February 2007 Archives

Cait Murphy has written a scathing article in Fortune deriding India's claims of self proclaimed superpower status. Murphy mentions the oft repeated statistics around poverty, illiteracy and unemployment to argue that India's ambitions of becoming a superpower are misguided. I don't argue with Murphy on that part. We need to take care of our problems. What I didn't like, and in fact actually found offensive, is the tone of the article. The "first world" has an incomprehensible viewpoint that every developing country must first solve its poverty problem before attempting to make progress in any other sphere. I just can not understand why it should be assumed that if India is progressing in some ways, it must be because we are ignoring or *gasp* unaware of our other problems. Each time India rejoices on the success of a local business going global, of making advancement in space technology, of shining in the software services sector, the so called (and self proclaimed) developed world tells us that "half of world's poor live in India". Well, I ask, so what? Yes we have many serious problems that need to solve. And general economic prosperity is one way to alleviate the situation. Are we expected to stop all work and wait until every single of our teeming billions is well fed and disease free? Is that how America progressed? Did it wait to abolish slavery before they made any technological progress? Did America get rid of apartheid before launching their space program? Are there no homeless in America today? Of course not!

Progress can not happen in linear fashion. We can't solve our poverty problem without strengthening our economy. We can't generate employment without developing our services sector. We can't make progress if we don't get a chance to feel good about ourselves.

I am sick and tired of this first world attitude and it is really disappointing to see such cliched drivel coming from Fortune.

Today Tekriti turns two years old. I have been trying to write this blog post for over two hours now (and its 1 AM in the night) but I just can't get the right words to put across my thoughts! Last few months have been so busy (and haven't we heard that before?) that there has been little or no time for introspection or looking back. Now when I am trying to reflect back on the past two years, there is such a mix of emotions running thru my mind that I find it impossible to put them in words. So I will just use this blogpost to say thanks to every single TeknoKrat who has chosen to be part of this ride and contribute to it! 

A startup works under lot of limitations. When we started off two years back, we had very little to offer. The office was really tiny and dark. The a/c was ineffective (it was peak summer time) and the power backup was almost non-existent. Many potential hires used to walk off saying they wanted to work in a better place. It was frustrating and discouraging.  Yet, there were a few who were willing to take a risk with us. And that has been the trend ever since. Today, Tekriti has a lot more to offer. We have better infrastructure, better salaries and better work environment. Yet, I will be kidding to compare our facilities with that of an Infosys or a Wipro. At the same time, I also realize that everyone who works at Tekriti is smart and capable enough to have all those options open in front of them. To still choose to work with a startup takes a lot of courage and self belief. It takes immense confidence to be able to say no to a big brand company to come and help build a brand. It takes lot of patience to give up on the organized symmetry of a large corporate to thrive in the chaos of a startup. It takes a lot of convincing to make your parents and family understand why this company they have never heard of is the best place for you to work. It takes lot of convincing to make yourself believe that this dream can indeed come true. It takes a lot to build an organization.

So on the second anniversary of this thing we started I feel good that there are 45 other TeknoKrats who believe in the same dream. If enough people believe in something, it generally comes true!

Hiring, as always, continues to remain a challenge for us. Somehow, requirements always increase faster than we can hire - which btw, is not a very bad problem to have!

Sometimes I come across candidates who are competent enough to fill in a position that we might be currently trying to hire for. However, at the same time they may not show much signs of growing into a higher job role in the future. For example, a candidate might satisfy most competencies expected from a software engineer but might not display any characteristics expected in a senior software engineer. Such situations are somewhat tricky to deal with. On one hand, there is an urgent vacancy that needs to be filled in. At the same time, you don't want to bring in somebody who you do not see growing in role and responsibility in the future. After much thought, I have concluded that it is not correct to hire a candidate in such a situation. It is actually unfair to a candidate to bring them on board if you don't see a career path for them in the organization. It can only lead to frustration and stagnation in the long run. This is not to say that one can not choose to remain an "individual contributor" without having to take up management responsibilities. I am all for it. But the "individual contributor" (IC) is a very specialized role meant for people with deep technical insight who can continue to provide leadership without having to explicitly take up management responsibilities. ICs were fairly common in Microsoft though I have yet to come across this concept in the Indian software industry.

Meanwhile - we continue to look for the best and brightest! If you are looking to work in an exciting fast paced environment, please check out our careers page!