BENGALURU & DELHI GIVE THE HIGHEST SALARY INCREMENTS FOR NEW-AGE SKILLS
Full-stack developers and front-end developers get the highest
Other skills with high increments are:
Back-end developer, AI, ML,
data science, cyber security,
mobile developer
DELHI
Average increment
is 21-22%
Ranges from
17.5% for cloud computing to
26% for full-stack developer
Do tech course now, pay fees
only if you get at least a `6L job
Income sharing
agreements offered
by coding schools
are a huge attraction
for students
Shilpa Phadnis & Avik Das | TNN
M
ohammed Hassan had to
forego his monthly pay-
cheque for six months
when he joined the cod-
ing bootcamp at Masai School in
Bengaluru. For the 24-year-old
engineer from Salem, that was a
luxury considering he was very
dependent on the Rs 18,000 a
month he earned as a mechanic.
But one comfort was that he would
have to pay Masai only after the
course, and what was even more
attractive was that if he would
have to pay only if he got a job with
a minimum salary of Rs 6 lakh. As
it happened, he was picked up af-
ter the course by social network-
ing app Sharechat as a full-stack
developer with a salary of Rs 18
lakh per annum – eight times his
previous salary.
The enormous demand for soft-
ware skills has encouraged a new
business model that many stu-
dents could find very attractive.
Learn now, pay later, and that too,
only if you get a certain minimum
salary. The contract between the
student and institution is called
the Income Share Agreement
(ISA). If the student gets a job with
at least that minimum salary, he/
she will pay 15-17% of the month-
ly salary to the institution for the
first two to three years.
“I could not possibly have pur-
sued the course without the ISA,”
says Hassan.
Pesto Tech is another company
that offers an ISA. Their Pesto Re-
mote is a three-month full-stack
engineering course – teaching tech
like React, Node, Mongo, Redux,
US NSF created 260
Nobel laureates;
India must replicate
Sujit.John@timesgroup.com
B
asic science research was cru-
cial to the US’s economic ad-
vance, and it will be so for In-
dia’s, says Prof Subra Suresh, a
graduate of IIT Madras and one of
the world’s foremost scientists.
Suresh notes that the National
Science Foundation (NSF) in the US,
which he led for three years be-
tween 2010 and 2013, has funded
research that has led to 260 Ameri-
can Nobel Prize winners. The NSF,
founded in 1950, funds basic re-
search, and currently has an an-
nual budget of $8 billion. The foun-
dation’s seen as a primary driver of
the US economy, advancing knowl-
edge to sustain global leadership.
HEAR THE PROF
“You can call it basic science,
but most of those findings have led
to industrial applications, from
pharmacy to space to instrumenta-
tion,” says Suresh, who was profes-
sor at MIT, president of Carnegie
Mellon University, and since 2018 is
president of Singapore’s prestig-
ious Nanyang Technological Uni-
versity (NTU).
He says it’s very difficult to pre-
dict if some research that is being
funded by the NSF would provide a
return on investment. “But science,
if you can predict it, you’re not do-
ing the most innovative research.
Even research that is perceived as
not useful, often ends up being ex-
tremely useful,” he says.
He notes that British mathema-
tician GH Hardy, who was advisor
to India’s mathematics genius Srin-
ivasa Ramanujan at Cambridge
University, never wanted to do re-
search that had any practical ap-
plication. He felt if it had any ap-
plication, he would be polluting
pure science. “But it turned out that
every piece of work that he did had
some major application. Number
theory has major applications in
cybersecurity today,” Suresh says.
Nasa, he says, does a lot of basic
research in astrophysics. “Ein-
stein’s theory of relativity and
gravitational waves, you can call
that purely academic research. But
MUMBAI
Average increment is
Ranges from
13.9% for cloud computing to
22.5% for front-end developer
BENGALURU
Average increment is 20%
Ranges from
17.2% for cloud computing to
22.4% for full-stack developer
Git, functional programming and
test-driven development – remote-
ly to students. The students must
have had two years of work experi-
ence. “We charge 17% of their sal-
ary every month for the first three
years only if their salary is Rs 15
lakh,” says Pesto co-founder
Ayush Jaiswal.
It also has the Pesto Pro pro-
gramme for engineers with over
five years of experience, where the
ISA kicks in if they make 1.5 to 2
times their previous salary.
“We want to be a part of the
students’ success and not burden
them with a loan,” says Jaiswal.
Pesto has students from 23 states
learning and earning remotely,
and companies like Gitlab and Lu-
mos are among those who have
recruited from them.
