers in the name of IT boom.

But what happened to the once elite considered profession ? Why isn't it the same anymore ?
Why has it become a dharamshala for all kinds of people ? Why doesn't it come back to it normal self (pre-2007 era) ? Where are the phenomenal salaries that were offered to employees earlier ?

Reason #1 : ( There is no IT in IT ! )
IT work involves insignificant amount of knowledge related to computer science or information technology for that matter. Anybody who knows how to click and type with decent amount of common-sense can come over and start working.

Reason #2: ( IT work is nearly complete )
Most of the IT work has already been completed and optimized in these last 12-15 years of IT boom, which leaves behind little to be done. Clients can today just order a solution over the internet, just like you order a book from amazon.com. The little configuration or customization that needs to be done doesn't need to be outsourced , it can done by hiring a few more members into the IT team of the client themselves.

Reason #3: ( Privacy Issues )
People are today concerned about their privacy and hence are the companies handling the common people's data also concerned about data security and privacy. This has led to companies forming their teams which does the IT work at their own location with lesser issues of data privacy and theft. Specially banks and investment firms.

Reason #4: ( Supply >>> Demand )
The industry is today over-saturated with employees. There is no need for much head-hunting. Thousands of employees are sitting idle today having no work to do at all (read bench). Now, how can one expect that one will be offered a envious hike when he switches companies ?

Reason 5: (Reason#1 + Reason#4)
Finally, the job is such that it doesn't require any heroic programming or analytic skills. On the floor (the workstation where you work) everybody is alike.So this leaves little for the supervisor to differentiate on the basis of your academic background/skills. So you might find a science graduate doing the same work as a electrical engineer. Companies have been seen promoting schemes for bachelor of science graduates to complete their masters along with a job at their offices. It helps them to save costs and get trained bonded resources to work for peanuts.

Why a QA makes a better BA !

Some people asked me to write more about how does a test engineer gains an advantage over developers when it comes to being a good business analyst. Here's it.
As a tester, you get access to certain integration and pipe diagrams which are often not given to developers, maybe due to contractual obligations and often because projects are so large that a developer would not like to waste his time understanding the different flows across modules but instead focus on understanding his own module. (Keeping in mind number of modules run into four or five digits)
The understanding of key business flows help build and gain knowledge of systems and also the domain of the project. And a business analyst does just the same !
So if you are looking for a future in analyst or consultant roles, then quality analyst is the role to play in your early  years. Yes there are other ways to go about that also, such as doing a MBA or some management related course, but it then it compromises on your work experience for that period of time.
Take your call carefully buddy :)

Life as a test engineer (to make it look sophisticated a quality analyst)

Yes, I know the title of this post is a bit strange.

Anyways leaving the title to its own condition, let me write more about what is all the fuss about being tester or developer. To begin the with, the (Indian) IT industry having a glorious past, today has less projects which relate to development of new products or services. Support and maintenance is the flavor of the projects being executed today. For those development guys who I know are clenching their fists, would accept that today instead of development from scratch, there is more of customization work. Platforms have been built, the benchmarks have been set and the pseudo-code is already in place. Definitely this saves time but it can't be called development, rather I would call it customization.

Coming back to the title, the clients or users of products and services of these IT giants today are not only concerned with what technology or platform is being used to develop their products. They want reliable services, defect free products and failure-proof systems. This brings into picture the poor long-forgotten test engineer. Once a looked down upon member of the  team, the test engineer suddenly becomes an all-important member. The test team now works upon a test approach, makes estimates and writes all permutations and combinations of test cases to somehow make the product fail (and win brownie points from the management). But alas testing can never be complete. There is no 100% defect free product nor is their a 100% failure-proof service. More on about the job-profiles later on someday.

There are some benefits of being a test engineer/quality analyst. Firstly, you get to learn a lot in a shorter period of time. A analyst has a complete holistic overview as well as a deep understanding of the product/service (or as you might call it the project). Secondly, it is a bit more relaxed job as compared to developers. Yes, no need to read it the third time, it is more relaxed [PERIOD]. Thirdly, it opens up options for you to become a business analyst sooner than you developer friends :)

Yeah, this is not a complete post. I will be adding on more follow-up posts for this one. Take care.