New Job Title: [Associate] Business Analyst

OK so I was hired by my company with the title of "Software Engineer." Before I was hired, I asked my recruiters what exactly I would be getting into. A lot of us [there are over 80 of us from the US here] had the same question, since many have come from non-technical [liberal arts] backgrounds. And what they told us was that we would undergo a very intensive, technically-oriented six-month training in Mysore that would focus on programming techniques, coding, new technologies, all that, but when we go back to the States we won't be programmers but business analysts.

See, this company works only because of its patented delivery model. Think about it. A client in the US needs some IT solutions for his company. He contacts us. Analysts and consultants living in the US meet with company execs, determine what exactly the client needs, design specifications and prepare technical documents. They pass those things on to programmers in India, and then they go to bed. While the US sleeps, India is wide, wide awake. Programmers put together what needs to be done, pass it back to the consultants, then go to bed. While India sleeps, the US is wide, wide awake. Analysts and consultants on site are responsible for implementing and seeing the solution through to completion.

So basically the reason we were hired is because we're already familiar with US business culture and practices. We can speak English 100 times better than the Indians here. US clients [which provide our company with the overwhelming majority of its business and revenues] would feel more comfortable with US consultants. And we're more comfortable with client interfacing.

So under that understanding we signed up. At the same time though, we understood that the reason we were undergoing a six-month technical training was because our company is an IT solutions company. All of its employees who work for and with clients should have a fair understanding of programming concepts. They want us to be prepared to do on-site coding and maintenance - small stuff - if the need arises, although large-scale hardcore programming is left to our Indian counterparts.

So with all that said, things went terribly wrong. We were in training for over 3 months, and the people who are responsible for all company-wide entry-level training have just now realized that we are NOT going to be programmers! Clearly, US HR understood this, and they communicated that to us, but India HR apparently does not understand what is going on. [Lack of communication and miscommunication are two of our biggest problems in this company. It's abysmal.] We're not even the first US batch! We're the third! And only now that we've made a ruckus are they starting to understand that we're doing the client interface side of the business, not the coding side.

So to that end, Education & Research [E&R] put together a separate training stream that took us out of the technical training we were in 2 weeks ago and put us into a training that will actually explain to us, and help us prepare for, what we will be doing once we return to the States. So that's good news because now I don't feel like my training here will be a total waste. I mean it's great we've learned all this technical stuff and all, because it only makes me better-rounded and more marketable if/when I move on to another company, but in the immediate short-term, my first concern is being able to do my job well. And I know people who have joined the company and gone through the same training in the previous two US batches, and they've felt when they get back to the States that this training didn't really prepare them for their job in the US.

So now it's been a week and a half or so, and things are going swimmingly well. We have our first exam tomorrow [Wednesday], and it will be part multiple-choice objective, part open-ended subjective, which is almost exactly like my college exams. They've named this new stream Business Analyst training, and upon returning to the US we will have new titles. Officially for company purposes, as of right now we're still Software Engineers, but by the time we get back to the States there should be a new job role created called, most probably, Associate Business Analyst, which then opens up opportunities either as a BA or as serving in some other client-interfacing capacity.

Just thought I'd share.