Masai runs a 24-week grueling
course to train students to become
PROF SUBRA SURESH
PRESIDENT, NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL
UNIVERSITY (NTU), SINGAPORE
Previously: Professor
at MIT, President of
Carnegie Mellon
University, director
of National
Science Foundation,
US (first Asia-born
scientist to
lead NSF)
ADVICE TO STUDENTS
Don’t view education as a ticket to a
job; view it as the beginning of a
process that you enjoy and one you’re
not going to stop when you get your
degree. Develop the desire to absorb
new knowledge
Try to be good in something, it
could be art, engineering, science,
anything. You don’t want to be too
much of a generalist and not a
specialist in anything
without these, space programmes
and technology would not have
evolved. I think it’s very artificial
to differentiate between basic re-
search and applied research,”
he says.
Suresh emphasises the impor-
tance for a country of the size and
scale of India to support basic re-
search. “If we can do that, we can
apply them in areas, say, in rural
India, the way in which it was not
possible to do in the US or Europe.
That benefits hundreds of millions
of people,” he says.
NSF, he notes, even funded a
Princeton professor, Andrew Wiles,
to try and solve Fermat’s last theo-
rem, something that mathemati-
cians had not solved for 200 years.
It took Wiles more than a decade to
solve. “Even if it had no practical
application, it pushes the bounda-
ries of human intellect, the same
way that philosophy, music, art do.
Can India be without philosophy,
music or art? So why should push-
ing the boundaries of human intel-
lect through basic science be any
different?” Suresh asks.
17%
HYDERABAD
Average increment is 16%
Ranges from
13.4% for cloud computing to
19.3% for front-end developer
INTENSE FOCUS:
(Above) Masai
School co-
founder
Prateek
Shukla
addressing
a class;
Anshuman Singh &
Abhimanyu Saxena, co-founders
of InterviewBit Academy (left);
Pesto co-founder Ayush Jaiswal
full-stack developers. Once a stu-
dent gets a job that pays Rs 6 lakh
per annum or more, the ISA kicks
in, which makes it mandatory to
pay 15% of the monthly salary for
three years. The total to be paid is
capped at Rs 3 lakh.
“We are starting a part-time
course for working professionals,
three hours daily in the evening
for eight months. They will start
paying us if their salary is 1.5
times what they are earning,” says
Prateek Shukla, co-founder and
CEO. Masai has Flipkart, Ola and
Swiggy among its recruiters.
Unlike Pesto, Masai works with
non-banking financial companies
(NBFCs), which underwrite the
fees, pay it to Masai if the student
gets a job with the minimum sal-
ary, and collects the monthly pay-
ments from the students.
InterviewBit Academy, which
GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS GET BRILLIO-TRAINED
Brillio, the enterprise digital transformation company founded by Raj Mamodia, has set up tinker
labs in two government schools in Bengaluru and science labs in 27 government schools in
Karnataka & Maharashtra under a CSR programme called Bringing Smiles
Towards the beginning
of 2019, a ‘Miss Maker
& Master Maker’
programme was
launched with the theme
of ‘robotics’. More than
200 students were
trained through the year
by Brillio volunteers in
new-age technologies.
The students developed
innovative science
models such as a One
Dollar VR Headset,
Smart Waste Disposal
System, Smart Water
Management System,
and more, using eco-
friendly and waste
materials. Winners
received a gold medal
and certificate of honour
Lavanya (left) & Riya, class 9: Text to
speech application using MIT App Inventor
Deepak Agarwal’s AMD team key to EPYC success
Ardra.Shankar@timesgroup.com
I
n an age where job-hopping has
almost become a norm, espe-
cially among restless 20-some-
things in constant pursuit of bet-
ter opportunities and latest fads,
Deepak Agarwal follows a differ-
ent approach. “It’s important to
build a good resume and make
yourself marketable, but that
shouldn’t be the driving force be-
hind choosing a project,” he says.
“When you focus on personal
growth, your resume will shine
automatically.”
In his nearly 18-year-long stint
with American chip giant AMD
(Advanced Micro Devices), he
says he has gained more experi-
ence than most people do after
increments in most cities. Followed by UI/UX designers
CHENNAI
16%
Average increment is
Ranges from
14% for cyber security to
20.4% for cloud computing PUNE
recently raised $20 million in a
Series A round by Sequoia India
and Tiger Global, offers both up-
front payments and ISA options.
For the first option, students need
to pay Rs 3 lakh. In the ISA scheme,
it is 15% of the monthly pay for
two years, provided the student
gets a minimum Rs 7 lakh salary.
