Indian 'Engineers'

This post is meant to do some serious bashing. If you're the kind of guy who doesn't like to be criticized, please don't read. I have a quiz tomorrow and yet I write this today. I always wanted to say this, but since there are just too many people around me who don't like the idea, I abandoned the thought. Today, one of our professors talked about what the so-called 'Engineers' in the country do and put his opinions on it and since they support mine, I publish this post.



You see many guys moving around with an ID card on their chest that has the name of some MNC, a job that pays a 6 digit salary and these guys go around saying 'I am God'. Fact, most guys never do anything really productive. Our prof put an example. A lot of guys are asked to do some simulations (say, in ANSYS). They're asked to do all the menial and time consuming tasks like creating a mesh and making an analysis when he has absolutely no clue of what it is about. He thinks the salary he gets is GOD-LEVEL.
I know two seniors who've app-ed (i.e. doing MS or PhD in a foreign university). One of them gets a 2.1k USD fellowship (during his PhD) and the other gets 1k euros (MS). So that's quite a lot- about 10 lacs and 7 lacs, when they're doing research as students under some professor. And how much might this professor get paid for that? Definitely a lot....
Our prof said this - "I've known people in Switzerland, France, Germany, etc... They never stick with these companies for very long. Maximum for three years and then they quit and start working on something more interesting and something that has true engineering rather than just using a calculator or a computer to make some manipulation. They have a lot more self respect than us." If you want to know what I mean, look at any forum or blog on some engineering subject, say building aircrafts. You'll probably find more amateurs from US than proper employees in our country.


Next, about 'INNOVATION'- probably the most overrated thing these days. Everyone wants to innovate, but no one's interested in inventing. Especially in the last few years, you can see a lot of start-ups coming up. Some have really good objectives, while some just want to hang around doing nothing good. 'This month you have a black colored cell phone with a screen on the top, next month you make a phone with the screen on the bottom, after that the screen goes on the back of the phone and maybe then it goes to the side of the phone.' Where's the engineering in this?
Everyone talks about i-pod as a great technology and all. MP3 players existed before that, and so did USB. Without either of them, the i-pod is just crap. Ask any 'innovator' to build the i-pod without that.

Our prof claimed he got to read the policies of certain European countries on technology (and I believe he did, he's definitely a hi-funda guy). Most countries have two key words that take priority- DISCOVERY and INVENTION. These are the things that really stand out in the long term. Innovation doesn't really bother them. Say computers. 'Real' institutes care probably only about creating memory on smaller chips and maybe creating maximum cache, processing, very low cost LCDs,etc.. but they are really not interested in working on which color the screen should be, where the mousepad should be and so on... And once again, the 'Indian Engineer' comes into the picture. For this useless salary, he's dragged into the job that is absolutely shit.