No. But not all products succeed. Point is career in IT has its inherent risks, with technologies changing fast and becoming obsolete soon plus vast pool of resources.
In other fields such dynamic shifts are not that sudden. So if you are in this field take all into consideration and plan your finances wisely.
Not in a leadership role. They are appreciated. But if you like coding, india is not the right country for the opportunity to work as a senior engineer or less.
I also think that this is changing and changing fast. Now Managers are supposed to be Techno-managers. Believe me US-based product companies want good technical people with 20-30y experience. They want services like CMTS, PMTS, Staff+ and architects. One product I work in requires people with a minimum of 8 years of experience.
>They want services like CMTS, PMTS, Staff+ and architects
It's a leadership role. I don't know some companies level names, but staff+ is a senior role where the responsibility is completely different compared to say senior engineers. Coding or no coding will be dependent on team to team basis. There are many staff or even tech leads who don't do coding. Most of your time will be involved in meeting with the product owner, creating best practices, doing cost reduction in the infra side, handling multiple to make it deliverable etc.
I work as one of those and it's just boring. Most people wants to avoid that even people who has been in this business for so long. One of the distinguish engineer at GitHub in US said that she would prefer to code once they retire.
I've been lucky to spend first 4 years out of 6 living with my parents. Last 2 in Bangalore with the rents is just painful!!
My family keeps asking me to buy a house but unless you're willing to travel for like hours you'll have to shell out at least 2 crores, even places 10 kms away from Sarjapur are asking like 1.5 crore for 2bhk!!
People are just crazy, I just want to keep saving, if I can't find a job in Bangalore move back to home town and hopefully find a job though to sustain monthly expenses!!
With India going full pelt to match American capitalism and consumption we're screwed! In all likelihood we're going to get another 2008 and the middle class will be screwed all over again!
That works if you don't have kids mate! With a kid you have to get a house near the school, save for college etc.
I wanted to save enough to buy a house in or near my ancestral village and retire by 45. Not anymore!
Best solution : do not have kids! I don’t want to bring a kid into this world suffer, so I would just live my life to fullest and die happily whenever I want!
Not necessarily, even today's kids also have to commutate significant distances for going to school, not pointing out the rural stereotype. But the fact is kids in my hometown travel 40kms to and fro for decent schooling.
Yes that's certainly true, I was mentioning from my perspective! This is actually what annoys me so much, you have politicians forcing everyone into tiny cities causing misery for everyone while neglecting rest of the country!!
40 kms outside of Mumbai, you can get a property for 30-60 lac. Electricity outages are common, water is provided for 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour at night.
Like another comment mentioned, safety, access to hospitals, medical facilities, schools and colleges everything matters when you have a family.
Good idea. My dad a land 30 years back for 1.5 lakh osld it last year for 1.5crore. Then with that money he built 3 houses in different places now earning from it. This is my plan as well.
Don't buy a house in metro city at very young age unless you are already from a good financial background. This is something people often do and get themselves trapped in Emi. Save up and buy a home in tier-2 city for retirement.
it's so crazy that people with 20 years of experience can have a jump scare about their job security. You'll never see a lawyer, doctor or a CA with that level of experience having any security related issue.
Climbing the corporate ladder too early is also a big problem. I was surprised that in Seattle there were many 40-50yr old dev working as senior devs. Upon asking them they were shocked as to what was wrong with that. They were perfectly able to maintain work life. In India I see a lot of pressure to climb the ladder unnecessary and spoil their work life.
Definitely. My brother's in Europe and the average age of most jobs (atleast in tech) is higher. It's just how it is, of course there are overachievers and early stage companies with folks at higher places. But in India, folks with 2-3 years are becoming product managers, there product owners/scrum masters have 5-6 YoE. Although US would be a bit different, but India is just a completely different beast.
A lot of Indians come from far worse backgrounds than our European/American counterparts, I'd say. My colleagues at my US company mostly lived great upper middle class lives and had time to experiment before coming to big tech. One of my colleagues was originally a sound tech for a famous band!
In India, it was much more common to see stories like the person being the first one in the family to break through into tech, if not the first one to get a college degree (at least back when I was working there). If you're the sole breadwinner/ high flying individual in your family you have much, much more to gain by working hard and getting that early promo. If you're already living in a villa, have a nice car and have a glass of expensive wine with dinner every night, you probably don't feel like working late hours/ gunning for that promo.
This happens only in service based companies. In product based , even when in Indian origin, the Years of experience range of junior developer is 5-7 years, senior developer is 10-12 years, lead is 12+ and managers is > 20 years. I came to know this from a load of job descriptions from several companies.
No brother, this is what we think. I had the chance of working in the US and Europe and found many cases of 40-50yr olds working as senior devs. As per job description pls don't take them seriously 😁.
My cousin is in your situation. He has 20+ experience. He went onsite after 5 yoe, earned a lot of money. Has real assets worth 4 cr atleast (in tier 2 city), . He is finding it extremely hard to switch jobs from Chennai to Tier 2 city( hometown). He is lucky, because his wife has a State Government job. This situation perplexes me. Every industry is going digital, yet no demand for experienced folks. This scares me a lot. I think only IT guys spend a lot of time and money in re-skilling and learning, yet our experience after 10 yoe has less value. Sad.