“70% of the students from the
current batch have got that mini-
mum salary, others are still ap-
pearing for job interviews. If you
have learnt it right and have got
the required skill sets, getting a
Rs 7 lakh job is not difficult at all,”
says InterviewBit co-founder
Abhimanyu Saxena.
Ankur Pahwa, partner and na-
tional leader for e-commerce and
consumer internet at consulting
firm EY India, says ventures offer-
ing ISAs are aligning industry
requirements and students’ edu-
cational needs. “Apart from stu-
dents, it also helps (recruiting)
companies tied up with these start-
ups save training and recruitment
costs and meet in-demand job re-
quirements,” he says.
But there are risks in the mod-
el and most are aware of it. Inter-
viewBit co-founder Abhimanyu
Saxena wonders if ISAs are le-
gally enforceable, and points out
that it might also be difficult to
implement. “Let’s say a person
gets a job and three months later
joins another firm at a higher sal-
ary. How do you track that? There
is no systematic way,” he says.
Pahwa says the success of ISA
ventures will depend on maintain-
ing learning quality and employ-
ability of candidates, especially as
they start to scale. The big chal-
lenge would be the availability of
high-paying jobs for a large num-
ber of students. The skill gaps may
not remain as yawning as it is now.
“Regulations in the space are still
developing and any changes could
have an impact on future business
models,” says Pahwa.
For now, everyone seems to be
enjoying the ride.
CSR programme
has reached out
to 130 schools
and impacted
over 36,000
underprivileged
students
Over 800
employees have
clocked over
25,000 hours of
volunteering Manohar (left) & Shariff, class 9:
Robotic car using ultrasonic sensor
INSPIRATION
working several different jobs.
Deepak started his journey in
AMD in 2002 as design engineer
(level 2) at its Boston office. After
working for three years, he want-
ed to move back to India to be
closer to his family. It was
around this time that AMD start-
ed operations in Bengaluru, and
he decided to join the team here
in August 2005. “We started out
as a six-member verification
team. Now we have over 85 mem-
bers,” he says.
Today, Deepak is the senior
director of silicon design tech-
nologies and site lead at the Ben-
galuru office, handling key SoC
Average increment is 15%
Ranges from
14.1% for cyber security to
16.5% for front-end developer
Source: Catenon, executive search firm
Mahesh Mrigendra Pavate,
an MCA graduate from Vellore
Institute of Technology, attended
39 interviews but failed to find
a job. “I had the technical skills,
but was not good at expressing
myself,” he says. He went
through Masai’s intensive 9-9-6
programme (9am to 9pm, 6 days
a week). “I thought I wouldn’t
survive it, but I did and it paid
off. The faculty really groomed
me on my soft skills and I could
do well in interviews. And for
my skills test, I could build some
new features for a networking
app using React for
front-end and
MongoDB for
back-end,” he
says. Now he
is a software
developer in
CircleApp, earning
nearly four times
what a
campus
fresher
would
Naman Bhalla, who enrolled
with InterviewBit, says that
without the ISA scheme, he
would not have joined the
course, given that his parents
were already paying about
Rs 2 lakh every semester for
the engineering course that
he is also currently pursuing
from a Delhi college. He says
he could not hope to get good
placements in his college. The
InterviewBit course
helped get him a job
with Google as a
software engineer,
which he will join
in July with a total
package of Rs 20
lakh. Paying off
InterviewBit, he
says, would not be
a problem
at all
(system-on-a-chip) deliveries.
Design verification is the end-
stage process of ensuring that
everything on an integrated cir-
cuit works as planned. The vir-
tual and physical testing against
requirements has to be thorough
and highly efficient. On that de-
pends how quickly the company
can take a product to market. And
if even a tiny flaw goes into pro-
duction, it can cost the company
hundreds of millions of dollars.
Deepak is particularly proud
of a project he spearheaded in
2015, what he considers an inflec-
tion point in his career. As a sen-
ior manager, he was given the task
to drive server SoC verification
for EPYC, the CPU that marked
AMD’s re-entry into the server
TECH I’D LIKE TO SEE
AI, VR-based property platform
G
round-breaking
technologies are slowly
entering the real estate scene.
I would like to see a dedicated
platform for all real estate
needs, from searching a
property to procuring raw
material, getting government
approvals, finding contractors,
lease management, property
management. All of
this is possible
through AI and VR.
