How Do You Raise a High Bar? – Fresher Salary Again!

Mindfire Solutions, Software Industry

 

(Update Sep 20:

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT FALSE CLAIMS IN HIRING:

Mindfire Solutions does NOT employ services of any external organization for our recruitment process, in any role at any stage. We do our OWN hiring COMPLETELY and nobody else – no placement consultant, no recruitment agent, no headhunting firm, no campus coordinator, nobody else at all – is involved in any way at all.

Please do not believe people making false promises to place you at Mindfire Solutions, or to get you an interview slot, or influence hiring in any way – and definitely do not pay anything for such claims. If you do believe and interact with them, it is at your own risk and loss. Mindfire Solutions is not responsible in any way for such interactions.)

 

Mindfire has been elevating its quality and standards of work, of tech talent, continuously over the years.

We receive tremendous interest from thousands and thousands of aspirants, and create opportunities for as many people as possible. We are humbled by the response we have received to our package/offer for software engineering freshers in 2014, and appreciate everyone’s interest in joining Mindfire. Thank you from all of us, from the bottom of our hearts!

But we are not done.

We take another significant step today; hold your breath.

Our entry-level tech talent salary and offer package for 2014 was already among the highest nationwide. Today, we are glad to announce further revision of Mindfire’s entry-level (fresher) salary to Rs 42,000 per month – Rs 5,04,000 per year! This is among the topmost entry-level salaries for tech talent nationwide, and comfortably in the top 1%.

But we are not proud of our salary. Never. It is our people we are proud of. Always.

Focusing on original system development and full-cycle software product construction, Mindfire hires the best software developers. We look specifically for real-world programming ability – that natural knack for programming, that eye for detail, that passion for tech, that elegance of code, that clean flow of mind and that interest for work. If you have joined Mindfire, you are easily among the top 1% in tech ability and potential in India – congratulations!

If you have interest in work and passion for tech, and are confident of your programming chops – Mindfire is your paradise. India’s leading tech magazine – Dataquest – called Mindfire “Techies’ Paradise” many years back. That is what we enjoy being, that is who we are.

With this step, Mindfire makes clear its intent to become the top career choice for those who love innovative software development. Come home.

 

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Introduction to Xamarin and ASP.NET vNext in Nepal

Mindfire Solutions

 

Two Mindfireans – Nirmal and Tadit – will be traveling to Kathmandu shortly, to speak at the DevTechDays event organized by Microsoft Innovation Center, Nepal on September 20 2014.

http://www.devtechday.com/
http://www.devtechday.com/Speakers.aspx

Nirmal will speak on “Jumpstart for Xamarin Forms”. Xamarin is an interesting way to write code in C# and have it run on iOS, Android, Mac and Windows. http://www.xamarin.com

Tadit will speak on “Introduction to ASP.NET vNext”. ASP.NET vNext is the next generation of ASP.NET, in preview with some interesting stuff. http://www.asp.net/vnext

It is interesting how unexpected things come up, and that Mindfire is contributing in its own way to Nepal’s technology community and knowledge ramp-up. To celebrate their new opportunity and our new moment of pride, Nirmal and Tadit receive a Special Award of Rs 20,000 each!

 

Nirmal and Tadit: congratulations, best wishes and bon voyage!

 

 

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Can Weekends Begin on Fridays?

Organizations and Leadership, Thoughts, , ,

 

Weekends start on Saturdays. What if they could start on Fridays? What?!? Are you out of your mind?

Hmm.

Carlos Slim set the dialog rolling for fewer workdays recently. He advocated 3 11-hour workdays a week. Larry Page has referred to a 4-day week. Debate has continued, with views ranging from impracticality to glee. The more I think about it, the more I believe it is worth trying.

What if we actually do it while the world debates about it?

Allow me to share some thoughts – benefits, problems, constraints, and possibility.

Benefits
Contiguous time off from work helps our minds to relax, and our fires to recharge. It means time for hobbies and interests. Learning for techaholics. Research for thinkers. Tinkering for doers. Open-source contribution or personal projects for workaholics. Ideas for would-be entrepreneurs. Community and social work for do-gooders. Parties for party animals! Travel for travel-lovers. Family and kids time. Romance for couples. Sports for sport lovers. Home travel for those from other cities. A mix of all of the above for most of us!

Better life. Broader outlook. Broader minds. Better work.

Problems

On days you work, your work of 11-12 hours blocks out the rest of life. Those days can be more tiring. Work can suffer. An organization with longer weekends may be mistaken to be lazy, under-ambitious, and neglectful of work.

Constraints

With many benefits, fewer work days seem attractive. But there are constraints we have to consider.

