Sapient or Accenture

[sangeeta kapoor]

I have got an offer from Accenture and Sapient (1.9 years of Java exp).
Accenture is offering 2.5L pa and I have to relocate to B'lore. Sapient is offering is 3.0Lpa and I have to relocate to Gurgaon.
Which one is better in ranchers view. I have heard a lot about the brand name of Accenture, not aware of Sapient.
Where are chances of future growth/working on good projects more. Which option should i choose.

Thanks

[Arjunkumar Shastry]

Sapient I heard doesn't do much coding work in India.Actually wherever you are ,its your individual communication,technical skills that matter.If they are good,someday somewhere you will be put on good project.

[ab parashar]

Both have a "hire and fire" culture.
To each,his own.

[Amit Saini]

Sapient I heard doesn't do much coding work in India

You gotta be kidding !! Where do they do the coding work then if not in India?

[Pradeep bhatt]

Originally posted by Amit Saini:

You gotta be kidding !! Where do they do the coding work then if not in India?

I have heard that Sapient give importance to presentation skills and not techinal skills. Even though presentation skills are very important I wouldn't be interested in a place where tech skills are not valued. My friend worked there and he got fed up. Others may have some good things to tell.

[Amit Saini]

I have heard that Sapient give importance to presentation skills and not techinal skills.

I agree to a certain extent. Having been through Sapients interview rounds, I think I would like to throw some more light on this.

Yes, presentation skills are very important. They wouldnt want a person who can't talk good English and can't present himself meeting with their top clients. That's just creating a bad impression! This is not just true of Sapient, but of ANY big consulting company in the USA. All of them want good presentation skills.

When I interviewed with them, I wasn't asked any tech question directly on Java or .NET. Instead, I was giving a business scenario and asked to make a high level design of it. They asked me the choice of data structures to be used, the choice of algorithms and so on. All other rounds were presentation based or behavioral.

But saying that they dont value technical skills is a bit extreme. All their coding in done in India (most of it). If they don't care about technical skills in India who is going to make their enterprise applications? You're not possibly indicating that they do more coding work in USA than in India ! That would be wierd, considering they have two offices in India.

[Anjali S Sharma]

Sapient will not let you work in any particular technology. I have a friend in Sapient and in 2 years he has worked in J2EE, dot net, testing and data warehousing. He says this happens to everyone not just junior developers.
Some people say this is good for your career growth as you get an overview all technologies, some say it isn't. Depending on your views you can make a decision.

I think Accenture will let you stay with J2EE and will not shift you in different technologies, although not sure of this, just a guess
All the best, whichever company you choose.
[ July 30, 2005: Message edited by: Anjali S Sharma ]

[Pradeep bhatt]

But saying that they dont value technical skills is a bit extreme. All their coding in done in India (most of it). If they don't care about technical skills in India who is going to make their enterprise applications? You're not possibly indicating that they do more coding work in USA than in India ! That would be wierd, considering they have two offices in India.

I know 2 people who worked there. I believe them.

[nithin nambiar]

i have been in sapient for arnd 2 yrs.
it's work culture and modus operandi is a bit different when compared to other IT companies.
it is more of a IT and business consulting company than a pure service oriented company.
for people who have a taste for client interaction and consulting ,probably sapient is best of the lot. But if you are a person who is keen to learn a particular technology and look forward to grow in technology ,sapient wont be the right choice.
sapient does most of the work on fixed time fixed price model ,which means all the work shud b completed within deadlines at any cost.most often people will have to work long hours and also on weekends.
you get to work with lot of bright and dynamic personalites ,which will help you grow your soft skills.also you get a lot of travelling oppurtunities.

please identify your taste and make a decision.

[Sharma Anjali]

Originally posted by nithin nambiar:
i have been in sapient for arnd 2 yrs.
it's work culture and modus operandi is a bit different when compared to other IT companies.
it is more of a IT and business consulting company than a pure service oriented company.
for people who have a taste for client interaction and consulting ,probably sapient is best of the lot. But if you are a person who is keen to learn a particular technology and look forward to grow in technology ,sapient wont be the right choice.
sapient does most of the work on fixed time fixed price model ,which means all the work shud b completed within deadlines at any cost.most often people will have to work long hours and also on weekends.
you get to work with lot of bright and dynamic personalites ,which will help you grow your soft skills.also you get a lot of travelling oppurtunities.

please identify your taste and make a decision.