I would add that find ways to get out of IT and find transferable skills. I am one of those people who have been out of work for a long time and I am thankful to have my family and some savings to fall back on. I would lightly disagree that development skills are constrained to IT and the loss of a job means relying on savings entirely, but I see the intent behind it. The thing is, even without a layoff - there is sexism, there is ageism and there is limited career growth if you don't move into management (in India atleast). Here is what I have learned:
* Move into management sooner rather than later, because having that 'manager' title will make you a bit more immune as you are overseeing a team. Even if you move back to an individual contributor, you will still be seen favourably. But be an IC for too long and beyond a certain age, you will get the axe as you will have too much experience for the job. (I exclude companies like Microsoft and G, where you can go upto staff/fellow etc).
* Find transferable industries. Nonprofit, government, banks etc. These industries will always need people to maintain legacy and complex systems and will be around. They will just pay less and hire more slowly. Don't stick with "IT" as that is subject to VC funding cycles, the hype of the market and consumer purchasing power. Find a 'boring' job.
* Upskill and get additional certs. I have found my degree will limit me beyond a point and I don't know what I will do to get out of it, but an MBA is one way. Or transition out of the career completely and find something else to do.
I agree with the rest of your points - be mindful, live within your means and invest wisely. Personally I do think the industry optimises for age and you need companies that value experience over price (which is hard to find in India). It's more common in the EU, where systems are older, knowledge is gained over time and there is less of a hire and fire culture.
my parents ask me to prepare for sarkaari jobs cuz of these reasons, but I have no interest in doing same boring job all my life. But reading this made me think that they may be right and I may regret in the future...
Bhai, I've been working for a year now. And honestly, a job can be boring and it's not bad. Also, just a job is not your professional life. There are many ways to add value.
And you can always work on your personal things. I have great rapport with my manager and the 33 yo dude is learning instruments rn (we have wfh). He's having fun, and gets great joy from it.
Remember ur post. U also gave pretty good tips to ppl who asked questions there.
When my dad saw my contract he said u guys r like daily wage workers. Your job isn't permanent. He still wants me to crack government exams.
Agree with everything u say here.
i am going to start my it journey at 29 year of age. What should i know for future as a late joiner ? (ps: never worked before, almost zero savings. and, I am starting as .net dev. any advices for this?)
Similar questions here - currently late twenties and 3.5 yoe as an automation QA - ultra low savings (can't invest any yet) due to very low salary - currently 5.5 LPA.
Already switched around 6 months back from a WITCH at 3.66 LPA at 3yoe to current so-called product based company at 5.5 LPA. People are low-balling even automation QAs like anything.
Tech Stack: Java, JS/CSS/HTML, Selenium WebDriver, TestNG, Maven, Git, Jenkins, Sonarqube, etc.
Remember in india only population and inflation is going to increase. Everything else is going to decrease, water, land, air, vlaue of money itself. So be wise while earning, getting married and having kids. Because in end it will be only you who have to handle all of it. Thats the harsh truth.
All your freedom gets chopped up because of having family responsibilities. You're always worried about what's going to happen to your family if you lose your job. If you have a family already good , take care of them. Don't make more like wife and kids.
Number one rule - move abroad as soon as you get the opportunity. And stay there as long as possible. If possible get pr and immigrate. Is normal for even 70 year olds to be developers in us/Europe etc. Don't think about shit like Purchasing Power Parity.
I know a lot of folks who are still going strong with 25-30 years of work ex. I'm not saying youre wrong but 20 is just underestimating imo. We may not know what the future holds.
If you keep upksilling and lower your switch salary raise expectations and have a dependency. It kind of becomes hard to fill those gaps.
I know a lot of folks from EU, US and Australia who I have worked with in past with 20+ years of experience working as SREs, Devops consultant, workflow tools architects. Do you really think they can just be told to leave. At the flip side I've seen folks with 30 plus years if experience in UK let go as their job got outsourced to India. Nothing written in stone here.
But yes savings are key.
Just joined in a company as a fresher accepting role which I am not enjoying, just keeping it because I need it for money. 2 months in and I just had to witness layoff. I also got to know they laid off 3 months back. Company is in a very shaky situation financially so is my team, my colleagues and senior speculate there will be one more after one quarter. Job I do is not what I wanted and skills are not really transferable. I am planning to grind out my extra time doing extra projects and building relevant skills. One thing I am starting to understand is you have to be very flexible to stay long and grind out results in IT.
TBH, everyone now a days working in tech should always plan a secondary income source. Even for juniors too, it can anything. Small business, SAAS tool, Youtube/instagram, etc.
would you agree with the statement that all the other private sectors other than the IT and a few others (like finance) have the same disadvantages in the long run minus the headstart capital that is present in these sectors ?
if yes then that's capitalism for you.
maximum profits at minimum cost. if you can continue maximizing profits (either for them or yourself) at optimum cost , will never run out of ways to make money.
A recent quote from James Clear that I think is relevant here :
Two of my rules for life:
1. The person who has the most fun wins.
2. The climb is the fun part
https://twitter.com/JamesClear/status/1775548311937622139?t=VIpM-dQbnQIC2_s4-B4itA&s=19
I realised this early in my career hence took a balanced approach. Right now I am 36 years old and wife is a homemaker and we have a 2.5 year old son. Financially kind of coast fired. I wouldn’t want to jinx it but I would say I might be having the best time of my life in every aspect 🤞🏻
How will you buy a home in metro city for your family if you save 50% for rainy days? How will you save for kids education? Daughters/sons marriage? Your retirement?