Commitment
Every organization commits something to its customers/clients. At Mindfire, we commit 160 hours of work a month, 40 hours a week. Anything less and we have to suffer – when the organization earns less, everyone earns less. Work is the economic activity which generates wealth for all. Income is carved from eternity with our time. When income suffers, everyone suffers. That cannot be allowed to happen.

Non-work activities at work
In flexible workplaces, most of us have some non-work activities at work, perhaps about 10% of the time. In other words, 40 hours of work need about 44 hours at work.

Possibilities!

Now let us consider the possibilities.

3 x 11
3 days of 11 hours each is 33 hours a week, so that is infeasible.

4 x 11
4 days of 11 hours each can mean 40 work hours, which is feasible. However, getting clients to agree to one day off every week, even when other days are used to make up – is tough. Anything which harms work, will harm those who work.

4 x 10 + 4
Practically doable, similar benefits: 4 10-hour days followed by 4 hours on Friday!

This would mean 9am-7pm or 11am-9pm or whatever, Monday through Thursday, and 9am-1pm or 11am-3pm or whatever on Friday. Work ends and the weekend begins with lunch on Friday! Yay!

Interesting? Interested?

This could be a giant step for work, a small leap towards Work 2.0.

What do you think?

 

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A Short History of Desktop Operating Systems

Mindfire Solutions, Software Industry, Thoughts, ,

 

At the beginning of this millennium, the PC/OS wars had practically ended. You used Windows everywhere. Only some companies like Mindfire, which worked on Apple Mac development, had any use for platform diversity. Everybody bought Wintel – because you had to. Software was made for Windows only in most cases, so being on anything else meant being unable to run most things you needed.

Then, several unexpected things happened.

First, Operating Systems. The OS landscape changed. Apple made a spectacular comeback, and working on a Macbook was cool again. Mac OS X flew high. And Ubuntu rose from the ashes of Unix and Linux fragmentation, unifying them and making a friendly Linux.

Second, the Internet. The web became dominant platform for app delivery. Functional software that looked grey and dull, was suddenly all over the colorful web. Chrome and Javascript/AJAX hastened user experience on browsers that rivaled native desktop software.

Third, Design. Or, the ascent of design. Apple led the charge, and the world of tech grew to appreciate design for what it was – the yin for its yang. And those dull grey apps died a quiet death.

Fourth, Consumers. Technology exploded from enterprise/business to the consumer setting. Revenue started skewing towards consumers – although that died an early death due to our next point.

Finally, Devices. In came the world of smartphones and tablets, which changed the meaning of computers. And led to the creation of cloud. And desktop platforms became just one out of many access points for the cloud. Which leads to the Internet of Things. Coming next.

 

All the above made desktop platforms a choice, since the world of computing was no longer restricted to the PC and OS you used. Today, consumers buy Mac systems and techies buy Ubuntu systems, without needing to think what they will not be able to do. Because they can do everything.

At Mindfire, we celebrate this victory of choice with a commitment to platform diversity. Mindfire is investing in Ubuntu and Macbook laptops, aiming to have at least 15% of our people on Macbooks, and 15% on Ubuntu.

Why is diversity important?

A rainbow is interesting only because it has all those colors.

 

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What Have These Two People Done?!

Mindfire Solutions

 

Two Mindfireans recently achieved commendable personal milestones, and it inspires everyone around.

Saurabh Agarwal
Saurabh will be attending Mobile App Europe from September 29 to October 1, at Berlin, Germany. He will be presenting  on October 1 on “Tackling Fragmentation in the Mobile App World“.

Saurabh found out about the conference, discussed topics and prepared material. Saurabh’s interest, initiative and thought process, are admirable.

In recognition of his ability to think beyond the horizon, Mindfire is proud to announce a Special Award of Rs 50,000 for Saurabh. Congratulations and bon voyage, Saurabh!

Tadit Dash
Tadit will be attending Microsoft MVP Global Summit from November 3-6, at Bellevue and Redmond, Washington, USA.

We had earlier learnt about Tadit’s inspiring journey. As a Microsoft MVP, Tadit was invited for the annual MVP summit, a meeting place for MVPs from around the world.

In recognition of his exemplary contribution to knowledge, Mindfire is proud to announce Travel Sponsorship for Tadit to attend the summit. Congratulations and bon voyage, Tadit!

 

Saurabh and Tadit have that special interest, a passion for tech, a desire to excel, a desire to be recognized at the global level. At Mindfire, you would notice this quest for knowledge beyond business. Business creates limits, knowledge sets free.

 

Please join us in congratulating Saurabh and Tadit, and do join the journey of knowledge!

