A lot of criticism is valid however rather generalized. The talent pool at large-scale, low-cost services industry in India is comprised of people who were mass hired, trained on the job and dug through a single skill set for years. That being said, there are pockets within the organization which do really well. It is worth noting, that it can't be a million dollar business without actually solving a business problem. There was a time, when it did manage to fill a massive gap in western markets and even today builds/maintains large scale systems at lot of western enterprises.
In my opinion, it provides challenging opportunities around how to manage large distributed teams. It is not a place to seek technical growth or high powered teams.
As an outsider, I feel, Vishal Sikka, was attempting to change the culture from within but was clearly facing considerable resistance from promoters/founders. I admire the value system upon with the Infosys was originally founded on; they originally went out of their way for employees, however, over time the focus has shifted and I feel they have failed to keep pace with evolving landscape and business models both.
> It is worth noting, that it can't be a million dollar business without actually solving a business problem.
Based on my interactions with Infosis, I beg to differ.
As best as I can tell, their business model is basically to convince clients that Infosys should take on IT projects at a fraction of the cost compared to the competition. Whoever gets them through the door gets hailed as a cost saving hero and is soon promoted. Meanwhile the projects that were given to them inevitably fail, and some new executive is sent in to pick up the pieces. At that stage the cycle may repeat with Infosys once again picking up the task of cleaning up its own mess.
They don't solve business problems, they just sell snake oil to organizations that have not yet learned to avoid them.
To all the naysayers, Infosys did solve real problems at first; they built a formidable reputation. I don't know when but at some point they expanded like crazy and I believe didn't care for quality so much anymore. There might still be talented people working there, but its know pejoratively as a "bus company" i.e. one which comes to a college to recruit a "bus load" of cheap engineers.
Well, I used one of the body shops in India to move to the US on H1B. Then I switched to a reputed US company within months after landing. This is what every highly skilled Indian grads should do.
>Should do?
How does ethics play out here? Promising an employer to work for them just to lure them and get an H1B visa and then ditching them? Doesn't sound ethical.
No direct experience but I heard they are one of nastier of Indian body shops. Projects are full of the most appalling fail and 'just do it'. Line management are utterly clueless enforcers with bad attitudes. But then that does seem to be the go with these companies.
The problem is that those companies exists to fulfil a very different objective than what in-house developers are expected to provide.
You should see them as a Leasing system for Generic Development Resources: flexible and clear billing, fleet management, transparent reallocation of resources, economical and instant capacity to increase or decrease the fleet sizes.
Their line management reflect that, and their developers have to reflect that too. They are not in the business of delivering software or business feature, they are in the business of providing development hours in the most flexible and smooth fashion.
I have a technical interview with this company next week. Anyone want to fill me in on the good the bad and the ugly of being a programmer at a company like Infosys?
1. There is a very small chance that you will be working on what you were promised when hiring.
2. Your interests or background doesn't matter(More true if you are fresh out of college). You know in and out of Java. Doesn't matter, go send emails for rest of your life.
3. I am not saying that there are good projects. There are but very few and the resource pool is very big that your chance of getting a good project is very small. If you have contacts, then you can get tagged to some projects based on their requirements.(This works only if you have enough experience)
If you really want to improve your career as a programmer, join a product company or a startup. You will get chance to learn a lot and work with awesome people who can motivate you to be a better engineer.
I highly recommend you NOT to join this company as a programmer because you'd have no growth and also, they pay you peanuts and earn millions. They treat you like shit. You'll be just another fish in the sea.
The only good thing about joining this company is good work-life balance as there is no much work for you to do.
As someone who worked with outsourced IT services companies, I highly recommend you to join product based companies. Most of the work done by Indian body shops are not great,they focus on managing legacy codes and some maintenance works.
If I get a time-machine, I'll go back in time and avoid the mistake of joining services-based IT companies. :-)
As an American your experience might be different from the thousands of Indian grads that are hired every year. But I wouldn't bet on it, and I'd stay as far away as possible if I could. It's a body shop and the office politics are insane.
If you are passionate about writing software, this is a company best avoided. Recruiters in India make it a point of stating that the company they are hiring for is 'not like Infosys'. That should give you a good idea of just how terrible an employer they are.
Either work for a company building their product or consult with someone to build them their product. Don't work for a company that consults for someone to build their product.
Disclaimer: I know nothing about Infosys, but I've worked in "body shops" before.
IT service companies are difficult places to work. Normally you have very little control over what you're going to work on. Where I worked, I came in as a C++ programmer and I was sent out for COBOL jobs. I ended up navigating myself away from the COBOL jobs, but it takes a fair amount of political finesse. In the end, I quit after about 7 months and they sued me for breach of contract :-) (Luckily, they backed down after my new employer offered me legal assistance).
The thing is that these companies have sales people whose job it is to land contracts -- any contract. They get paid based on landing the contract. So you may find yourself teaming up with a sales person and being told to say whatever you can to land the contract. This is unpleasant (and if you are lucky you can avoid that work, especially if you don't have much experience).
Next, once the contracts are landed, people are assigned to the contract. Square pegs, round holes... these are details that your manager doesn't want to worry about. The contract needs people. You are a person. OK, we're good to go!
Next (despite what you may have heard), most companies don't outsource interesting work. Big companies, especially, have permanent staff. If they outsource the good stuff, then the permanent staff will leave. Because they want to outsource something (to "save" money), it's the crappy, under-specified project that is guaranteed to fail anyway (i.e. no manager wants to touch it). That's what you get to work on.
Now, this can be good or it can be bad, depending on your point of view. When you are working in a body shop, you can pretty much suck horribly and not that many people will care. If your project fails miserably, you will be shuffled off to the next project -- because you're a person and project need people (Yep, we're good to go!)
