Indian Software Engineer
Last week, I was in India and had a chance to discuss software education and training with many friends there. There are approximately over 250 universities in India, most are state-owned but private training institutions owned by software companies are beginning to flourish as they have better training programs. Indian universities graduate about 350,000 software developers each year but the government wants to double this number by 2020. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and the Indian Institute of Science (IIS) are widely considered to be the best, many Indian friends told me that they are probably even better than Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) or CarnegieMellonUniversity in the U.S. Because they attract the very best students, their graduates are highly desirable by top software Indian companies such as Infosys, Wipro, TCS and HCL as well as foreign companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, and Motorola.
To date, India has about over two million people working in Information Technology (IT) areas. An IT career is highly desirable as they make better salaries, even more than Medical doctors. My friend Chandra told me: “Today young girls want to marry software engineers so having software degrees is a “license” to wed beautiful and rich girl. In India, it is the girl family that have to pay for the wedding and all expenses, including dowry for the man”. So study software is the prefer choice of many young man and having working in the outsourcing area, with the opportunities to travel and live oversea, is probably the best dream jobs possible. Because most marriages are arranged by family, a male students in software engineering typically receive several marriage propositions even before they graduate. If they get jobs with outsourcing companies and could travel oversea, their status will increase significantly. They could demand a large sum of money, even cars or houses from their marriage proposals”. It is hard to believe that software engineering is such a “Hot job” there since in the U.S it is considered as jobs for “Geeks and Nerds” and many software engineers have hard time getting dates with girls.
Despite many people are studying software engineering or already graduated in this area, India is now facing a software worker shortage. The turn over rate among software workers is about 30% and many talented people are seeking employment in the United States and other Western countries. Chandra told me that as demands are still pouring in, many Indian companies have to outsource works to other countries or expand to other countries in Asia to meet demands. Today, Indian does not want to be programmers or testers anymore, they outsource most of these works and keep the architect, design or large scale IT projects because they are much more profitable.
He also told me that because there are significant gaps between academic program and industry needs so training after hiring is a priority for many software companies. A typical software developer receives between 2 to 4 weeks of training each year to keep up with technology changes. Most companies have three months training after hiring and an additional three months of on-the-job training for new employee. The most critical skill needed in the industry today is project managers, requirements engineers, and IT security engineers and most companies have their own in-house training programs to for those positions.
I had several meetings with software students in their university. It was a friendly conversation as they were asking more than I can answered about trends in software industry. I told them that if their universities could focus less on theories but more on practices then they could improve their skills to meet the industry's needs as students can be productive right away rather than having to spend several months in additional trainings. I also believe that the rapid change in the technology industry requires continuing education but this is an issue. Many students believe that since they already have degrees and jobs, there is no need for additional trainings. The “lifelong learning” concept is still relatively new to many of them. A student told me: “I have a degree and a good job, why do I need to go back to school? Is it because people like you, who teach for a living, need students to keep your jobs?” Another students voiced his opinion: “We spent many years in school, we have good jobs and now we need to enjoy life” but another student cautioned his friends: “Additional training may becomes a necessity when technologies change so we may consider it when it comes”.
Overall, I can feel a confident atmosphere among students on their new economic power that their country has achieved. When asking about rating their software, most of them rated “India as number 2, after the U.S” several told me that it is just a matter of time, they will be number one.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