We make our own paths, even while we travel together.

 

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Thoughtful Programming Can Save Days. But Do You Have Time For It?

Software Engineering, Software Industry, Thoughts

 

Today I will share an experience in the effects of inflexible software, actually caused by hard work!

We use a SaaS service for our payroll process. Last month, we needed to add a salary component for selected people. We decided that instead of adding it as the pre-defined “Bonus” component, we would name it “KMBonus”.

All good till now. The payroll system allows addition of custom components. Then you download a blank Excel file and upload it back after inserting figures.

We downloaded the template which had a column for KMBonus, along with columns for every other component. This sheet was filled for KMBonus and uploaded back. It failed. No error message, nothing – the page just refreshed silently.

What was wrong? Was it a problem with file format? File size? Number formats? Did columns or sheets or anything get rearranged by mistake? This took a couple hours. When nothing worked, a support issue was filed. It was a weekend.

On Monday, support tried to understand what was wrong. After few hours, and with the file being analyzed, support figured out what was wrong – the uploaded file couldn’t have empty cells/columns while being uploaded back! So, although you wanted to update only KMBonus column, you had to either insert zero into every other cell everywhere, or delete all other columns.

First I was upset – that a simple error message, or documentation on expected file format, would have helped avoid this. Then I realized something else.

Entire payroll for hundreds of people got stuck for a couple days, because the programmer had worked hard – but harder than necessary.

Think about code structure. It would have taken more work, more effort, to put in all this validation – “Check all cells have numbers, ensure none are blank!” Sure, requirements may not have covered this case, so as a programmer I am free to do anything. But if I am free, do I do things after thinking about it – being thoughtful about work? Do I do things for the user – being thoughtful about users? Or do I do things that are just technically correct? Instead of tightening by validation, a simple conceptual foundation would have reduced the programmers’ work and rendered flexibility to user!

Imagine if the conceptual foundation had been: any blank cell means nothing is to be done. If something has a number, update component to that number. Simple.

So when you get a sheet with many cells blank, entire columns blank, ignore the blank ones. And process only the ones with numbers. Did I say simple?

Think of code. This is actually less work, is conceptually clear, and means much more to user! Smart work versus hard work. Saves days of effort for the programmer. And, in our example, a difference of days in payroll processing!

Thoughtful programming is based on common sense. Thoughtful programming reduces work. Thoughtful programming can save the day. Days.

 

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Entry-level/Fresher Salary at Mindfire Solutions

Mindfire Solutions, Software Industry,

 

(Update Sep 20:

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT FALSE CLAIMS IN HIRING:

Mindfire Solutions does NOT employ services of any external organization for our recruitment process, in any role at any stage. We do our OWN hiring COMPLETELY and nobody else – no placement consultant, no recruitment agent, no headhunting firm, no campus coordinator, nobody else at all – is involved in any way at all.

Please do not believe people making false promises to place you at Mindfire Solutions, or to get you an interview slot, or influence hiring in any way – and definitely do not pay anything for such claims. If you do believe and interact with them, it is at your own risk and loss. Mindfire Solutions is not responsible in any way for such interactions.)

 

Quietly.

Quietly, Mindfire has created one of the best packages for freshers, nationwide.

At Mindfire Solutions, we have always believed in providing industry-leading packages for talent. We have raised the bar in 2014 with a lucrative pay package and other elements that will surprise you.

1. Salary
Our uniform entry-level salary for all 2014 technical freshers is Rs 35,000 per month (Rs 4,20,000 per annum). All fixed, all guaranteed. This in itself is perhaps in the top 90%. Whoa! But wait – this is just salary. We have more!

2. Free Tablet
On the day you join, you take home a gift of a tablet (Apple iPad mini 3G or Samsung Galaxy Note 8) worth about Rs 30,000. It belongs to you. A nice little welcome to a new life.

3. Free Insurance
You and your parents/family are eligible for medical insurance, with annual premium up to Rs 6,000 paid by Mindfire, which generally gives you insurance coverage up to Rs 3 lakhs.

4. Free Lunch
For past 8 months, we have had free lunch at all our centers. We do not foresee discontinuation of this facility – people have been thrilled!

5. Zero Bonds
Mindfire is against bonds of any kind. We do not bind you with any bonds, disguised as “service contract” or any clever words. You can walk out at any time if you get a better option for your career/life (with a month’s notice). We wish you well.

6. Zero Deposit
There is no financial deposit of any kind. Neither a bank guarantee or anything. The only thing you need to give is your talent, your energy, your dedication. Everything else is for you to get.

7. Zero Bench
We will get you real work within 6 months of joining. You don’t have to sit idle on bench for 2-3 years, destroying your long-term career and future.

