Career Advice

[Sid_2007]

It's been 1 year now since my return to India and I have nearly completed 1 year in my current position (Senior QA Engineer). Many member of the R2IClub forum had helped me regarding salary information for that position when I posted that nearly 15 months ago. Thanks to that information, the transfer to the Indian office went well.

As an update, things are going well in this job. Job environment is good, co-workers are good, salary is decent. I fly home (Mumbai) every other weekend and my manager (US based) lets me work from home for a day when I'm in Mumbai. I recently had a performance review and it went well. So things are going decent for me, here in my current job, in Hyderabad.

Now, it turns out that my old boss in the US (for nearly 6 years... he was either directly or indirectly my boss), left the company and joined a new company. That company has an offshore presence in Mumbai. Recently, he lobbied the idea (nothing official yet) of my joining his group again. I used to be a Support Engineer in the US. Now, he is offering me to be a Support Manager. The position would have approximately 10 or slightly higher number of reportees. He asked me if I was interested.

I analysed the position and came up with some advantages and disadvantages:

Disadvantages first:
1) In my opinion, I'd be moving back from QA to support. I've been in QA for 1 year and from what I have seen my old role as a product Support (or Senior Support) engineer was no way less technically challenging than my current QA role. However, the industry views QA as a more technically challenging role than Support.
2) The company is much smaller than my current company. Also unlike my current company, this other company is nowhere as financially stable. It as a little more than $20M in cash and is not profitable (although it is very close to break-even).
3) I think the role will be more stressful
4) Another year in my current role and I think I will get a promotion. Anyway, I will be having a very small team here (2 interns) under my supervision in Hyderabad soon. Not a manager though.

Advantages:
1) The greatest advantage for me personally, is that I can return to Mumbai. Hyderabad is a decent city and all, but it's not home. I've thought about it for several months now and I can't see myself settling down here long term.
2) I get to be in a managerial role and having 10 engineers working under me would seem impressive on the resume. I feel that even if the company goes under after a year or so (which I think is the worst case), I will still have some management experience. I think this is a bit of a double promotion. I haven't been in a team-lead position yet and here is the opportunity to jump over that and become a manager.
3) I'm not really valuing this very high, but I think the money will also be better though I haven't discussed this issue with my ex-boss yet.

I have also noticed that recently a couple of people from my current company quit their (relatively more comfortable) jobs and joined smaller companies or started ventures/partnerships on their own. I'm thinking if they can take that type of risk considering they are in their 40s with children/home loan, etc.... I should also be able to take that sort of risk given that I don't have any major responsibilities yet (no wife/kids/home/etc) and 30 yrs old.

[FreeSpirit]

It's good to know that your R2I worked very well.

Based on my interaction with indian companies they value # of reportees more than the nature or complexity of work. Also as you said yourself, new position as manager does seem to be a double promotion. Also if in the new position you'll be responsible for building the support team that would be a plus.

On the other side if you are worried about company not financially stable you can take certain actions to minimize the risk:
1. Ask for sign-on bonus (10-20% of annual compensation)
2. More stock options for additional risk you are taking by joining a smaller firm than your current firm

[Desi_by_Nature]

Hey Sid
good to hear that things are going well at your end.

The support role sounds good too if you like dealing with people and solving problems. I find that QA can get boring and humdrum after a while, whereas support brings in new problems and challenges every day. I personally like support much better (only if it paid that well in the US).

One thing though - if you're in India and supporting US customers, be prepared to work late hours and be asked to attend conf. calls at 4:00 a.m. in the morning. Like you mentioned it can be stressful.
In QA you'd probably be working on a much saner schedule.

[Chicago Desi]

An R2I in a city other than home is no R2I at all. Go back home. You are young, take some risks provided you are fairly compensated for them. Make sure you get options. You are a level headed guy. Go for the gold!

[sv117]

I have seen that, its difficult to get a break form the lower level roles to a mgmt role. Suggest that you take the mgmt role, even if its lower of the money side. Its easy to grow faster in the mgmt role than the QA one.

Support role - may involve odd hours, but, after a few months, you could always stream line things, have a team member do the odd hours work, provide time based rotation ....

Every comp starts small. Even GE, MS etc ... when they started, they had less than 50 employees and they grew.

One thing - never go down on the Money factor - as becos , the economy / trend /inflation is highly volatile.

[MadMax]

Just Do It! It'll be fun and challenging and you'll learn a lot with a company starting from the ground up.

[Sid_2007]

I greatly appreciate your responses. Some of the people who adviced me 15 months ago are here again on this thread. This forum is amazing!

Thanks, DBN and sv for mentioning late nights which I hadn't factored into the equation.

I agree with CD... you've got to take the risk, and if it brings you back home... its worth a shot. Also based on 2-3 collegues I've spoken to here, I'm tilting towards the new position.

I'll now have to discuss specifics with my boss, see the type of setup they have in Mumbai, etc.

Thanks a lot guys!

[Sid_2007]

Update:

Well, the deal didn't work out. I met one of the directors in the Mumbai office yesterday and discussed the job. There were a number of reasons for this:

1) Though I'm aware that the company isn't making money, I wasn't convinced that they had a clear plan. They are Nasdaq listed and that allowed me to look at their financials on Yahoo.
2) There was some confusion about the reporting structure of the position. Moreover, it was also not clear whether it was a support manager or a team lead person. The director I met yesterday mentioned it was a team lead position, not that of a manager.
3) The compensation had a variable compensation factor which depended on your and the company performance. That would've been OK had the company been doing great, but if it isn't breaking even, the compensation doesn't look so hot. I didn't ask them what I could expect, but I'm fairly certain they couldn't match what I'm getting, let alone beat it. Forget stock options.
4) The notice period for that company is a long 3-month period which seems unduly long considering that they are not a service based company (where quitting could jeopardise a project).
5) My review results (which occured after my original post) in my current company went better than expected. They promoted me, something I thought might happen next year, and I got a decent 20% bump. Now, if I were to quit here it would have to be for a damn good reason... as my manager with whom I have no complaints wouldn't be happy at my leaving just after such a positive review.

So I'll continue being a Hyderabadi for some more time :emwink: .

[Chicago Desi]

Update:

Well, the deal didn't work out. I met one of the directors in the Mumbai office yesterday and discussed the job. There were a number of reasons for this:

1) Though I'm aware that the company isn't making money, I wasn't convinced that they had a clear plan. They are Nasdaq listed and that allowed me to look at their financials on Yahoo.
2) There was some confusion about the reporting structure of the position. Moreover, it was also not clear whether it was a support manager or a team lead person. The director I met yesterday mentioned it was a team lead position, not that of a manager.
3) The compensation had a variable compensation factor which depended on your and the company performance. That would've been OK had the company been doing great, but if it isn't breaking even, the compensation doesn't look so hot. I didn't ask them what I could expect, but I'm fairly certain they couldn't match what I'm getting, let alone beat it. Forget stock options.
4) The notice period for that company is a long 3-month period which seems unduly long considering that they are not a service based company (where quitting could jeopardise a project).
5) My review results (which occured after my original post) in my current company went better than expected. They promoted me, something I thought might happen next year, and I got a decent 20% bump. Now, if I were to quit here it would have to be for a damn good reason... as my manager with whom I have no complaints wouldn't be happy at my leaving just after such a positive review.

So I'll continue being a Hyderabadi for some more time :emwink: .[/quote]

Sid,

May not be a bad choice. Remember one thing though, all things in life are negotiable.

[Desi_by_Nature]

good for you dude! promotion + 20%bonus sounds terrific.

hearing things like these makes me realize how cold and dead the IT sector in the US is. :emsmilep: