1400% HOTTEST JOBS IN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
onto the hiring scene. Last year, that unexpected `dark horse’ was
Demand
Growth for
Engineering
Roles 146% 146%
2019
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We are social animals, so most of
us still prefer working from office
But tech is
making WFH a
great option to
use during special
requirements
Sujit John & Shilpa Phadnis | TNN
S
ome eight years ago, when
Cisco talked about the virtues
of its collaboration tools, we
asked the company that if the
tools were so good, why does it ask
its nearly 10,000 employees to
come to one single location in Ben-
galuru through the city’s awful
traffic. Cisco said the employees
like to come to work.
They probably did. Cisco’s then
new campus in Bengaluru was
their best in the world, with the
works – cafeterias, coffee shops,
gyms, relaxation lounges with mas-
sage chairs and more, playhouses
with Wii consoles, arcade games
and billiards tables. Each floor
lobby was designed differently, in-
corporating global architectural
elements, such as the Park Guell in
Barcelona. Who wouldn’t want to
work in a place like that!
Some things have changed since
then. The campus continues to of-
fer fabulous facilities, but so do
many of the other company cam-
puses that have come up since then.
Many apartment complexes offer
similar facilities. So the novelty is
gone. Traffic on the roads leading
to the Cisco facility has become a
nightmare, and it can take up to
two hours for some to reach.
So when we spoke to Cisco In-
dia’s director of people and com-
munities Anupam Trehan for this
story, much of Trehan’s focus was
on how time had become the most
essential commodity for lots of
people, how they wanted to bal-
ance their personal interests, and
the initiatives Cisco had taken to
Cobots make life
a smooth ride for
Bajaj Auto, L’Oreal
Avik.Das1@timesgroup.com
C
ollaborative robots, or cobots,
are becoming popular in a va-
riety of industries – to improve
efficiency in factories and also re-
lieve their people from repetitive
work so that they can focus on more
value-added ones.
Cobots are most popular in the
automotive, food, furniture and elec-
tronics industries.
Bajaj Auto was one of the earliest
adopters of cobots in the country
and is the biggest Indian customer
of Universal Robots, a Danish com-
pany that builds cobots. It has till
date deployed 150 such machines in
its factories and at vendor sites, and
its objective is to have “man-less as-
sembly lines” in the next two to
three years. Vice president of engi-
neering Vikas Sawhney says that if
DIGITISE YOUR BIZ
a job is hazardous or repetitive, or
if the applications need to be of con-
sistent quality, the task is best done
by a cobot.
“On the fuel tanks of motorcy-
cles, there is a sticker known as de-
cal. When a man applies it, it may
happen there may be bubbles and
wrinkles, leading to a quality issue
or wastage of decal, but not when
you use this machine. Similarly, in
the assembly lines, we apply sealant
through a gun to many components.
Now, it is not possible for a man to
move his hand at a constant velocity,
but when we ask a cobot to do it,
there is consistent volume and uni-
form bead, thus eliminating any
leakages,” Sawhney says.
While robots are of large sizes
and their area of movement needs
to be fenced while in action, cobots
are of relatively smaller sizes and
they can work side by side with hu-
mans on the shop floors. Unlike a
robot, which has been the cause of
human deaths in factories, a cobot
is programmed to stop functioning
when it comes in contact with an
adjacent object, including a human.
Cobots are plug and play devices,
requiring a standard power supply,
unlike industrial robots, which re-
quire a heavier power source. Even
Based on interview requests through Hired’s marketplace
* Role did not register near the top of
137%
the list last year, so a YoY comparison
89%
49%
* 17%
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COMMUNITY TIME: Infosys employees in their Bengaluru facility.
The company pioneered the idea of a sprawling beautiful campus
build a culture where employees
are eager to work, be it in the of-
fice, or at home.
Cisco has transformed almost
all of its workplaces around the
world to what they call `connected
workplaces’ – providing technolo-
gies that enable working from
anywhere and more easily. This it
says has increased employee en-
gagement by 19% and workplace
productivity by 14%. And from
2010 to 2018, employees self-report-
ed satisfaction with the balance
between work and non-work rose
to 73% – a historic high.
Trehan says they now provide
only 66 seats in their offices for
every 100 employees. “A lot of people
work away from office,” she said.
But why do most employees
still come to an office, even if it
means spending two to four hours
in traffic?
“We are social animals. People like
to come to office. There’s an emo-
tional angle to coming to work and
meeting people,” says Madhavi
Lall, Head, Human Resources,
Deutsche Bank India
the programming of cobots is eas-
ily done through what is called a
teach pendant; it requires no prior
programming experience. This
makes them easier to integrate into
existing production environments
and automate various production
and manufacturing tasks.
Cosmetic firm L’Oreal India has
eliminated risks posed to its factory
workers through the use of cobots.
At its plant in Pune, workers were
at risk when putting the final boxes
on the pallet. Each operator lifted
8,500 kg of product per eight-hour
shift, presenting what the firm clas-
sified as a Level 4 ergonomic risk
– one of the highest levels of danger
to the human body and posture
(Level 5 is the severest). The cobots
automated this hazardous task.
New Engineering Works in Jam-
shedpur, a medium-sized company,
has been using cobots for auto com-
ponents’ machining, leading to 40%
increase in productivity. Workers
find them to be as easy to use as a
smartphone, easy to programme
within a couple of hours.
Pradeep David, South Asia gen-
eral manager at Universal Robots,
says in the past, MSMEs could not
afford the technology, but now, they
are big users. “We
h ave M S M E s
who supply
products to
Bosch, and the
German com-
pany is insist-
ing they use
cobots for bet-
ter quality and
productivity,”
he says.
Pradeep David
 Each year, there appears to be a trendy new role that explodes
will be available in 2021
45%
17%
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Richard Lobo, executive vice
president and head of HR at Info-
sys, dittos that: “We need human
contact. And this is across genera-
tions. For a want of a better word,
I will call it touch time – socialis-
ing, idea sharing, serendipity.”
Lobo says remote work is highly
suitable when an employee needs
some focused time. He notes a study
by a Stanford professor, Nicholas
Bloom, that showed that work-from-
home increased productivity in
such instances. That’s because peo-
ple actually work their full shift. In
the office, people might be delayed
by traffic, or take a long lunch with
a colleague. The study also found
that people at home are able to con-
centrate better – “the office is actu-
ally an amazingly noisy environ-
ment,” it said.
Lobo says when there is a need
for collaboration, it’s a “50:50.”
There are collaboration tools that
are useful, but not always so.
“Collaboration is when I’m
working on a project where a
team is involved, I need to sit
with, say, ten people, work out
ANALYSING PUPIL MOVEMENTS TO DETERMINE DISEASES
Dr Srinivas Dorasala,
Niranjan Subbarao, and Dr
Ravi Nayar’s Bengaluru-
based Cyclops Medtech
has developed a product
that analyses movements
of the pupil to determine
neurological conditions like
traumatic brain injuries,
multiple sclerosis, vertigo,
stroke and tumours. Pupil
movements provide good
early-stage indications of
each of these conditions
Dr Dorasala is an ENT
surgeon, Subbarao a serial
entrepreneur, and Dr Nayar
an ENT and head-neck
surgeon
How the product works
The product uses high-frequency goggle-
mounted infrared cameras to capture minute
pupil manifestations, point of gaze and head
positions which cannot be observed through
normal clinical evaluations
At 40, Sabre’s Priya did a course in AI for biz
Arpita.Misra@timesgroup.com
S
he was among three girls and
over 20 boys during her grad-
uate studies. She was the lone
woman at many office meetings.
So it wasn’t easy for Priya Dhan-
dapani to make her voice heard.
Yet today, Priya, director of soft-
ware engineering at Sabre India,
credits the men in her life for help-
ing her reach where she is. And
the first on that list is her father.
“My father not only encour-
aged me but also challenged me
to go beyond my limits. In fact,
as soon as I completed my gradu-
ation, he wanted me to pursue a
job and make my own living,”
recalls Priya, who today leads a
global team of 93 professionals
TECH I’D LIKE TO SEE
the blockchain engineer, while 2020 seems to be the year of AR/VR.
The demand growth for blockchain engineers slowed to 9% this year, Swarm robotics in surveillance
normalising from its explosive 517% growth last year
I
t is amazing how immersive collective behaviour emerges
 Hired sees the growth in AR/VR demand technologies are changing from the interactions between
as a direct reflection of the technology our day-to-day life. Especially the robots and interactions of
itself coming of age for a broader swathe in the sphere of surveillance, robots with the environment.
9% * 5% of business outside of gaming. From beauty which has come a long way This field of robotics is inspired
companies like Sephora to furniture retailers from simple crime detection from the behaviour of insects
like Wayfair, many different types of companies to weather forecast to busi- like ants, bees and cock-
are embracing the capabilities of these world ness decision-making. Swarm roaches, where simple actions
building and enhancing technologies robotics is going to be one of performed by them achieve
complex swarm behaviour.
these ground-breaking tech-
Source: Hired’s 2020 State of Software Engineers report; Hired has over 10,000 companies,
420,000 interview requests, and 98,000 job seekers on its platform
nologies of the It can be critical in situa-
tions where humans cannot be
future. It is an
approach to utilised due to life threatening
the coordina- conditions. It can therefore be
tion of large used in applications like rescue
numbers of operations during earthquakes,
robots – simple mining disasters, fires or
physical robots – floods. With image capturing
as a system. capabilities added to this, it
Here, a can spell the future of high-
desired tech surveillance.
Sudhindra Holla | DIRECTOR - INDIA, AXIS COMMUNICATIONS
something on a whiteboard, de-
sign something. Or when there’s HYBRID WORLD
an agile activity, need to move
quickly. In such cases, it’s much
People like to come to
office. For a want of a
more efficient to do it in the same
workplace,” he says. better word, I will call it
In his experience, he’s found
that those who consistently work
touch time – socialising, idea
sharing, serendipity. Also,
out of home are not the most ef- when you need to
ficient or productive people. The collaborate,
ones that are the most productive often you need
are those who use each option to be together
(home, office, elsewhere) for what
it’s best for – focused time, col- Richard Lobo |
laboration, social interaction. EXECUTIVE VICE
There are two other issues that PRESIDENT,
make work-from-home unattrac- HEAD HR,
tive, especially from the point of INFOSYS
view of companies – security and
bandwidth. It will be a hybrid way of
There are certain kinds of work working. People have
that can only be done in the office.
different working preferences,
“Some jobs involve a huge level of
security and requires employees to styles. Some may want to
work from office, some from
EVs, Ind 4.0 will
come to work to physically access
systems. For instance, a trade home. We enable
transaction approval cannot be our employees to
done remotely,” says Lall of work the way
make mechanical
Deutsche Bank. An HSBC employ- they like
ee, who did not want to be named,
makes the same point. “We can Anupam Trehan |
handle many customer queries DIRECTOR, PEOPLE &
engineers hot
from home. But any transaction has COMMUNITIES,
to be done from office,” he says. CISCO INDIA
India even has laws around certain
kinds of work not being allowed to Not many people would
be done outside office premises. say they want to work
And then, despite all the ad- from home. There’s an Avik.Das1@timesgroup.com
vances in internet speeds, the Join an industry
emotional angle to coming to
I
services remain uncertain. As n India in the 1970s and 1980s, where you can learn.
many have discovered as they
work and meeting people. And back it up with a
the best students opted for
work out of home during this Also, some jobs involve a mostly mechanical and elec- higher degree. In the
Covid-19 pandemic, the band- huge level of security and trical engineering. Computer future, nobody will respect
width providers in apartment requires employees to science and electronics were an engineer with a mere
complexes are unable to handle come to work to then nascent streams. The sys- BTech degree
the load. Even in normal times, physically tem took a u-turn in the follow-
networks are sometimes patchy. access systems ing decades. With the boom in Sarit Das | DIRECTOR,
But providing the home-work- the outsourcing industry, most IIT-ROPAR, AND PROFESSOR,
ing option is now widely recognised Madhavi Lall | students preferred to be trained MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
as a must-do. “Companies should HEAD, HUMAN as computer engineers. DEPARTMENT, IIT-MADRAS
not see it as a benefit they are pro- RESOURCES, While this trend continues,
viding. They should see it as a DEUTSCHE BANK Sarit Das, director at IIT-Ropar make the possibility of a smart
measure that benefits them. It gives INDIA and professor in the mechanical factory a reality.