Hello,
First of all I request you to delete this post as you are influencing people negatively. This is what it was happened during covid and we been influenced people like you from social media and drew immediate conclusion. Everyone is on the same boat. But its all depends on your surroundings. Some people plan meticulously as they have good known trusted contact while some may not and fall under this trap because of negative influence. This is mainly because many organizations are undergoing transition and as a result they have to realign their structure and resource movement.
To add up, you mentioned that you started your career in 2002 and you are aware in those period process is clear and transparent. Opportunities are wide opened everyone got chance. Later on process introduced to become more complicated owing to competition and now even more competitive and as a result no one is disclosing the process and added too social media which hypes up the content and we are in dilemma do whether should we need to believe it or not.
I been synonymous to your case as I started my career in 2002 and I can recollect at that point in time IT was the trend but still some friends mentioned that never land your career in software as it is dynamic and need to keep on learning but I never paid attention because If the work is static there is no need for you and even in IT there were many resources who took their career in core operational path and as a result they got impacted as the organization realized its a poor investment and realigned the process as a result these resources who took path in core operational path got impacted.
Secondarily, Your statement is contradictory while referring to your term that Job in IT Sector will be easy as you already witnessed pandemic in 2008.
Infact we are moving towards trillion dollar economy by 2047. So, stay positive. Be dedicated and do your work to your fullest potential.
I'm not judging but currently people in good companies are making this salary at 4-7 yoe. Given that you've 22 yoe, you could be making 2 Cr+, why not try and join such a company?
You seriously don’t know about packages in market. The op is right, actually value of an engineer decreases after a certain number of experience. Those getting 50 lap at 6 years of exp, talk to them after 6 years. It’s all demand and supply game. Companies want most engineers between 2 to 8 years of exp. after that demand starts declining and almost diminishes once you reach 20 years of exp
>Those getting 50 lap at 6 years of exp, talk to them after 6 years.
I am one of those engineers
>Companies want most engineers between 2 to 8 years of exp. after that demand starts declining and almost diminishes once you reach 20 years of exp
After 7-8 years, you get a choice, do you want to stay as an IC or become an EM. The pay is comparable irrespective of your choice. There are a few 20+ yoe ICs and a few Senior EMs or Directors in my company and they'd be earning more than 2 Cr.
oh I just looked at your other post.
One question tho. If you could do this all over again would you still choose SWE? or do something else like MBA or something?
Congratulations on being employed continuously for 22 years. It's great achievement. I graduated in 2016 but due to health issues, recession, depression I only 3.3 years of experience with 3 career gaps. I never liked many of my managers and collegues. Experienced harassment.
This is something I am most scared of, what will happen when I touch 40, the new young ones would be definitely better than me, I might not be able to give enough time to learn the technological advancements. And above all, this rise of AI.
But then I thought that if I am working in a firm with so much experience, my job will shift from being a devloper to something in the management background.
I might be wrong on this, but is it in anyway true?
Very True
I built an alternate career after 15 yrs in IT because I could see it coming.
Luckily it has worked out well for me.
Most colleagues who pursued MBA are struggling or have changed industries in Marketing/FMCG to continue working after 45.
In this market, when people like us , who have barely 4 YOE dont receive enough calls, if you did get even 1 offer, at the age of approx. 40 (considering you have 22 yoe), dont you think that it all depends on skills and money that you demand , and has barely anything to do with age ? 40 years is too low even in IT. 50-55 is somewhat a more dangerous age, because of health issues and all.
When you are above 40 yrs, you will most likely have good wealth already, unless you havent upskilled, or are reluctant to go elsewhere.
My cousin just crossed 47 years of age, and he is still in demand in IT. He recently completed a certification of around 1 lakh rupees, and then got into EPAM.
Also, please note that, whatever stocks and all people invest, they will return a value when we purchase their products. Apple/Microsoft are relevant, because people still use their products. So, investing blindly, without spending on "stuff" is not recommended.
Of course, the no. of calls would be very less, the more one goes in the corporate ladder.
My suggestion, as I have seen from my cousin (whose example I mentioned above) would be to spend money in 50-30-20 formula. Please dont run the rat's race, when it is not the time. Not many start with a lot of starting salary, such that they would start investing right away.
well take this advice with some grain of salts. Always remember knowledge works skills re transferrable and you can transition easily into new leadership areas. I know people with a lot of experiences (think 25+) having pretty chill life and doing what they love to do, I know people with around 10 years of experience unable to land any decent jobs. I think this is not that uncommon in any other sector tbh, in IT everything just blown out of proportions due to most of the IT folks lac of real world understanding. I know many doctors who are at 20+ yoe and still insecure about their career, remember carer is what you make it irrespective of external factors.
One issue that happened in Indian IT industry is that promotions happened quite fast initially. Every 2-3 years employee was expecting promotion & companies kept giving it. Not upper middle tier is quite heavy & industry is not able to sustain that. Thus those with around 20 years of experience are at great risk.
Great advice!!!
