Techies join Pune rush, give up green card comforts

An article from Indian Express and posted the whole article here just to ensure everyone read it. Techies join Pune rush, give up green card comforts

Techies join Pune rush, give up green card comforts
Family ties, career opportunities, fat pay packets trigger reverse brain drain

SUDIPTA DATTA

Posted online: Tuesday, July 13, 2004 at 0030 hours IST

PUNE, JULY 12: • Vijay Mhaskar graduated from IIT Powai in the 80s and moved to the US in 1992. Ten years later, and after a stint at Sun Microsystems in San Diego, he moved back to India — to Pune and Veritas.

• Ram Pazhayannur, a mechanical engineer from Pune University, who went to the US in 1993, gave up a lucrative job with cGate in Minneapolis and returned home — to Pune and Persistent Systems.

• Abhay Patil, an MTech from IIT Powai, went to the US in 1993, but decided to shift base nine years later — to Pune and a startup CXO Systems

A reverse brain drain is on, and no one’s complaining. Many home-grown software professionals and engineers who went overseas in the late 80s and 90s are giving up the green card for an India posting.

‘‘India’s a fertile ground for out-of-the-box creative thinkers, reminiscent of the Silicon Valley of the 90s,” says Ram Pazhayannur, head of business development, at Persistent.

Having said that, Pazhayannur moved to personal reasons: ‘‘My parents are growing old and I wanted my daughter who’s about to enter first grade to be educated in India because education here is better than the West.” But moving back wouldn’t have been easy if he hadn’t found the right job. ‘‘It took me two years to find the right one,” he admits.

With Persistent undergoing one of the most important phases of its life cycle (read unprecedented growth), the onus is on him to take a 30-people company to a 3,000-people — and that’s a challenge he found difficult to refuse.

For Vijay Mhaskar too, the overriding reason was family, but the financial security that Veritas offered was a big draw. ‘‘By moving back I can have the best of both worlds... live at home and enjoy the good life because we are being paid so much better.” Ditto for Sharad Kamath, a manager at Veritas, who moved back from the US last October. ‘‘America is a good place to visit, look around, save some money... but I always wanted to come back to India.”

Once Abhay Patil, Director (India Operations) of CXO Systems, decided to come back to India in 2000. It took him two years to make the right career choice. As Pazhayannur knows, patience is the key. ‘‘It can never be a spur-of-the-moment decision. You have to prepare yourself mentally so that the transition is smooth.”

All agree that in the 10 years or so they were away, there have been a lot of positive changes: India has bridged the gap in the knowledge sector with the US; technology has improved; so has quality of life. But most important is the visible change in the work culture. Says Pazhayannur: ‘‘At least in the IT industry, there is no hint of red-tapism... we work to deadlines and have to deliver, which makes the job dynamic.”

Tarun Mathur, Chief Marketing Officer, Indus Software, pins it down to outsourcing. For a techie, this is where the action is because a great deal of technological work is being outsourced to India. No wonder the Americans are livid with outsourcing — they are not only losing jobs but trained personnel too.