them access to a much broader pool engineering department at IIT-
of talent,” says Trehan. Madras, believes a lot of jobs in “In the past, mechanical en-
modern industry will actually gineering was known as physical
depend on mechanical engi- engineering, while computer
neers. “Sectors such as electric science was about controlling
vehicles, smart and connected the business through systems.
devices, bio-engineering, 3D Now you need to connect both
and mechanical engineers have
printing and renewable energy
are some of those where the de- an upper hand,” Das says. He,
mand will be very high,” he says. however, says the branch needs
a blend of IT controls, under-
HEAR THE PROF
standing of databases and data
analytics to deal better with
Mechanical engineering is changing times.
often broken down into three To do that, Das is trying to
subsidiary subjects – manufac- attract faculty who may have
turing, design and thermal. An done their undergraduate de-
engineer trained in thermal en- gree in mechanical but higher
gineering has a good chance to studies in computer science and
excel in the electric vehicle in- other subjects to provide a bet-
dustry, where the battery man- ter perspective to students of
agement system is extremely mechanical engineering.
critical. Some electric vehicle He admits that it is difficult
manufacturers in the country to hire professors in the manu-
have already started designing facturing stream as few go to
the circuit board of the battery, the US for a higher degree on
looking into the thermal man- the subject. Some decades ago,
agement – how the heat is spread many did so for an MTech or
Cyclops Medtech Team uniformly over the cells and also PhD in manufacturing, but not
focusing on electrical safety. anymore as the US is no longer
A robust image Finally, cloud-based Das says the demand for me- a manufacturing hub.
processing engine deep learning modules chanical engineers also stems Apart from the EV industry
then extracts analyse and interpret from the concept of Industry 4.0, and connected factory, another
analysable data from the data and provide where computers and me- upcoming area for mechanical
these images actionable insights chanical systems are engineers is 3D printing,
connected to and com- which makes it possible to
municate with one produce objects with
The product has more than 250 installations across
another to make deci- much more complex struc-
65 Indian cities and 6 other countries. Over 65,000 sions without human tures than traditional
patients have been diagnosed so far, and close to involvement. A combi- manufacturing methods.
2,000 life threatening conditions have been nation of cyber-physi- Das has an advice for
detected at the right time cal systems, the budding engineers
inter net-of- – don’t decide on
Cyclops, founded in 2015, was among Nasscom’s
things and career options
Most Innovative Top 50 Emerging Software Product the inter- looking at the
Companies in 2017. The same year, it won the net-of- compensa-
electronics & semiconductor association IESA’s sys- tion packag-
‘Most promising startup of the year’ award tems es that oth-
ers get.
atives, and steers the technical and delivery, striking a good bal- business strategy.
INSPIRATION direction of software develop- ance between work and life can Priya’s journey has taught
comprising technical architects, ment, the roadmap of the prod- become very challenging for a her that everything can and must
development managers, quality ucts, the execution, and migra- woman. I realised you can have be improved, and that if one fails
analysts, product owners and tion of the products to cloud. it all, but not at the same time,” to evolve, the competition will
database administrators. This techno-functional role is she says. To upskill herself, Priya eventually overtake them. “Be
Priya did a Bachelor of Sci- something she has come to love. recently did an online course open to taking risks, fail fast and
ence (applied science and com- “Today, technical experts are re- from MIT Sloan School of Man- course correct. It is okay to make
puter technology) and followed quired to not just concentrate on agement on artificial intelli- slow progress, but it’s not okay
it up with an MCA. In her close technology and code develop- gence and its implications for to stop,” she says.
to two-decade career, the mother ment, but also be able to under-
of two kids has worked with four stand the language of businesses LEARN, UNLEARN, RELEARN
organisations, this being her and customers. Similarly, it’s
second stint with Sabre, the important for a functional expert To learn, unlearn and relearn is difficult, but
$4-billion US-based travel tech- to gain technical excellence,” it will lead to success. Failures should be
nology company. says Priya. celebrated and seen as stepping stones to
At Sabre, Priya, 40, is account- She recalls that returning to success. Also, take time off to relax
able for a portfolio of nine prod- work after having a child was one and exercise
ucts, most of which are “mission- of her most difficult times.
critical”. Priya works with stake- “When you have end-to-end own- Priya Dhandapani | DIRECTOR, SOFTWARE
holders and customer represent- ership of product development ENGINEERING, SABRE INDIA