Imagine that once
you’ve inserted
your primary
desires for home
location, finishing,
size, etc, into your
personal AI, it
will offer you
top picks of
Akhil Gupta | CO-FOUNDER & CTO, NOBROKER.COM
5G rollout needs
thousands of engg
and software talent
Habeeba.Salim@timesgroup.com
T
he Indian telecom sector
may be passing through a
chaotic phase now, but 5G
rollout is certain to create a lot
of job opportunities. 5G, the
fifth generation spectrum wave,
is not an incremental upgrade,
but a replacement technology
that will bring in many more
devices on board, make IoT re-
alise its true potential, and en-
hance mobile broadband.
Talent solutions company
Xpheno’s recent report on 5G in
India lists a host of engineering
as well as software roles that will
be created as part of the 5G roll-
out. India hopes to begin the pilot
5G phase by October. “It’s going
to bring a variety of enterprises
together – from semiconductor
companies to telecom equipment
makers, software firms to the
actual telecom companies who
are the flag-bearers of this tech-
nology transition,” says Kamal
Karanth, co-founder, Xpheno.
Xpheno pegs the initial 5G
talent demand in India to be over
150,000. Roles can be roughly di-
vided into technical and soft-
IGNITE
YOUR CAREER
ware. “The first players would
be telecom engineers who would
work in the core 5G network to
set up the base infrastructure.
Today, we have the typical mo-
bile towers. With 5G, you will
start seeing what you call small
cell equipment, put up, for in-
stance, on street lamps,” says
Xpheno CTO Prasadh M S.
He says 5G will also need en-
gineers with multiple skill sets,
those with talents across devic-
es, across open source, across
familiarity with IoT.
For a software engineer, there
will be opportunities because 5G
will create a lot of data for busi-
nesses and others. Which means
that machine learning algo-
rithms, especially for big data,
are going to be an important re-
quirement. 5G will require its
own security protocols. “Ma-
chine learning, big data experts
with knowledge of node.js (a
JavaScript runtime environ-
ment that works well with 5G
Learn new skills,
take on challenges
and focus on
problem-solving. Aim to be
the go-to person in your
workplace in
times of crisis
Deepak Agarwal
| SENIOR DIRECTOR OF
SILICON DESIGN
TECHNOLOGIES AND SITE
LEAD, BENGALURU,
AMD
market, and which has been a big
success. “I was handling end-to-
end operations with engineers
in Hyderabad. It was challeng-
ing, but also a great learning
properties and material, tour-
able 24/7, with optional
assistance by a virtual guide,
and constantly updates
progress You will need just a
single platform to check real-
time progress of construction
and estimated finishing date.
This would mean that potential
buyers from miles or even
continents away can buy and
construct their property hassle-
free. Throughout each
immersive VR tour, advanced
eye-tracking software and a
permission-based ML
algorithm could follow your
gaze to further learn your
likes and dislikes,
and intelligently
recommend
modifications.
AREAS OF LEARNING
5G Technology
Engineers will need to
understand how computing
intelligence embedded in 5G
networks enable wider data
bandwidth and less latency
5G Planning
5G use case identification,
coverage analysis for 5G, site
planning, traffic modelling, 5G
simulation parameters, network
propagation models
Vo5G
Voice over 5G refers to the
voice services – voice & video
communication over 5G,
transition from voice over LTE to
voice over new radio
5GC - Core Network
The 5G core
functions as the
anchor point
for multiple
access
technologies
and devices
interfaces. Need to
know network slicing, dual &
multi-connectivity and physical/
virtual layers of network
5G Security
Understanding and mastering
the threat landscape of 5G will
be a much sought after skill
5G Migration
Migration from evolved packet
core (EPC) that powers 4G LTE to
5GC is key to 5G rollout
5G IoT
Methods and architecture to
exploit the always-on nature and
low latency of 5G to establish a
comprehensive IoT ecosystem
5G System & Application Design
Design and development of
services, applications and
utilities powered by 5G
and IoT devices), cyber security
experts updated on latest 5G
protocols, those up-to-date on
GPS technology, IoT specialists
and embedded electronics engi-
neers, all can find an entry into
5G,” says Gaurav Vohra, CEO
of Jigsaw Academy. “Most of
the hiring will be by telecom
service providers and IoT com-
panies,” he says.
opportunity,” he says.
Deepak, a Mumbaikar, has al-
ways been interested in comput-
ers. After completing BE in elec-
trical engineering from VJTI,
Mumbai, in 2000, he did Master’s
in computer engineering from the
University of Maryland, US. After
graduating, he received an inter-
view call from AMD’s Austin of-
fice and was hired soon after. “It
has been my first and only work-
place since then,” he says.
Deepak says there has been
massive progress in the Indian
semiconductor industry, both in
terms of talent and innovation.
“A comparison with the US would
be unfair as they’re pioneers, but
India is definitely making impres-
sive strides.”