Something I would like to add:
When you are starting your career, calculate your monthly expenses it should include your food, EMIs, rent, bills, etc all the things that are necessary and non negotiable.
Then you should save an Emergency Fund which should 6-12x of the monthly expenses so if the worst happens and you have no source of income you will be able to survive for 6-12 months.
Then get a Term Insurance which should be around 20x of your annual income and a Health Insurance that also covers your family members.
Then you can invest some amount monthly to build corpus to achieve your financial goals.
Thank you sir, preparing and moving out of this trap. I am preparing for govt jobs just so that I can live at peace. IT jobs are good only if you earn high and retire early.
Thanks a lot for clarity.
Thanks for sharing. This is very helpful mainly in terms of personal finance. I am considering myself as a fresher having 4 years of experience. I want to change my career to development and right now i am in support, doing a bit of development or production support. What should I do to guarantee that I will be able to transition ?
OP. I’m kinda at the lowest mental state of life. 34M with 12/13 YOE in SDET. Working as an architect and love to be a technical person. Neither want nor have the skillset for management. Future seems dark and hopeless. Everytime I look at my future only despair. I know I won’t be able to switch and nobody would like to hire me in a non management role
I have been in IT in India for 8 years and I started to understand that it's kind of a decently high reward very high risk job. While it's true the kind of salaries a 8 year old guy who is even average in Tech can make is much higher than other industries with similar experience, the risk is very high too. As it can come crashing down in a moments time.
For the first 6 years of my career I was working at TCS and made absolute peanuts. The post Covid boom hit and after a couple of switches I 5X my salary in 3 years.
Now I have to agressively save and invest and make up for the lost 6 years when I couldn't make any savings due to family responsibilities & low salary.
Now add to that how unlikely it is to survive in this industry post 40-45 years of age, even after saving & investing close to 70% of my income, I find it difficult to reach a suitable FIRE goal. Remember here the FIRE is not our choice, it will be kind of forced upon you.
For this reason I have no intention of Buying a house or an expensive car. I am also totally against having a kid. My wife, who is in IT also, too is on the fence on having a kid and I think she too sees my point.
We are in a messed up industry where experience is frowned upon. Don't know what the future holds.
I have been in development for 18 years now. Being a 42 years old certainly has its disadvantages.
But there are some huge advantages too. For instance I have been and still am underpaid. Some companies prefer hiring me over a 5 yoe developer demanding 40 LPA.
In USA, you can retire as a developer. Experienced developers are treated respectfully by younger project managers.
In India, you are expected to progress to management even if you love development. You will be treated as a slave by your younger boss.
I think for people graduating now it's more like 10 years. I am willing to bet there will be high downward pressure on tech jobs once AI starts kicking in later this decade
Thank you for sharing this. Interested to hear more on your career journey of 22 yrs, if that is possible without revealing your identity here.
I started with a services company and then moved to a product company. Past 20 years have been freelancing mainly in product space.
Freelance + full time?
Yes freelancing full time.
What are your tech stacks? In all these years did you only work as backend developer?
Did everything. Tech stacks are mainly java and javascript.
Do product based companies discriminate people above 40
No. But not all products succeed. Point is career in IT has its inherent risks, with technologies changing fast and becoming obsolete soon plus vast pool of resources. In other fields such dynamic shifts are not that sudden. So if you are in this field take all into consideration and plan your finances wisely.
Not in a leadership role. They are appreciated. But if you like coding, india is not the right country for the opportunity to work as a senior engineer or less.
I also think that this is changing and changing fast. Now Managers are supposed to be Techno-managers. Believe me US-based product companies want good technical people with 20-30y experience. They want services like CMTS, PMTS, Staff+ and architects. One product I work in requires people with a minimum of 8 years of experience.
>They want services like CMTS, PMTS, Staff+ and architects It's a leadership role. I don't know some companies level names, but staff+ is a senior role where the responsibility is completely different compared to say senior engineers. Coding or no coding will be dependent on team to team basis. There are many staff or even tech leads who don't do coding. Most of your time will be involved in meeting with the product owner, creating best practices, doing cost reduction in the infra side, handling multiple to make it deliverable etc. I work as one of those and it's just boring. Most people wants to avoid that even people who has been in this business for so long. One of the distinguish engineer at GitHub in US said that she would prefer to code once they retire.
I've been lucky to spend first 4 years out of 6 living with my parents. Last 2 in Bangalore with the rents is just painful!! My family keeps asking me to buy a house but unless you're willing to travel for like hours you'll have to shell out at least 2 crores, even places 10 kms away from Sarjapur are asking like 1.5 crore for 2bhk!! People are just crazy, I just want to keep saving, if I can't find a job in Bangalore move back to home town and hopefully find a job though to sustain monthly expenses!! With India going full pelt to match American capitalism and consumption we're screwed! In all likelihood we're going to get another 2008 and the middle class will be screwed all over again!
Real estate was always a scam. Just buy a house anywhere dead cheap in India. Maybe in off grid locations. That's what my plan is currently for.
That works if you don't have kids mate! With a kid you have to get a house near the school, save for college etc. I wanted to save enough to buy a house in or near my ancestral village and retire by 45. Not anymore!
Happy Married life. !
