Globalization has had a great impact on the Indian Economy in last 2 decades and the Indian IT industry has surely reaped its portion of benefits transforming from virtually nothing to an industry of $200 billion in such a short span of time. With this boom in the software industry which is expected to reach the $300 billion mark by 2020, becoming a software engineer has undoubtedly become the dream of every engineering grad. And why not, it’s no secret that software developers make great money these days.
Although the average salary for a Software engineer(developer,programmer,etc.) in India is around Rs 400,000 per year, many developers take home the best salaries in the country making around Rs 30-40 lakhs per annum. If you take a glance at the figures abroad, the salaries scale onto a whole new level, definitely tempting you to try out your hand at programming straightaway. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual salary for a software developer in the United States is around $100k with the leading companies in techspace like Google and Amazon shelling out $250k and above as salaries to their employees.
It’s true that there is a lot of disparity in the salaries offered to software engineers in India with IT consultancy companies like TCS and Accenture offering Rs 3 lakhs to startups like Flipkart and Amazon paying handsome salaries ranging from anywhere between Rs 20-30 lakhs to their employees for the same level of work experience. The job profile and the education background do attribute to this huge difference in the compensation, but at the end, it all boils down to your skills as all the companies are willing to pay for talented and skilled individuals only and one definitely needs to be passionate about his work and be prepared to pull up his socks to get to that level of pay.
While there is no magic formula or definite way to make this much amount as an engineer, you can take up some of these advice shared by experienced professionals on various threads and blogs, to avoid common mistakes made by young minds and be assured of moving on the right track towards your goal:
Choose a suitable industry
For you to mint money, your organization also should be doing so. No matter how good of a coder or a designer you are but if the business or industry you’re in is unable to support and leverage it, you won’t be able to get your desired pay. So choose the company wisely seeing where your skills can fit in, be best put to use and paid for as well.
Work as a consultant
If getting the top-dollar for your work is your ambition, working as a freelancer or consultant is considered one of the best ways to go. There are naturally some drawbacks with it like having to cover for your own benefits, the uncertainty of your next project and potentially crazy hours. But, with the greater risks come potentially bigger rewards.
Become an expert
Having a wide knowledge base about various technologies is always beneficial for a software engineer, but having deep domain expertise is of paramount importance. The latter can pay off handsomely if you pick up a skill that is in great demand in the market(e.g., Android) and even more so if you have a rare expertise, while the former can help you promote yourself as a general problem solver while also shielding yourself when your technologies are not suitable for the work at hand and fall out of favor).
Long story short, the Indian IT industry has a lot of job opportunities for every individual but to cement your place in the industry, you need to earn it.
“If you are born Poor it’s not your mistake, but if you die poor it’s your mistake” – Bill Gates