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Dear Indian Companies,

Why do you hire for a role and then say: "We dont have that role but then we want you to grow up to be a Generalist"!

6 years as a build, release and SCM guy at Moto and Nokia back then, I shifted to this big Indian IT corp coz Nokia was shutting down...

A week into my orientation (which is a crazy weirdness inducing ritual in and of itself), the new manager I'm supposed to be working with comes up and says- "Here's the code repo, there are 2 open jQuery issues, fix them!"

I'm not really sure what to say at this point because jQuery is nice and all but thats not who I am.. I'm the infra / DevOps guy. And this is circa 2012 when DevOps as a term was just hotting up...

Tell me to setup a multi-stage pipeline and automated test cycles, I'll do it drunk, but oh no! bug fixing on a jQuery script? Noooo!!!!! I just dont have the chops for it.

So long story short, I get reported to HR for insubordination - Yeah, Go Figure!

Cue: HR meeting
HR: You wont work?
Me: I cant work on jQuery. I am a sysadmin / devops guy... Give me a project that involves those skills and I'll work.
HR: But we hired you to work on jQuery.
Me: But you did not mention jQuery / UI / UX in the job description - Pulls up email and shows JD for interview which says Symbian, Build, Release, Configuration Management but NOT jQuery.
HR: ....
Me: :-/
HR: But we want you to be a generalist.
Me: #wtf
HR: We want an engineer to be able to do anything he is tasked with!
Me: Can I know my last working date here?

And thats how my career at a glorious IT corporation just went poof!

When I think back on it, I feel good that I chose to do what I wanted to get better at and what I loved working on...

And this is the problem with IT companies in our country - They play with people's aspirations and passions... To the point that all thats left of a software engineer is the looking forward to pay day so he can start the damn cycle all over again.

Comments
  • 7
    Haha...and that's why I have sent my resignation. Don't have any jobs yet...but I'll figure it out.
  • 4
    @macpatel better to be in this position than to be a mindless bot.
  • 1
    Work for CGI. Great Company!
  • 10
    I am currently at this small company. Job discription "Android developer". I have networking background (good at it) just want to switch to mobile development.
    First 3 months "Redesigning their infra - all the servers (cables) to firewall policies/implementing LDA,etc.
    Another 6 months - android development.
    Another 2 months - fixing iOS code(I have no fucking clue - but manage to copy paste from stackoverflow and somehow survived)
    Another 5 months - PHP projects.
    Now the company is going bankrupt and gonna close down at end of this year. :X
  • 1
    @macpatel welcome to devRant!
  • 3
    Started as a Java developer, worked on node js then python then php then node used Jenkins to automate everything learned groovy for that... Then created docker architecture.. Now I ask myself what was my JD btw?
  • 2
    I was hired to be a test engineer, to create an automatic test suite for a large system. I ended up hacking php and css... kill me now
  • 2
    @psone at least you got some skills in your toolbelt
  • 5
    @tirrorex jack of all trades, master of none. 😔
  • 2
    @itch96 true that. Now I am a master of none and feeling like shit. So currently focusing on Laravel and trying to build something.
  • 2
    @psone laravel is awesome!
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