8. 100% Learning
You will learn by doing practical work. You will have active guidance and help and resources, and you will learn by doing and reading and discussing – not by being taught by someone. Being taught is passive, learning yourself is active – the chosen path for winners.

9. 100% Job Security
Mindfire has not had layoffs at any time in its history. Neither in the mega recession of 2000-2002, nor 2009-2010, nor at any other time ever. People are asked to leave only due to individual performance problems, and at 2% it is the lowest in industry. OK, let’s be direct: yes, if you have no interest in work and tech, we will ask you to leave.

10. 100% Stability
Mindfire is a self-funded organization with no bank loans or external debt or borrowing of any kind. We have hundreds of clients spread all over the globe in various industries, which diffuses risk factors and renders us an enviably strong and stable foundation. We have been continuously and comfortably profitable since 15 years.

11. 100% Software Development. Only.
Mindfire is a place for pure software development, nothing else. We do not do production support, technical support, and a zillion other types of work. We take up only work which is software development (programming and testing), so you will always get hardcore tech work only.

 

To Mindfireans: 11 is an odd number. Which item above should we cut (unimportant for freshers) so that it becomes 10? Or which other item can we add to make it a dozen?!

To Software Freshers: we love you if you love tech. As you can see above, Mindfire will give you a lot. The only thing you need to give is your talent and time. Do come on over and apply for the best IT/software jobs at http://www.mymindfire.in/AddMyProfile.aspx!

But shh, quiet. Don’t tell your friends where you found the best opportunity. Don’t tell them about Mindfire.

Shh.

 

 

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Thank God It’s Friday – Mindfire Style!

Organizations and Leadership, Software Industry, Thoughts, ,

 

At Mindfire, we recently had a proposal to have one day of the week as “Work From Home” (WFH) for everyone.

A day working at home would allow a day’s escape from the commute. It would enable flexibility in planning personal stuff, including spending time with family.

The ideal day was Friday. Practically, it would mean Fridays blending seamlessly into the weekend, and undiluted weekends. People with family few hours away could travel overnight on Thursday, work from home on Fridays, and have two full days at home. And it would make Fridays a little more fun and a little more free!

Awesome! Doable? Hmm.

We shared the idea with people at our Bangalore center, to gauge response and interest. It quickly became obvious that people loved it! Given Bangalore’s epic traffic and commute problems, it was not surprising that most people preferred to avoid the roads.

Of course, there are some problems. Some people may have connectivity issues and actually prefer to work in office. Some people may have hardware or device-dependent work which cannot be taken home. Some work may need bandwidth which is not available at home. And certain work (such as Hiring) simply has to be done at office.

But there are enabling factors. First is our 100% laptop environment, which allows both mobility and reduces power-cut issues due to battery backup. Second is availability of cheap and reliable Internet connections. Third is the Mindfire culture – of being outcome-oriented instead of needing to see people sitting at their desks.

There is the gnawing problem of unfairness for people who cannot enjoy Friday WFH because their work cannot be done from home. Will they enjoy the joy of others? Or will they hate a facility they are excluded from?

It is a balanced risk. People understand if they have work issues at home, they need to rush to office. People also understand that freedom and flexibility come with responsibility. And that good things come hard, but go easy!

To test the waters, we are rolling this out at our Bangalore center from August 22, Friday.

This is a trial, an experiment in Work 2.0. If there are problems with work, it will have to be discontinued. If it works, it will be rolled out at our Bhubaneswar and Delhi centers as well. Helping positive ideas succeed enables us to do more, to move forward, while failing takes us a step backward.

 

Will it work? I will update what we find out! Life is discovery.

 

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Pre-paid Salary: The Shocking Result of Our Poll

Organizations and Leadership, Thoughts, ,

Few days back I wrote about salary traditionally being paid after work is done (end of month), and how it could possibly be paid in advance of the month as pre-paid salary.

After that, we ran a poll with 600+ people inside Mindfire. This was not an academic poll – it was an actual serious offer to change salary to be on pre-paid basis. The result was pretty much certain – people would obviously always want salary as soon as possible, and before the month – before work is done – is sweeter than honey. Obvious, right? Right?

Wrong!

The results are an absolute surprise.

About 70% people voted. Of those, 60% people voted for salary at end of month – same as today! 7% voted for salary in middle of the month, and 33% voted for salary before the month begins. If you regard the 30% absentees as voting in favor of status quo, it is a straight majority for post-paid salary, at 72%!

