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As a Software Professional with 21 years’ experience in Information Technology industry and Who has worked across various geographies of the world, I have seen the Software IndustryUndergoing a massive change.
I started my career from scratch and on my own when I got my first job as a ERP consultant In 1993 thereafter I have seen the various ups and downs in the software industry. Going toUSA from India was considered a big challenge in the 90’s which I took because I wasEquipped with ERP knowledge but as things started moving forward I realized that to settleIn USA you need more programming experience rather than Implementation experience as Implementation is done by American companies not by Indian companies who sponsor youTo go to the USA. Later I realized that going to USA would have been better if I had goneThrough a Software Company rather than a body shopper who were doing brisk business byBilling the ERP consultant on the client site.
As my ventures continued I was exposed to lot of varied experiences where I had to changeFrom ERP to Software testing as the ERP which I worked became obsolete. After the changeOf my skills from ERP implementation to software testing I was able to move to UK and wasDoing projects for a huge Telecom company there I became a natural tester on ERP andVarious software applications as I was already a subject matter expert in ERP which helped Me in quick testing of any software application.
Recession in the software industry-The Recession in 2008 was a time when I had to work onAll my strengths and increase it to maximum use many of my friends used to call me and tell
Me in India saying “I need a Job Suresh” and I became embarrassed as I myself was not in aPosition to help them as hiring in the software industry had stopped and small and mediumEnterprises were struggling to maintain their position in the market. Things started workingBack after somewhere around 2010-2011 but the effect on the professional was clearly
Evident.
TIPS to younger Professionals:
My experience in the Industry allows me some liberty to advice younger professionals how To come out of a Professional Tight Corner. First of all get your basics right, form a goodProfessional network, reading articles of experiences professionals helps you to gain insightWhere you can clear hurdles in the early part of your career, have sound knowledge in yourDomain by trying to put effort to learn more as software industry is a vast ocean and we areJust a drop.
Trends in Software Industry
In the span of 21 years of my career I have seen various trends in the software industryStarting from varying styles of management to applications delivered by the professional.
Companies have moved from Waterfall, V Model to Agile Model to develop and testApplications due to the highly competitive software industry where competitions vary from
Developed to developing countries.
In the 90’s software testing was not given the importance due for it but later companiesWere started which only specialized in software testing, Desktop ERP’s were replaced byWeb based ERP’s and now with the advent of cloud computing ERP’s are deployed onSubscription model that is you pay as you use.
Big Data Analytics area of software will grow multiple times because this will be in useful inRetail sector where huge data is generated and customer buying tendencies can be predicted
Using big data analytics and also the telecom sector where big data analytics is used.
Automation testing tools market will also grow as more and more companies are focussing to automate testing of their applications especially for regression and performance testing.
The author is a Principal Consultant on ERP Implementation, Software Testing, and Project Management and can be contacted for consultancy and queries onsuresh.menon@nuevalgo.org.
