How to pick a company that will really launch you?

By: Krishnan Nair, Co-founder, Geektrust

Let’s break this down for a minute. What does it mean to launch your career? In my book, a company that can launch you is a company that allows you to build your skill, values you for the person you are empowers you to take decisions and helps you grow as an individual. Unfortunately, you cannot do this in all organisations. Many a time, you’re trapped in a job without your having even realized it. It’s the case of a man chained to his seat. As long as he does not try to get up, he does not realise he’s chained.

If you’re working in an organization where you’re not learning, growing or valued, you should start taking steps to re-launch your career. Fortunately, the Indian tech scene is at a point where you can find these companies. Now the industry’s focus is on investing in innovation and talent rather than on lowering costs. We have the engine in place to do more, and to be more! Now is the time to be a part of companies making a difference to Indian tech.

So which company is the ideal fit for you? This depends on what you’re missing and what you want from your work. Here are 3 types of organizations that are likely to help you launch your career.

Organisations built around small empowered teams

These could be large firms but they are organised in a manner where there are small teams, and these teams are empowered to take decisions. There is less hierarchy or interruption from “higher-ups” or other management folks. Being a junior member of such a team gives you great flexibility and ability to learn. You get to learn different aspects of building software and not just finish tasks assigned to you.

What you get: A good learning environment, responsibility. You feel valued.

Smaller product companies

Software is only the means to an end. Solving hard business problems is the real deal. If you join a slightly smaller product company, it will give you great exposure to building software that solves business problems. You get to understand your customers (and their end customers), their needs, quirks, what drives them etc., and build software that makes a difference in their lives.

What you get: A deep understanding of end users, insights about usability and to deliver value quickly.

Startups

The right startup can really launch your career. Just ask the early team members at Flipkart, Paytm and the others. Joining a startup is fraught with risk from multiple aspects, but not from the angle of learning. Regardless of how well the startup does financially, there is little doubt that you’ll learn a lot. Having worked in the software services industry for 11 years, I can say that I learnt as much in my 1 year of starting up as I did in my past 11 years. The learnings are accelerated in startups. If you join the right place with the right set of founders, you learn about business, operations, marketing and of course building something end-to-end.

What you get: Learning that will help you grow exponentially. People with startup experience are valued highly by corporates too now.

Finally, at your current job

There’s no reason you shouldn’t consider re-launching your career in your current organisation. The first thing to do is to list down the experiences you want - exposure to new tech, closer interaction with customers, a leadership role and so on – depending on how you want to shape your career. Then take your request to the leadership team at your organisation. In many cases, it’s just a question of asking for something and you may just receive it. You never know!

What you get: A familiar environment to grow your career.