That was very useful advice. You rightly said its a bit different from other companies. Although I am a bit surprised by this concept. If one keeps working in different technologies there is no way one can reach a Guru status in that technology. People with 6-8 months experience in each technology cannot IMHO become architects.
I have heard that Sapient has some huge projects in both size and complexity. But what amazes me is who designs those complex projects when what you have are generalists and not specialists. Does that mean all the tough part, designing etc is done elsewhere and then work is send here to be coded by generalists (just a wild guess ).
It's hard for me to believe that a person who has spend only say an year in J2EE (and was then shifted to some other technologies) would know about things like JAAS, JMS, JDO, Hibernate, Spring, EJB etc. I have almost 2 years of experience and I don't know most of the things I just typed.
[ August 11, 2005: Message edited by: Sharma Anjali ]

[Kj Reddy]

Originally posted by Sharma Anjali:


If one keeps working in different technologies there is no way one can reach a Guru status in that technology. People with 6-8 months experience in each technology cannot IMHO become architects.
[ August 11, 2005: Message edited by: Sharma Anjali ]

Its all depends how do you take the things. If you exposure to different technologies it will be helpful for you when you are moving up in the organization. When you became Project Leader/Project Manager you know different technologies and you have confidence of handling any technology related project. When things go down you can jump into any technology which is having more demand. Morever now a days in many projects you need multiple skills. Some requirements are looking for multiple skills like Mainframes and Java, Database skills and Java. Especially when there is a conversion project like converting VB code into Java its advantage knowing both VB and Java. If you are interested in Java still you can work in other technologies but keep an eye in Java too, that helps you.

[Sharma Anjali]

Originally posted by KJ Reddy:


Its all depends how do you take the things. If you exposure to different technologies it will be helpful for you when you are moving up in the organization. When you became Project Leader/Project Manager you know different technologies and you have confidence of handling any technology related project. When things go down you can jump into any technology which is having more demand. Morever now a days in many projects you need multiple skills. Some requirements are looking for multiple skills like Mainframes and Java, Database skills and Java. Especially when there is a conversion project like converting VB code into Java its advantage knowing both VB and Java. If you are interested in Java still you can work in other technologies but keep an eye in Java too, that helps you.

Thanks for replying.
I totally agree being a geenralist has a lot of advantages. But what I'd like to know is how these companies manage to do some of the things for which specialists are required. Say designing an application which is huge in size and complexity. I am not a sure a generalist who has not worked in a particular technology for more than 1 year can design an Enterprise Java application which involves complex J2EE technologies as mentioned above.

[Siddhartha Sharma]

Originally posted by Sharma Anjali:


Thanks for replying.
I totally agree being a geenralist has a lot of advantages. But what I'd like to know is how these companies manage to do some of the things for which specialists are required. Say designing an application which is huge in size and complexity. I am not a sure a generalist who has not worked in a particular technology for more than 1 year can design an Enterprise Java application which involves complex J2EE technologies as mentioned above.

I work with infosys tech..here is my take

I guess the most important thing in Software is Learnability and adaptability...so one should learn(to the max of one's ability and time ) whatever one is working on !!!


As for specialist: THere are people called Technical Arcithects(those who have consistently worked long enough on multiple technologies) who decide on the framework....Developers and designers use the framework..

Unless you know mulitiple technologies, how would you know whic one would suit ur application

More often than not u will find if u know the concepts , implementation or technology is never an issue and genrally same..

Look at JSP fro J2EE or ASP from MIcrosfot , are they not very similar..

moreover this industry its on a need-KNOW basis..
U should know wat you want to do, Developer communities and GOOGLE do the rest

[Kj Reddy]

What Mr Siddhartha told is true. If you are given a project/application to develop you need decide many things like which technology is best develop, what database and lot many factors including money. When you know only Java how you will go ahead? After all now days every thing is based on Objects(either Java or .Net). For a person who knows CORBA it may not difficult to work with RMI,EJB. Even Microsoft DCOM concept is same.
So adapting yourself to different technolgies is not much difficult if you can analyse in systematic way.

[nithin nambiar]

yeah.
if you have worked on a lot of technologies you get to know the pros and cons of all the technology. This experience will enable you to make better decisions in the future.
Also most companies have a core technology specialist team which helps out people in various projects whenever they come across technology related challenges.
people who take up design of complex projects usually will be hugely experienced people in design and all.
As far as sapient is concerned they take up business wise very complex projects rather than technically complex projects.
the key is understand your client's business very well and solve the business problem using the technology,which sapient is very good at doing.

[Vineet Banerjee]

what are the kind of onsite oppurtunities Sapient provides to Sen Associates Tech

[Vineet Banerjee]

what are the kind of onsite oppurtunities Sapient provides to Sen Associates Tech

[nithin nambiar]

sr associates get a lot of travelling opportunities.
they are expected to do a lot of client interaction .
but it again depends on the project u r staffed.
they are unlikely to send new joinees as they prefer people with sapient experience first.

[Vineet Banerjee]

generally how much of Sapient exp is required