Of course, your manager will be shouting at you. The sales person will be shouting at you. The person overlooking the project from the contracting company will be shouting at you. But, you can pretty much rest easy in the knowledge that since your main credential for being on the project is that you're a person, then you probably won't be fired.
Except... if you do something stupid -- like sign off on a code review and accept responsibility for something. In that case, your manager will love you. They will kiss you on the head as they boot you out the door, promising to name one of their children after you. After all, you have fallen on the sword and protected them from the same fate.
Yeah... I don't recommend working in a place like that...
For the love of god just get into any product shop, take eLitmus or AMCAT & leave BigIT. There's every less to learn, high restrictions on taking up choice assignments & so many more reasons. You can read up so many answers from Quora.
Depends on your alternatives and your current level (of experience). For a brand new grad, if you can get into any product company, you're better off than going to Infosys, simply because of your next options. If your other options are TCS/CTS/Wipro, I don't know if Infosys is much worse than those companies.
[+] [-] priyaaank|8 years ago|reply
In my opinion, it provides challenging opportunities around how to manage large distributed teams. It is not a place to seek technical growth or high powered teams.
As an outsider, I feel, Vishal Sikka, was attempting to change the culture from within but was clearly facing considerable resistance from promoters/founders. I admire the value system upon with the Infosys was originally founded on; they originally went out of their way for employees, however, over time the focus has shifted and I feel they have failed to keep pace with evolving landscape and business models both.
[+] [-] bicubic|8 years ago|reply
Based on my interactions with Infosis, I beg to differ.
As best as I can tell, their business model is basically to convince clients that Infosys should take on IT projects at a fraction of the cost compared to the competition. Whoever gets them through the door gets hailed as a cost saving hero and is soon promoted. Meanwhile the projects that were given to them inevitably fail, and some new executive is sent in to pick up the pieces. At that stage the cycle may repeat with Infosys once again picking up the task of cleaning up its own mess.
They don't solve business problems, they just sell snake oil to organizations that have not yet learned to avoid them.
[+] [-] pm90|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throws3bit|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amrrs|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nthcolumn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gutnor|8 years ago|reply
You should see them as a Leasing system for Generic Development Resources: flexible and clear billing, fleet management, transparent reallocation of resources, economical and instant capacity to increase or decrease the fleet sizes.
Their line management reflect that, and their developers have to reflect that too. They are not in the business of delivering software or business feature, they are in the business of providing development hours in the most flexible and smooth fashion.
"Just do it" is what their client is buying.
[+] [-] novia|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nu11p01n73R|8 years ago|reply
I worked with a person who asked me what PHP was.
If you are still not convinced,
1. There is a very small chance that you will be working on what you were promised when hiring.
2. Your interests or background doesn't matter(More true if you are fresh out of college). You know in and out of Java. Doesn't matter, go send emails for rest of your life.
3. I am not saying that there are good projects. There are but very few and the resource pool is very big that your chance of getting a good project is very small. If you have contacts, then you can get tagged to some projects based on their requirements.(This works only if you have enough experience)
If you really want to improve your career as a programmer, join a product company or a startup. You will get chance to learn a lot and work with awesome people who can motivate you to be a better engineer.
[+] [-] leoharsha2|8 years ago|reply
The only good thing about joining this company is good work-life balance as there is no much work for you to do.
[+] [-] giis|8 years ago|reply
If I get a time-machine, I'll go back in time and avoid the mistake of joining services-based IT companies. :-)
[+] [-] _jgdh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bgdam|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arjie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justin66|8 years ago|reply
You might think I'm exaggerating...
[+] [-] mikekchar|8 years ago|reply
IT service companies are difficult places to work. Normally you have very little control over what you're going to work on. Where I worked, I came in as a C++ programmer and I was sent out for COBOL jobs. I ended up navigating myself away from the COBOL jobs, but it takes a fair amount of political finesse. In the end, I quit after about 7 months and they sued me for breach of contract :-) (Luckily, they backed down after my new employer offered me legal assistance).
The thing is that these companies have sales people whose job it is to land contracts -- any contract. They get paid based on landing the contract. So you may find yourself teaming up with a sales person and being told to say whatever you can to land the contract. This is unpleasant (and if you are lucky you can avoid that work, especially if you don't have much experience).
Next, once the contracts are landed, people are assigned to the contract. Square pegs, round holes... these are details that your manager doesn't want to worry about. The contract needs people. You are a person. OK, we're good to go!
Next (despite what you may have heard), most companies don't outsource interesting work. Big companies, especially, have permanent staff. If they outsource the good stuff, then the permanent staff will leave. Because they want to outsource something (to "save" money), it's the crappy, under-specified project that is guaranteed to fail anyway (i.e. no manager wants to touch it). That's what you get to work on.
Now, this can be good or it can be bad, depending on your point of view. When you are working in a body shop, you can pretty much suck horribly and not that many people will care. If your project fails miserably, you will be shuffled off to the next project -- because you're a person and project need people (Yep, we're good to go!)
Of course, your manager will be shouting at you. The sales person will be shouting at you. The person overlooking the project from the contracting company will be shouting at you. But, you can pretty much rest easy in the knowledge that since your main credential for being on the project is that you're a person, then you probably won't be fired.
Except... if you do something stupid -- like sign off on a code review and accept responsibility for something. In that case, your manager will love you. They will kiss you on the head as they boot you out the door, promising to name one of their children after you. After all, you have fallen on the sword and protected them from the same fate.
Yeah... I don't recommend working in a place like that...
[+] [-] ap46|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] known|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sumedh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gigatexal|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] praneshp|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gumby|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] known|8 years ago|reply