Project based or a Product based company

[Vikram Kohli]

Hi all
What you all think about doing job in a Project based company or a Product based company. Right now I am working in one of the top project based company in India(just joined in July 2005), on bench , and preparing for the SCJP 1.4.
I really enjoy doing programming and designing. And what trend I am looking is that software it self is developing a Software, so that�s why I think that working in a Product based company will give more exposure to programming and designing. What you all think about it?

[Manish Hatwalne]

In the initial stages of your career, it is better to work for a consulting or what you refer to as a project based company as it would give exposure to diverse technologies & various aspects of programming. I think you are on bench because you're working for one of the best companies Jokes apart, but seriously bigger does not mean better in terms of work. I have seen some exceptionally mediocre people in bigger companies like Wipro/PCS/Satyam/MBT/Kanbay becuase they seldom do good programming.

- Manish

[Sameer Jamal]

I work for a product based company and the kind of work we do is pretty monotonous, most of the product based companies have some niche market and the products they develop is mostly based on that market, I mean if some company is developing product for finance domain then it is likely you will be working all the time in financial applications, the advantage is one become very strong in a particular domain and skill set. However in a consulting organisation you are exposed to several technologies and domains as rightly said by Manish those companies are good for initial stages in one's career.

From the start of my career I've worked mainly for product based company and belive me my domain skills are very limited and technical skills too which do not have much value in a service based organisation.

[Vikram Kohli]

Thanks Manish and Jamal for your valuable inputs, but the trend here as I mentioned earlier that the type of work is not creative and helps you to develop your programming and designing skills. Big companies like Oracle, Microsoft etc are now providing software products ,where half of the job related to developing an application is done. What you all think about this?
**I will appreciate inputs from all experienced people , as I am a fresher****

Thanks and Regards
Vikram

[s jain]

In product company u never got a feling of customer & also there development envolves big cycles.Work is relatively cool & slow.Technology wise very less to learn as u may be involve in fixing bugs & very few development from scractch.But good thing to learn is architecture.
But it seems service base comps give more value to skills rather than arch.

[Pradeep bhatt]

Product based company have better work is a myth. You dont get to work on nice technologies and your skill set will be limited. Product usually have a long life cycle so you will stuck in that team for a longer time. Things get boring. Pressure will be less and so will be travel opportunity. A great advantage is lesser documentation(no CMM crap), a big problem if you are in services company. It is possible to have a longer techincal career in product dev company. When I was working for services company I was feeling that working for product dev company but when I started working for a product company I felt otherwise.

[Japneet Singh]

Grass is always green on the other side. I am in product based company. I have to work a lot in bug fixes and portability issues. I always think that Project based company is better. But I am sure if I join a Project based company I will think the other way.

[s jain]

hi,
i am also have 1.5 yrs exposure to product & feel that good things in project:
+ onsite
+ client interaction
+ New techs.
+ more excitement.
+ buisness domain knowledge
but still have fear to join project one :

[Vikram Kohli]

Thanks Jain , Pardip and Japneet for your valuable inputs. I expect more inputs from ranchers.Where are you all experienced people............

[Sundar Murthi]

Hi Vikaram,

If your realy like to leran more technology and programming, best go for small or medium company's. It may be Product or project base. If u go for big companies like Wipro/TCS/Infosys...... as a friesher its dificult to learn getting in to the project itself make dificult. They are keeping lot of techies in bench......

I am also currently working in big MNC, But my learnings are very very less compare to my previous small company.

[sangeetha ram]

Hi friends, im in big confusion, help me. I got selected for two companies. one is a prject besed company and another is product based company. which one i have to opt please helpme. packge of project based is 2.7 L and for product based is 4 L. but problem is in product based i have selected for testing side and developer in project based. which one i have to opt. please help me

[Bobby Sharma]

sangeetha ram wrote:Hi friends, im in big confusion, help me. I got selected for two companies. one is a prject besed company and another is product based company. which one i have to opt please helpme. packge of project based is 2.7 L and for product based is 4 L. but problem is in product based i have selected for testing side and developer in project based. which one i have to opt. please help me

Hey Sangeeta , please create a new thread so that our ranchers can help you.New thread gets more
attention than old threads.


best regards,
omi

[Sandeep Awasthi]

There are three types of companies.

1) Service companies to which you call as project company. These companies mostly earn their business on billing. In these companies, you will have to work more and have to do work faster. You may get chance to work on different technologies. But no guarantee of new technolgy.
About work : Not always you work on development. Many times you have to work on bug fixing. Big / mid sized projects have three areas.
a) Development : This is nothing but fixing bugs, add new enhancements.
b) Support : These guys mainly act as first level/second level support. If something happens in the production, they have to take quick and immediate action for example restart the server and escalate the problem to second level/ third level support. The demarcation of first level , second level support differs from company to company or project to project.
c) QA : Which does testing , reporting bugs , verifying bugs which are fixed by development team.

In service companies you get little less pay than product company but you get onsite chances. Not everyone get chance to interact with customer in day to day operations. Mostly people at project leader, PM etc interact with customer. But in small projects, developer directly get chance to interact with customer.

2) In Product companies mostly they have their framework in which you work. You get little higher pay here, but less onsite chances. Here quality of the work is more important.

3) MNCs which have offshore development centers. These companies outsource their work to other software companies. Main business of these companies is not IT. But they have IT business unit which does some enhancement to exisiting products, bug fixing and vendor management. These companies also can pay you higher but you may not get exciting work here. But you can learn lot about management. Life is cool here. You don't have to stay 12-14 hours in office , on weekends etc. So if you want to do something like management courses in parallel, you can do it here. If you want to go to management, you should also look if company follow the processes. Few companies do not follow any process.

I would consider you as lucky if you get any project from scratch.

I have seen people unhappy in all the three kind of companies. So there is no guarantee that even if you do lot of analysis about companies, you will be happy.


I think ranchers can add more as thread will be noticed, please keep patience

[Ian C Jones]

Vikram-

I've recruited for many product and project companies in my career. In talking with thousands of engineers about the differneces, here's my summary of the pros and cons of each:

- Project companies are a great place to start your career. They offer a variety of projects, technologies, and roles and often allow you to meet a wide range of people at differnt clients on which to build your professoinal network. Lots of exposure will help you figure out what types of companies, technologies and challenges most interest you.

- Downside to project companies is that you are often given tasks rather than problems to solve. If the Client wants X functionality, its the job of a project company to deliver it. Sure, you can try and change their minds if there are better ideas, but the customer always has the final say. At good, progressive product companies engineers ofter have much more influence in deifning what the product does, how it functions, etc. In effect, you are your own client in some ways - for better or for worse.

- A lot depends on which product company you join. If you join a huge product company with an established product line and just maintain it, you may not get the same exposure as you would with a new product that is on the cutting edge. If you can hook up with a newer product that is breaking ground in a new area, that's when you can become a problem solver who just so happens to solve his/her problems through technology.

Bottom line is that if you are challenged and enjoy the people you are working with, that's what really matters.....

Good luck