Things to be careful of before joining Infosys consulting
Pros
First the positive: - For those looking for security, this is it. Don’t make a lot of noise and do as you’re told and even worthless lumps survive unless there is a massive layoff that hasn’t happened in the past few years.
Cons
Now the negative - This is a tier 4 company - The leadership lacks basic sophistication and finesse, its absolutely 3rd class. If you are used to working in a professional, classy, sophisticated environment, you will feel like pulling your hair out. - Most people running the different practices have spent their entire lives inside the Infosys bubble , mostly on the delivery side and consider being part of consulting as a huge bump up for them. They have a huge chip on their shoulders against ex-big 4 types so you will be frustrated with the bureaucratic way that they function and the salaries you may be getting to attract you to this place - 9 out of 10 folks who have a BIG 4 BACKGROUND CAN’T STAND IT HERE. - Infosys consulting gets very low grade projects. Mostly application consolidation, data cleansing, etc. They advertise themselves as “competing with big 4” but that too is only in extreme back-office projects. This is literally the bowels of ops and tech. - THERE IS BARELY ANY DISRUPTIVE TECH WORK TO SPEAK OF - Because they get low grade, extreme back office projects the client resources also tend to be “rough around the edges”, desperately wanting to crack the whip and add to the frustration. - Career progression and your vision for what you want to do doesn’t matter, there is no path to pursue your interests. If you’re in a practice you’re stuck with whatever they put you on. - There is no objectivity in performance reviews, they are gamed big time - They will screw you on the bonus , most get only 65%-75% of the bonus (this is the situation in consulting, delivery side is a worse sewer) - This is a very ossified hierarchy, a sr consultant is supposed to do certain things and that’s it, a principal is supposed to do Y things and that’s it. There is no scope or reward for initiative. - It is an extremely political and frustrating environment. The communication is abysmal. The default setting top -down is delay, point towards someone else, obfuscate. It is an extremely bureaucratic and political - There is little or no critical thinking displayed by anyone, top down and bottom up, its like that pink floyd song, "ALL in all we're just a brick in the wall" - The account team relationship managers have all the power and they don’t give a damn about consulting or any other team leadership that is because the margins are managed not by execution and consulting team MDs but account team leads so consulting people are treated as crap and “overpriced” in a low dollar eco-system - Even the calculation of utilization is warped, the denominator is 365 (YES NOT EVEN 250, AFTER SUBTRACTING WEEKENDS AND PAID LEAVE). - It seems they are completely incapable of selling time and material projects. They will try to shave off a few days of work from your utilization on every project but they will bill the client. Engagement managers will deny a few days of utilization to each resource so the margins are higher. - I was surprised when on my first project the engagement manager says he allocated me to the project code in an ingratiating tone and I had to politely tell him , ya dude that’s what you’re supposed to do. - They rebadged people from companies whose operations and IT they took over as part of managed services agreements and treating them like crap. I have been on calls where rebadged folks broke down after the demeaning 3rd class manner they were talked to and this is by senior people on the Infosys side
