Software Engineers? How many a penny?

I can see the effect of inflation everywhere in Bangalore. A KG of elaki banana now costs Rs.35. A Hamam soap now costs Rs.18. But value of one ‘commodity’ is getting cheaper and cheaper here. I need not tell, what it is. It is none other than the software engineer. Where ever you turn, you can see one. If you need one, just publish a ad. 1000s will turn up.

In an efficient global economy, one should produce only what he is good at. One should not try producing something, which someone else can produce more efficiently. In this way the entire system will operate at the maximum efficiency and trade of goods and services will flourish. In India millions of young minds are passing out from engineering institutions. So why not focus on SW engineering than trying to learn and do other things? Yes, we can do that provided we are good at it. But the bigger question is are we good at it? I am not going to answer this question. You yourself can think on it.

Another peculiar thing about this profession is, it makes so much of noise. You can hear the overused buzz words like, ‘innovation’, ‘creativity’, ‘challenge’… Due to this overselling, two things happened. One, these words lost their true meaning. Whoever was really doing those things lost their value. Second, every other guy whose title is ‘Software Engineer’ started believing that he is innovating.

To make it simpler, assume you have a dumb but capable servant working under you. Your job is to make him do work in whatever way you want. Is doing this job a innovative one? But this is what most of software engineers are doing. They are writing instructions to make a machine do some work…

No, I am not defacing the job of a software engineer. Every job is an important one. A guy selling movie tickets in a small town, does that till he retires. It is not as if he is doing some low grade job. Yes, it is a clerical job; still he fulfills his duty and contribute to smooth functioning of this society. But he never oversells his profession. Why don’t we software engineers accept that most of us do a clerical job and still be proud of it?

Passion is needed to do any work effectively. But we Indians are used to taking pride in almost everything and chewing on our past success. Life is much bigger than code and companies. Innovation comes into picture, when one does somthing that has some impact on our day-to-day life. Designing a cellphone is not an innovation, but designing it so that it can be used as finantial identity is an innovation!