I have no idea why people do not want salary before work is done. Maybe it is self-respect. Maybe it is maturity. Maybe it is to be in sync with rest of the world. Maybe they trust Mindfire and salary is not an issue. Maybe people see no reason to do it, and no benefit of doing it. Maybe there is no need for (earlier) money.

One thing I do know: thankfully we didn’t just start pre-paid salary without asking people for their choice. It was dead simple “obvious” and “certain” that people would like it, so we could have just rolled it out in the comfortable assumption that people would appreciate it. But asking people allowed us to get true pulse. And now we know better – people don’t want it. And there ends this adventure!

Lesson learnt: it is dangerous to assume, even on seemingly “obvious” things. The world is full of surprises!

 

PS: It would be interesting to run similar polls in different organizations, and check what patterns emerge. If you happen to run it in your team, do let me know how things go!

 

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Product Engineering

Product Engineering and User Experience process.

Software Engineering, Software Quality, Basanta Moharana

What is Product Engineering?

Product engineering is known as the process to develop or design, system or a device such that the product is treated as an item for sale or to be used by various people. When a product is being developed, there is a lot of work and technology involved in the development process. This overall process is called as product engineering. Product engineering is usually called as an activity dealing with issues of cost, reproducibility, quality, performance, reliability, serviceability and user features. If the process goes through a proper creative way the outcome is awesome.

The term product engineering is; developing the concept and the design of the product and development of its mechanical, electronics and software components. For example: developing a smartphone. Now-a-days smartphones are very popular in the market and a lot of new and old companies in the way of competition, give away better product feature to customers. A product like smartphone includes a set of different features like designing the body, it’s hardware components, packaging it in a small space, developing the electronics that controls the various components and lastly developing the software which will operate all the features of smartphone known as the Operating System.

Here are some skills taken care for product engineering process
– Product statistical methods and tools
– Hi-tech manufacturing process
– Product reliability and user research
– Computer-aided design and simulation programs
– Strong knowledge product platform which the product will use
– Strong analytic work methodology and problem solving skills

In software industry, the term Product Engineering is used as development process of a software or an application. From making of prototype to final release of the application process, it is called as product engineering of the application.

Product engineering of an application. Points that everyone should follow:
– Prototyping of the complete application. (Visual Concept)
– Structural designing or User Interface designing.
– UI or Front end development. (What browser or compiler will read?)
– Backed or functional development. (Through which user will carry out work.)
– End user testing and bug fixing.
– Final product delivery.
This depicts the entire process for a successful web, desktop or mobile app.

What is user experience?

User experience is combination of two words, “user” and “experience”. The experience of a user towards a product or an application is called as User Experience. UX or User Experience in other term can be explained as the emotion of a user when he/she uses it. It may be good or bad. The good experience of user towards a product plays a vital role in the product’s success.

Let me give you a simple example. “One day at night you came to know that you have to reach office early in the morning at 7AM the next day to attend a meeting. For that you set your alarm at 6AM and go to bed. When you wake up in the morning and see that it is already 6.30 AM and the alarm hasn’t rung. You found that, the alarm is off due to battery drain out. You rush to the coffee vending machine for a cup of coffee but only to find out that there is no coffee. You could trace out that the machine is not connected to the power source. In the process you have already lost some time.

Then you get ready for office in 10 mins. While going to office by your car you face a lot of traffic for some unexpected reason. Then you notice that you are running out of fuel. So, you have to drive to a nearby petrol pump only to find out that the petrol pump does not have a card swipe machine. You rush to a nearby ATM and withdraw money. Finally, after fighting out so many obstacles, you reach office only to find out that the lift you use to take daily to reach to 5th floor does not work. Then you are forced to take the stairs and when you reach you find that the meeting is over and your colleagues have started work.
If everything would have fallen in place, you would have never missed the meeting.

The software or system that misguides you and does not help you achieve your goal is an example of bad user experience. Example – Google mail is most popular web application than other mail client for its good user experience. I personally like Google+ than Facebook because of its user friendly features and faster response. Looks doesn’t matter in the process of user experience. Please look at the two images which is called Donald Norman (design and usability engineer) Coffee Mug.

User experience has a vital role in software product engineering. Deep user research is key to success for better user experience. Taxi for Sure – A Driver app developed by a start-up company in Bangalore is a very famous app for taxi drivers. People use it for daily for hiring taxis. This free mobile app is very popular due to its user experience.

Key concept for better user experience.
– Deep user research. Feel the user motion
– Minimal and clean design of application
– Less page loading time
– Quick navigation through the functionalities
– Readable typography
– Minimum page refresh
– Avoid long loading graphics
– Graphical representation of functionality, by which user can understand the function easily without reading long text description.
– End user testing with exact devices.

Happy Designing 🙂

 

 

 

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