Bangalore coder , or programmer ?

Developers are happy in Bangalore these days. Its raining jobs. Its common for people leaving our company to have multiple offers. Developers I know are busy building apartments on Outer Ring Road and buying new cars. People with two years of experience have been asking for ten lakh salaries and in some cases, says one proj manager in our floor, actually getting it.
Companies from the US are opening new offices or expanding operations.

But compared to the quality of work in Chip design/VLSI that is happening in the hardware domain, I think for software, Bangalore is just another code factory. I receive recruiter emails at times asking for "J2EE","struts" ,"EJB' skills. This seems to be the most in demand. I am told that most of the revenue of Indian IT comes from taking maintainence contracts. Even for product companies,though far better than consulting (in my view), apart from a few like Veritas or HP that do kernel level work, most I think have come to India as they need to scale up quickly for large projects, not for innovative work. Just compare these jobs, one listed in the US another in India:

Research engineer, Bosch
Research staff position in graphics and interaction technologies. This person will be responsible for researching and developing tools and system prototypes for the next generation of intelligent information systems in the Bosch product areas. A specific short to mid-term focus will be in the area of driver information systems.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Research, develop and implement algorithms, methods, and tools towards innovative prototype systems.
• Prototypical realization of research ideas on Bosch product platforms.
• Establish close contact with internal customers and external partners/universities.
• International travel is possible.

Education/Training/Work Experience Required:

PhD or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering or Computer Science required. Experience in industrial R&D settings is a plus. .......

AND

We have excellent opening with our Bangalore based client Realsoft for Sr. J2ee/Struts Developer for following requirement-
Position- Sr. J2ee/Struts Developer
Exp.- 5+ to 10 years
Job location- Bangalore
Must have skills-
*5+ years hands on development and some design exp. will be good in core java, JDBC, j2ee(EJB, Servlets, JSP,java_script etc.)
*Struts frame work.
*Application servers are Jboss & Tomcat
*Web service is a plus but highly desired.
*Who is intersted to be hands in design/development (Looking for the j2ee development GURU)
Worked through all phases of SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle), eager to learn latest technologies,
Can communicate directly with senior management in USA related to project functions
Must be able to work independently, research problems (analytical skills is very important)
Previous experience working with onsite clients is highly desiered

That should give the general idea.

IIT students working at our place say that no one among them bothers to go do an MS at the US anymore- you no longer get aid, and there's no perceived career advantage, like for an MBA . Besides, salaries have gone up tempting many to work. As such Indian society is obsessed with status and titles. Thus friends I know who moved on to do management degrees, frown when they hear somebody is 'still coding'.

Dogs and Cats

"In Italy, they dont have children- they just have dogs and cats. "NYT Article on falling population in Italy.

Computer Graphics

The wild poem is a substitute,
for the woman one loves or ought to love.
One wild rhapsody
a fake for another.-Wallace Stevens

I fell in love with Computer graphics after I saw Titanic. At that point I had no interest in Computer science,I detested coding. This started to change in 2000, when I started working in Boston. Walking back though Harvard yard from the train stop every day,watching all the bright people around you, probably had something to do with it. Computer graphics was the wild poem that kept me alive though the years in America. It was like chasing a woman giving up everything else in your life, but never catching up with her.But it lured me into getting an MS.
Guy Kawasaki says, "Pursue joy, not happiness." (Hindsight #9)
In declining 4 job offers over the past one year, I've been doing exactly that. Time will tell.

Essential skills of a supervisor

(Summarized from: Harvard business review guide to developing, managing your career)
1) Technical skills :Matters most at the lower levels.
2) People skills : Matters at ALL levels.
3) Conceptual thinking :Matters most at high levels.

People skills , as per an experienced manager :
-Everyone is different- treat them differently. Some people need attention and supervision and will feel ignored if not spoken to. Others detest attention and will feel micromanaged.
-Dont be arrogant , but be firm .They should not take you lightly, work should get done.
-People should respect you for your skills. positional respect goes only to a certain point.