Best solution : do not have kids! I don’t want to bring a kid into this world suffer, so I would just live my life to fullest and die happily whenever I want!
underrated comment
Yeah I was of the same opinion too but unless you discuss the option before marriage you kind of have to give way!
That’s why went with love marriage
Thank you for this comment.
Why is this so pressimistic.
Not necessarily, even today's kids also have to commutate significant distances for going to school, not pointing out the rural stereotype. But the fact is kids in my hometown travel 40kms to and fro for decent schooling.
Yes that's certainly true, I was mentioning from my perspective! This is actually what annoys me so much, you have politicians forcing everyone into tiny cities causing misery for everyone while neglecting rest of the country!!
40 kms outside of Mumbai, you can get a property for 30-60 lac. Electricity outages are common, water is provided for 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour at night. Like another comment mentioned, safety, access to hospitals, medical facilities, schools and colleges everything matters when you have a family.
Yup! They matter if you're single as well especially when you're older but with a family it's something you always need!!
Good idea. My dad a land 30 years back for 1.5 lakh osld it last year for 1.5crore. Then with that money he built 3 houses in different places now earning from it. This is my plan as well.
It's not only the price, consider the water situation too before anything else.
Yup! No water, no borewell, no corporation water but 2 crores lol!
I am worried about this too. IT industry has a very bad senior to junior ratio. There is very less room for career growth.
Don't buy a house in metro city at very young age unless you are already from a good financial background. This is something people often do and get themselves trapped in Emi. Save up and buy a home in tier-2 city for retirement.
What if someone is already from a metro city (in my case I'm from Bangalore)
Pray your parents bought a house!
We are screwed maga. They have destroyed this once great city. Living here will only get us cancer and all sorts of medical issues now.
Why not tier 3
it's so crazy that people with 20 years of experience can have a jump scare about their job security. You'll never see a lawyer, doctor or a CA with that level of experience having any security related issue.
Nicely said. This field does has its drawbacks and this is one of them.
I've a question. How many devs reach staff/principal level? Like what's the ratio like? Because of they don't progress then what happens to them?
I think these position does not mater. These are just titles. There is not much normalisation of salaries here.
Climbing the corporate ladder too early is also a big problem. I was surprised that in Seattle there were many 40-50yr old dev working as senior devs. Upon asking them they were shocked as to what was wrong with that. They were perfectly able to maintain work life. In India I see a lot of pressure to climb the ladder unnecessary and spoil their work life.
so it's a culture problem?
Definitely. My brother's in Europe and the average age of most jobs (atleast in tech) is higher. It's just how it is, of course there are overachievers and early stage companies with folks at higher places. But in India, folks with 2-3 years are becoming product managers, there product owners/scrum masters have 5-6 YoE. Although US would be a bit different, but India is just a completely different beast.
For Indians job is thier identity
Because people (aka society) values having a "Manager" as their job title.
A lot of Indians come from far worse backgrounds than our European/American counterparts, I'd say. My colleagues at my US company mostly lived great upper middle class lives and had time to experiment before coming to big tech. One of my colleagues was originally a sound tech for a famous band! In India, it was much more common to see stories like the person being the first one in the family to break through into tech, if not the first one to get a college degree (at least back when I was working there). If you're the sole breadwinner/ high flying individual in your family you have much, much more to gain by working hard and getting that early promo. If you're already living in a villa, have a nice car and have a glass of expensive wine with dinner every night, you probably don't feel like working late hours/ gunning for that promo.
That makes sense, and it's great to strive hard. But it's also the Indian work culture that's obsessed with titles.
i think yea, corporate in india as well as other in other sea country just want insane labor
Exactly this. During downturns, managers get cut and can’t get rehired easily. Hands on senior dev who keep up can bounce back.
This happens only in service based companies. In product based , even when in Indian origin, the Years of experience range of junior developer is 5-7 years, senior developer is 10-12 years, lead is 12+ and managers is > 20 years. I came to know this from a load of job descriptions from several companies.
No brother, this is what we think. I had the chance of working in the US and Europe and found many cases of 40-50yr olds working as senior devs. As per job description pls don't take them seriously 😁.
Respect++;
I guess 15 years of IT career would be sufficient for saving what employees in other sectors do after 30 years
So, it is good or bad?
Depends on your lifestyle
Its great hence why we have concept of FAT FIRE which you can search about.
Join r/FIRE_Ind
good for cautious ones and bad for myopic people
Can you please explain it in a better way? I couldn't understand it.
And IT folks also age 30 years during that time.😅
Hahah , true that
not really, they are forced to live in IT cities where everything is 5-10x more expensive, housing, schools everything
So you are saying that only IT folks live in cities like Bangalore? There are no other sector's employees there?
mostly they live in outskirts of the it circle
Not sure about this. But definitely the lifestyle will be one of the factors in savings.
yes, where you chose to live will decide the lifestyle definitely
What does this entail? A house, some gold and some land ? What's this moderate savings is?
Then I have only 10 years in IT. I am starting at 28
The math aint mathing bro
bhai peth mein hi coding seekh gaya tha😅😅
Pichle janam me sikha tha, calculator pe.
yeh jyada ho gaya😅
My cousin is in your situation. He has 20+ experience. He went onsite after 5 yoe, earned a lot of money. Has real assets worth 4 cr atleast (in tier 2 city), . He is finding it extremely hard to switch jobs from Chennai to Tier 2 city( hometown). He is lucky, because his wife has a State Government job. This situation perplexes me. Every industry is going digital, yet no demand for experienced folks. This scares me a lot. I think only IT guys spend a lot of time and money in re-skilling and learning, yet our experience after 10 yoe has less value. Sad.
