by on

Cost of living changes and salary changes will never match. It is a never ending debate because of the disconnected way in which the cost of a basket of goods and services change. In India, in the last 20 years, petrol price has risen only 3x but gold has risen 12x which people compare it to a standard way of thinking about inflation but it is not, as it is also a commodity backed by demand and supply.

By comparing the absolute number cost in the last 20 years, vehicles cost about 2x, petrol 3x, clothing 3x-5x, food 5x min in staple raw material cost, almost 10x in green groceries, rental and property 5-10x, phone bills 0.7x, feature phones 0.3x, in general electronics & communication – more features and lesser cost. For a basic living it is generally considered that we have good food, clothing and shelter. In that sense the cost of living has gone up around 5x-7x for most of us. There are some services like hospital and education which have increased the spectrum on both ends thereby making it difficult to assess but in general we can say that also falls in the 5x-7x bucket. We spend a significant amount of money on the basic expenses so 5x-7x change looks a good ballpark.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The inflation data from across the world suggests that India went through an inflation of around 4x in the last 20 years. This data takes a wide basket of goods and services not just the basic few we have looked at. With that in mind if I compare to the wages offered 20 years ago. The big IT companies in India provided an average entry level salary of 2.1 lakhs per annum in the year 2004. This is for a person just out of college without any experience. The range was something between 1.5 to 5 lakhs per annum. If this was the case in 2004, as per the economists figures in 2024 should be around 6 to 20 lakhs per annum for fresher programmers. If we use our 5x-7x yardstick then the number jumps up a great deal. In reality salary numbers do not keep up.

Why do not salaries keep up with the cost of living? The answer is demand and supply. In the early 2000s an entire state of Tamilnadu produced programmers who have good comprehension and coding skills to just fill up a small office building year on year (In 1000s to 10,000s). Initially companies were so choosy that it was difficult to appear even for an interview if you are not from a top tier college, slowly they moved to lower tier colleges and by the end of 2000s massive walkins were encouraged to hire talent. This trend disappeared when the supply caught up for freshers leaving the salaries stagnated as there were more freshers than available jobs.

It applies in other fields as well, my neighbour who was owning and driving a taxi which was semi luxury 20 years ago earned around 20,000 rupees a month in profit. The cabs and drivers supply hit more than the demand that now the same person will barely make 1.5x to 2x of that money. The only way for us to keep be on the happier side of the cost of living is to create a demand for our skills. A lot of freshers do the mistake of early specialisation, choosing a well paying tech job in a narrow field which works in the immediate future but locks them up forever in a stagnant skill set.

Photo by Vanessa Garcia on Pexels.com

I keep repeating this statement – software development is about communication of different systems built by different teams. The more things the software does, the more overhead it has, to deal with people and process. For us to get a hang of what is going on in the overall landscape, it is possible only if we have explored the lengths and breadths of technology and tools. It is not necessary to be an expert in each and every aspect, but should understand them in first principles. A developer who spent their early years working in UI, backend, infrastructure, mobile development, data engineering and using different programming languages like Javascript, java, python will have a thorough understanding of the tech landscape. The same developer when working on legacy projects, green field development, brown field development and maintenance will gain enough experience on people, process and engineering in the long run to become a VP of engineering compared to someone who specialised very early in a tech because that was hot.

With AI coding assistants growing in capabilities, there is now even more demand for generalists who can grok and handle a lot of things in the length and breadth. Avoid the temptation of now and plan for the long run, a career is not over in 10 years. Flexibility in the early years and learning compounds to a great growth in the long run.

by on

At a logical break from a task which requires focus, I switch to answering mails and chats. One thing that I find difficult to respond to is a series of messages from different people just saying “Hi” or “Hello” or some other one liners which checks ‘how you doing’? People will let me know why are they pinging only when I respond back with a “Hi”.

People are so used to whatsapp communication in personal lives which happens almost instantaneous especially from a section of people who like to be always on. For people engaged in knowledge work, it is extremely hard to have a full duplex communication. The messaging apps have to be considered async first. This means, say what you want to, just like how you write a letter by post to the person expecting long turn around times.

For a remote friendly workplace, first rule that makes it work is async communication. For that to be effective message exchanges have to be rightly sized so that a receiver can read and respond at one go instead of trying to resume the thread once someone becomes available. People should not be available by default for synchronous communication unless they accept a meeting request.

If you have not been an async receiver or a sender, try this for a while – resist the temptation to answer to emails and instant messages immediately as they arrive, best is to turn off notifications for all messengers or any other application. If you receive a ‘Hi’ only message, respond to it in your next window, but resist the temptation to reply synchronously unless you are available.

by on

Stock markets are at high, keeps breaching previous highs every now and then. Economy should be doing well and life should become easy right. I was surprised to see that instead of life becoming good, experiences all around are either stagnant or deteriorating.

Some of the recent experiences I have reflect the new trend. I went to a speciality restaurant for a good dining experience. This was an upscale restaurant chain which gave fantastic dining experiences before for our family. When we went in, we noticed that the restaurant has split into two distinct cuisines (Chinese and Bengali) within the same space with just some seating demarcation. The special food is going to be cooked in the kitchen by the same set of cooks. The ambience had a worn down look with paints peeling and seats torn. When we received the menu, we immediately noticed that the prices have increased by 25-30% and the portion sizes have come down 25-30%. The waiter had no idea on what the menu is about, had no suggestions on how to go about a multi-course meal. In the end, the experience on dining big was just on the bill amount, nothing else. It would have been a better experience having the food from a cheap takeaway and eating it while watching TV at home.

Similar heart burning experiences everywhere. Cabs are not assigned to you during peak hours unless you pay a hefty premium for the same cab. Mobile apps are misusing the notifications feature to deliver ads. OTT subscriptions downgrading you in the middle of the subscription plan to serve more ads. Grocery delivery is sending bad quality produce for regular delivery and introducing a premium feature for fresh produce. The list goes on.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The push from success to excess is evident even in non consumer space. I noticed a recent trend, many executives are asking for a template/runbook based execution so that they can do a lot with very little or no training to the people doing that job. In short they want jobs to be in black & white and easily doable by gig workers who can be onboarded and off-boarded at will just like food delivery. This kind of thinking harms in many ways, one – it starts to increase the need of people who are good at parroting not an original thinker, the other is infusion of a blandness and mediocrity in everything; check for thermometer in amazon for proof. It is not just limited to every day items, even cars start to look the same across brands.

Executives think that they are special and can bring in insane profits by making people do exactly what they say, which may be true in the short run. History says that the best advancements came from grounds up not from top down. The cognitive load that it causes on the executives who do not want their workforce to think because it hampers their execution is huge, it will cause a flameout, momentarily burning bright before failing. Resilience and collective wisdom is poorly understood because it has a very long learning horizon. Being resilient will even come across as inefficient in the short run, but will prevent uncle points.

The more from less mindset that happens through grabby nature instead of advancements and innovations is hard to curtail now, it may be a cycle in the economy. We may have to weather it out before it improves again.