 |
|
 |
 |
     
|
 |
by Allan Hoffman
[ More Job Q&As ]
Sanjib Mahapatra, 29, works as a senior programmer/analyst in the retail industry in Atlanta. Before coming to the US in 1997, Mahapatra, who is from India, held positions as a programmer, consultant, lead analyst and project manager. India's technical talent is in demand in the US, as it is elsewhere. Mahapatra, who worked at one of India's software export houses, was recruited by assorted US consulting companies. While he has found work here, the work has not been quite as challenging or cutting-edge, as what he was doing in India. "There is a tradeoff when you leave your own country to work overseas," he notes.
Monster.com: How did you end up coming to the US?
Sanjib Mahapatra: I was in a very good position in India, working on a project for a major US company. I was a project manager at a software export company and I started receiving calls from quite a few US-based companies who wanted to recruit people from India. All of my friends had been to the US, and they told me about it. Apart from anything else, I wanted to get the experience of working here.
Mc: What sort of work have you been doing?
SM: After I came here, the picture was not as rosy as I thought it would be. In India, I was managing projects, and I had a lot of responsibilities, both functionally and from a managerial point of view. For example, I had developed a Y2K conversation tool. The first assignment I received after I came over here, the first was to manually scan all the code -- and fix it -- for a Y2K project. The project deadline was quite strict, and the work was not very interesting. The code was written long ago, and the employer didn't want me to develop anything, just manually scan each line. Once that was over, I was put on a much more interesting project -- a J.D. Edwards software implementation. Although I was a coder without any managerial role, it was a new learning experience, and I learned J.D. Edwards.
Mc: What happened next?
SM: The company made some changes, and they let me go. Once that happened, the consulting company couldn't find work for me, and they wanted to let me go back to India. At the time, I found another assignment with different company, and my visa was transferred. The job was another Y2K project and because I had so much experience, I was given more responsibilities, like budgets and time estimation, and I also had to fix the code and do system testing.
The project ended about ten months later, and the company cancelled my visa. It was a tough time for me becaue I had almost a year of experience with the company. When I told employers that my visa had been canceled, I found that many of them tried to exploit the situation and offer me about $25K less than I was making in my previous job. I'm a quick learner, so I tried getting into HTML and Java. I did find a job, but I never received the same salary that I was getting before.
Mc: I understand you're working on a certification in the Java programming language.
SM: I am getting my Java certification through self-study courses on the Internet. Classes in the US are more expensive than in India. If you're self-disciplined, like I am, then I don't think spending that much money is necessary. I want to join a company with a competence culture, where office politics is kept to a minimum, emmployees are hungry to achieve their goals and help create a billion-dollar company.
Mc: What advice, or cautions, do you have for someone coming to the US from India?
SM: Don't leave a good job without first investigating US-based consulting companies. Try to work with cutting-edge technology, like Java or C++. The consulting companies in India tend to have an employee-oriented attitude, in that they will keep employees on after a project ends. Few companies in the US have that type of attitude, or spend time on training. If you finish a job, and there is nothing, they don't think of you -- they think of money.
Mc: How do you avoid being burned in those sorts of situations?
SM: Don't take a project -- or your job -- for granted. That's not the way it is. When you're working on a project, always keep on top of what's going on in the industry by reading the technical magazines and by looking at what the future will bring. You have to keep training yourself in the latest technologies, even as you're working on one specific project.