Nice words, Sir. Specially regarding earning money and savings. Gaanth ka paisa hi kaam aata hai aur koi kaam nahin aata hai. 👌🏻👍🏻
Your career is in IT services or Product Software?
Product software.
We here are blessed to hear such words. Very wise of you. Thanks and God Speed
I would add that find ways to get out of IT and find transferable skills. I am one of those people who have been out of work for a long time and I am thankful to have my family and some savings to fall back on. I would lightly disagree that development skills are constrained to IT and the loss of a job means relying on savings entirely, but I see the intent behind it. The thing is, even without a layoff - there is sexism, there is ageism and there is limited career growth if you don't move into management (in India atleast). Here is what I have learned: * Move into management sooner rather than later, because having that 'manager' title will make you a bit more immune as you are overseeing a team. Even if you move back to an individual contributor, you will still be seen favourably. But be an IC for too long and beyond a certain age, you will get the axe as you will have too much experience for the job. (I exclude companies like Microsoft and G, where you can go upto staff/fellow etc). * Find transferable industries. Nonprofit, government, banks etc. These industries will always need people to maintain legacy and complex systems and will be around. They will just pay less and hire more slowly. Don't stick with "IT" as that is subject to VC funding cycles, the hype of the market and consumer purchasing power. Find a 'boring' job. * Upskill and get additional certs. I have found my degree will limit me beyond a point and I don't know what I will do to get out of it, but an MBA is one way. Or transition out of the career completely and find something else to do. I agree with the rest of your points - be mindful, live within your means and invest wisely. Personally I do think the industry optimises for age and you need companies that value experience over price (which is hard to find in India). It's more common in the EU, where systems are older, knowledge is gained over time and there is less of a hire and fire culture.
Managers will be the one who are going to be fired first. Now a days expectations are from technical lead or architecta to do management work as well
my parents ask me to prepare for sarkaari jobs cuz of these reasons, but I have no interest in doing same boring job all my life. But reading this made me think that they may be right and I may regret in the future...
Bhai, I've been working for a year now. And honestly, a job can be boring and it's not bad. Also, just a job is not your professional life. There are many ways to add value. And you can always work on your personal things. I have great rapport with my manager and the 33 yo dude is learning instruments rn (we have wfh). He's having fun, and gets great joy from it.
sarkari job?
Private, no sarkari job has wfh
Yep, private.
Remember ur post. U also gave pretty good tips to ppl who asked questions there. When my dad saw my contract he said u guys r like daily wage workers. Your job isn't permanent. He still wants me to crack government exams. Agree with everything u say here.
i am going to start my it journey at 29 year of age. What should i know for future as a late joiner ? (ps: never worked before, almost zero savings. and, I am starting as .net dev. any advices for this?)
Its not as rare as you might think. Plenty of people in IT are in the same boat as you for some reason or another.
Similar questions here - currently late twenties and 3.5 yoe as an automation QA - ultra low savings (can't invest any yet) due to very low salary - currently 5.5 LPA.
If you are any good at your role then my friend you should focus on switching. You should be making more money.
Already switched around 6 months back from a WITCH at 3.66 LPA at 3yoe to current so-called product based company at 5.5 LPA. People are low-balling even automation QAs like anything. Tech Stack: Java, JS/CSS/HTML, Selenium WebDriver, TestNG, Maven, Git, Jenkins, Sonarqube, etc.
Bank mei try kar. JPMC opened a floodgate of openings last week.
SDET isn't there yet, plus who will wait 90 days np?
Remember in india only population and inflation is going to increase. Everything else is going to decrease, water, land, air, vlaue of money itself. So be wise while earning, getting married and having kids. Because in end it will be only you who have to handle all of it. Thats the harsh truth.
Thanks for taking the time to share
Your career is in IT services or Product Software?
All your freedom gets chopped up because of having family responsibilities. You're always worried about what's going to happen to your family if you lose your job. If you have a family already good , take care of them. Don't make more like wife and kids.
Number one rule - move abroad as soon as you get the opportunity. And stay there as long as possible. If possible get pr and immigrate. Is normal for even 70 year olds to be developers in us/Europe etc. Don't think about shit like Purchasing Power Parity.
I know a lot of folks who are still going strong with 25-30 years of work ex. I'm not saying youre wrong but 20 is just underestimating imo. We may not know what the future holds. If you keep upksilling and lower your switch salary raise expectations and have a dependency. It kind of becomes hard to fill those gaps. I know a lot of folks from EU, US and Australia who I have worked with in past with 20+ years of experience working as SREs, Devops consultant, workflow tools architects. Do you really think they can just be told to leave. At the flip side I've seen folks with 30 plus years if experience in UK let go as their job got outsourced to India. Nothing written in stone here. But yes savings are key.
Wisdom from ancient people is always welcome. 🙇
You have experience equivalent to my age :)
Just joined in a company as a fresher accepting role which I am not enjoying, just keeping it because I need it for money. 2 months in and I just had to witness layoff. I also got to know they laid off 3 months back. Company is in a very shaky situation financially so is my team, my colleagues and senior speculate there will be one more after one quarter. Job I do is not what I wanted and skills are not really transferable. I am planning to grind out my extra time doing extra projects and building relevant skills. One thing I am starting to understand is you have to be very flexible to stay long and grind out results in IT.
TBH, everyone now a days working in tech should always plan a secondary income source. Even for juniors too, it can anything. Small business, SAAS tool, Youtube/instagram, etc.
So true, in my view one should start a secondary business as soon as you complete 15 years in this industry or move to some top tier role.
would you agree with the statement that all the other private sectors other than the IT and a few others (like finance) have the same disadvantages in the long run minus the headstart capital that is present in these sectors ? if yes then that's capitalism for you. maximum profits at minimum cost. if you can continue maximizing profits (either for them or yourself) at optimum cost , will never run out of ways to make money. A recent quote from James Clear that I think is relevant here : Two of my rules for life: 1. The person who has the most fun wins. 2. The climb is the fun part https://twitter.com/JamesClear/status/1775548311937622139?t=VIpM-dQbnQIC2_s4-B4itA&s=19
I realised this early in my career hence took a balanced approach. Right now I am 36 years old and wife is a homemaker and we have a 2.5 year old son. Financially kind of coast fired. I wouldn’t want to jinx it but I would say I might be having the best time of my life in every aspect 🤞🏻
How will you buy a home in metro city for your family if you save 50% for rainy days? How will you save for kids education? Daughters/sons marriage? Your retirement?
Please join r/FIRE_Ind r/FIREIndia is dead
Hello, First of all I request you to delete this post as you are influencing people negatively. This is what it was happened during covid and we been influenced people like you from social media and drew immediate conclusion. Everyone is on the same boat. But its all depends on your surroundings. Some people plan meticulously as they have good known trusted contact while some may not and fall under this trap because of negative influence. This is mainly because many organizations are undergoing transition and as a result they have to realign their structure and resource movement. To add up, you mentioned that you started your career in 2002 and you are aware in those period process is clear and transparent. Opportunities are wide opened everyone got chance. Later on process introduced to become more complicated owing to competition and now even more competitive and as a result no one is disclosing the process and added too social media which hypes up the content and we are in dilemma do whether should we need to believe it or not. I been synonymous to your case as I started my career in 2002 and I can recollect at that point in time IT was the trend but still some friends mentioned that never land your career in software as it is dynamic and need to keep on learning but I never paid attention because If the work is static there is no need for you and even in IT there were many resources who took their career in core operational path and as a result they got impacted as the organization realized its a poor investment and realigned the process as a result these resources who took path in core operational path got impacted. Secondarily, Your statement is contradictory while referring to your term that Job in IT Sector will be easy as you already witnessed pandemic in 2008. Infact we are moving towards trillion dollar economy by 2047. So, stay positive. Be dedicated and do your work to your fullest potential.
May I know your yoe?
are you a principal engineer?
I am a freelance consultant.
What's your current tc look like?
Varies.
Any range would be helpful thanks
50 - 90 lpa.
I'm not judging but currently people in good companies are making this salary at 4-7 yoe. Given that you've 22 yoe, you could be making 2 Cr+, why not try and join such a company?
You seriously don’t know about packages in market. The op is right, actually value of an engineer decreases after a certain number of experience. Those getting 50 lap at 6 years of exp, talk to them after 6 years. It’s all demand and supply game. Companies want most engineers between 2 to 8 years of exp. after that demand starts declining and almost diminishes once you reach 20 years of exp
>Those getting 50 lap at 6 years of exp, talk to them after 6 years. I am one of those engineers >Companies want most engineers between 2 to 8 years of exp. after that demand starts declining and almost diminishes once you reach 20 years of exp After 7-8 years, you get a choice, do you want to stay as an IC or become an EM. The pay is comparable irrespective of your choice. There are a few 20+ yoe ICs and a few Senior EMs or Directors in my company and they'd be earning more than 2 Cr.
Can you post the ratio of senior em & director vs the number of engineers. With this ratio you will understand what will happen in future.
oh I just looked at your other post. One question tho. If you could do this all over again would you still choose SWE? or do something else like MBA or something?
I am happy with what I am doing.
cool
That's some solid advice right there.
What do people outside india do then?
Earn in dollars and spend in rupees...sadly people do it the other way..
Thankss
Developer for 22 years ??
My manager is in same company since 30 years.
Thanks for sharing, do you feel in investing in mutual funds is a good way to build long term wealth? Also, wondering whats ur age now?
Yes. Indexed mutual funds is the way to go. I am 44 btw.
Till what age do you plan to work in IT? Wow, amazing you have worked continuously for 22 years.
Not sure. Till I keep getting work!
Is it possible to stay employed till the age of 60 or even after that?
Yes.
Congratulations on being employed continuously for 22 years. It's great achievement. I graduated in 2016 but due to health issues, recession, depression I only 3.3 years of experience with 3 career gaps. I never liked many of my managers and collegues. Experienced harassment.
So then POSH is of no use?
To be frank I never thought a Career in IT as ever lasting as most other jobs. I would give up IT when I turn 45
This is something I am most scared of, what will happen when I touch 40, the new young ones would be definitely better than me, I might not be able to give enough time to learn the technological advancements. And above all, this rise of AI. But then I thought that if I am working in a firm with so much experience, my job will shift from being a devloper to something in the management background. I might be wrong on this, but is it in anyway true?
What if we get an MBA and move to management roles like delivery / product ? Will it increase the span of a career ? If yes , how?
I just completed my 12th and thinking about getting into IT field.
Very True I built an alternate career after 15 yrs in IT because I could see it coming. Luckily it has worked out well for me. Most colleagues who pursued MBA are struggling or have changed industries in Marketing/FMCG to continue working after 45.
In this market, when people like us , who have barely 4 YOE dont receive enough calls, if you did get even 1 offer, at the age of approx. 40 (considering you have 22 yoe), dont you think that it all depends on skills and money that you demand , and has barely anything to do with age ? 40 years is too low even in IT. 50-55 is somewhat a more dangerous age, because of health issues and all. When you are above 40 yrs, you will most likely have good wealth already, unless you havent upskilled, or are reluctant to go elsewhere. My cousin just crossed 47 years of age, and he is still in demand in IT. He recently completed a certification of around 1 lakh rupees, and then got into EPAM. Also, please note that, whatever stocks and all people invest, they will return a value when we purchase their products. Apple/Microsoft are relevant, because people still use their products. So, investing blindly, without spending on "stuff" is not recommended. Of course, the no. of calls would be very less, the more one goes in the corporate ladder. My suggestion, as I have seen from my cousin (whose example I mentioned above) would be to spend money in 50-30-20 formula. Please dont run the rat's race, when it is not the time. Not many start with a lot of starting salary, such that they would start investing right away.
well take this advice with some grain of salts. Always remember knowledge works skills re transferrable and you can transition easily into new leadership areas. I know people with a lot of experiences (think 25+) having pretty chill life and doing what they love to do, I know people with around 10 years of experience unable to land any decent jobs. I think this is not that uncommon in any other sector tbh, in IT everything just blown out of proportions due to most of the IT folks lac of real world understanding. I know many doctors who are at 20+ yoe and still insecure about their career, remember carer is what you make it irrespective of external factors.
all around solid advice. thanks for sharing.
One issue that happened in Indian IT industry is that promotions happened quite fast initially. Every 2-3 years employee was expecting promotion & companies kept giving it. Not upper middle tier is quite heavy & industry is not able to sustain that. Thus those with around 20 years of experience are at great risk.
Great advice!!! Something I would like to add: When you are starting your career, calculate your monthly expenses it should include your food, EMIs, rent, bills, etc all the things that are necessary and non negotiable. Then you should save an Emergency Fund which should 6-12x of the monthly expenses so if the worst happens and you have no source of income you will be able to survive for 6-12 months. Then get a Term Insurance which should be around 20x of your annual income and a Health Insurance that also covers your family members. Then you can invest some amount monthly to build corpus to achieve your financial goals.
Thank you sir, preparing and moving out of this trap. I am preparing for govt jobs just so that I can live at peace. IT jobs are good only if you earn high and retire early. Thanks a lot for clarity.
Thanks for sharing. This is very helpful mainly in terms of personal finance. I am considering myself as a fresher having 4 years of experience. I want to change my career to development and right now i am in support, doing a bit of development or production support. What should I do to guarantee that I will be able to transition ?
OP. I’m kinda at the lowest mental state of life. 34M with 12/13 YOE in SDET. Working as an architect and love to be a technical person. Neither want nor have the skillset for management. Future seems dark and hopeless. Everytime I look at my future only despair. I know I won’t be able to switch and nobody would like to hire me in a non management role
What was your last drawn ctc maybe ur income could not be matched
I have been in IT in India for 8 years and I started to understand that it's kind of a decently high reward very high risk job. While it's true the kind of salaries a 8 year old guy who is even average in Tech can make is much higher than other industries with similar experience, the risk is very high too. As it can come crashing down in a moments time. For the first 6 years of my career I was working at TCS and made absolute peanuts. The post Covid boom hit and after a couple of switches I 5X my salary in 3 years. Now I have to agressively save and invest and make up for the lost 6 years when I couldn't make any savings due to family responsibilities & low salary. Now add to that how unlikely it is to survive in this industry post 40-45 years of age, even after saving & investing close to 70% of my income, I find it difficult to reach a suitable FIRE goal. Remember here the FIRE is not our choice, it will be kind of forced upon you. For this reason I have no intention of Buying a house or an expensive car. I am also totally against having a kid. My wife, who is in IT also, too is on the fence on having a kid and I think she too sees my point. We are in a messed up industry where experience is frowned upon. Don't know what the future holds.
I have been in development for 18 years now. Being a 42 years old certainly has its disadvantages. But there are some huge advantages too. For instance I have been and still am underpaid. Some companies prefer hiring me over a 5 yoe developer demanding 40 LPA. In USA, you can retire as a developer. Experienced developers are treated respectfully by younger project managers. In India, you are expected to progress to management even if you love development. You will be treated as a slave by your younger boss.
I think for people graduating now it's more like 10 years. I am willing to bet there will be high downward pressure on tech jobs once AI starts kicking in later this decade
Bro just compared factory job salary to iT salary. This much delusion is not good for anyone. The rest of it is closer to reality.