Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Course: Systems Architecture for Managers

Architects may fight with Managers and vice-versa. For reducing that friction, either of them should know of the other side of the table.

Thus, the course. Hence, I attend it with School of Computer Science and offered by Software Engineering Institute. Faculty instructors are Tony Lattanze and Robert "Bob" Monroe.

Tony is awesome at clarifying concepts and bringing in evolutionary perspective. Also, he engages the class well. I haven't attended Bob much yet and hence, cannot comment. As discussed at the start of this post, this course primarily deals with analyzing, designing, building large and complex inter-disciplinary systems. Heuristics for design principles, guidelines for analysis, engineering systems, etc will be dealt with in this class.

It has been just 2 classes and it has been good so far. They have a demanding future set of tasks w.r.t. 7 out 10 writeups....almost one per class.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Career @ Google ?!

Google treats its employees and prospective employees very well is the image. Former may be true but for the later......Au contraire, my readers !

1. When they held an information session on campus (they do that every now and then), someone asked them "career progression" and apparently the team bluffed its answers around it. Either they were ill-prepared or there is no structure in the organization (quite possible...given the fact that the org operates on the basis of CHAOS)

2. They dont reply the students either way. At the entry itself, if this is the condition, then after getting in, ppl said that noone will care much...though the extra stuff shown in the "Google behind the screens" video has been all fluffy and superficial and only to attract talent.

They dont reply for eons and then suddenly one fine day, they will email you ...out of the blue.
Your application gets lost in the CHAOS at Google. Either they dont have their act together or they simply dont care...both of which are detrimental to their image among the talent pool ppl.

On giving this as a feedback to the International Recruiting personnel at Google headquarters in NYC, I was told that Google is aware about this issue and that they are working on it.

Following are suggestions which I make:
1. Every applicant be given an application id which can be tracked.
2. Internally, the applicant must be mapped to someone, who will be solely responsible for communication with the applicant(s).

Companies which do not reply the employees in some definite time period tend to lose interest by talented individuals. Many sharp brains on CMU campus are now aware about this and have chosen to stay away from them. The sexiness of having a Google business card is fading rapidly !

broke

The trials and tribulations of an international student continue....even the fiscal test happened with this now.... My credit cards were maxed out!

I had to take up a Teaching Assistant job. I took it up for the course of Enterprise Architectures. I like the course and let us see how it all pans out.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

infosys information session

Instep was being propagandized. I could realise that this was similar to Campus Connect....just different packet name....cos I have handled Campus Connect organization for my alma mater and I know about the whole affair.

First of all, ppl didn't turn up. I think...by now, CMU campus is aware of the actual work that happens in InStep. Also, internship is in India, which is less paying. On an expensive campus such as that of CMU, students look forward to paying internships.

Second, Dismal show....not so engaging conversation !
Third, health services employee from US was present and he was a Tepper alum of 1997 and who joined Infosys in 2000. He used chalk and board to illustrate his example. Meanwhile, the recruiter's ppt got washed out.

of oil, infrastructure

I feel extremely annoyed when I see ppl who are living on the bus routes taking up cars to work. Annoyed because of the fact that we are on the verge of huge oil depletion.

OPEC came out with another announcement that they will be cutting oil production due to increasing inventories and $20 price drop from $78 high of the mid-July time period. I still remember filling up my tank at 3.19. Bush, the obvious adversary to this move by OPEC, has made some strong statements that ...this will "wreck economies and there will be lesser demand for their products" Assuming that Mr Bush has superior information and intelligence at this disposal, one needs to check out what one needs to do.

On one hand, the leader mentions this and on the other hand, the followers in squirrel hill still take up cars for going from 1 stop to the next. Such a shame! Remedies should start right from home and no by bullying others. It may work in some parts of the world but not against OPEC much. OPEC nations are nations which do not have US in their good books. Be it Chavez, be it Saudi, be it Iran....Bush is not in their good books and his statements will give them a distinct saddistic pleasure !

I am not frustrated...I am just annoyed. Bush must try revolutionizing the mindset of ppl if his party comes in power again. This can be done by providing the right infrastructure for that type of growth. US infrastructure for public transport is horrible in general and due to such a high per capita income, there is a high probability of ppl spending more and having customized transport in form of their own car ... rather than using public transport.

Now some thoughts for myself to ponder...before I resign ........Should I be in middle east for the next 2 decades? Will they be relatively insulated to the downturn?

Monday, October 23, 2006

Happy Diwali !

I've put up a post on Diwali on my other blog !
Wishing all my readers a very Happy Diwali and a prosperous New Year ahead !!!

I will update my flickr album soon !

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Network NewYork

At 6:15 am, we report at the University Center in school for boarding the chartered CoachUSA bus for Network NY.

The event is at Google Headquarters. NYC alums will be present at this event and I hope I get to meet a few. Its 2:30 am and I have to get my laundry done so that I can pack my bags and go to sleep for an hour or so.

Monday, October 16, 2006

...last 3 days of the mini

I am never gonna forget the last 3days of this mini.

5 exams in 2 days: Tuesday and Wednesday. phew...!
Fifty hours later, someone's gonna be a relieved man. ....relieved that it's all over.

Tuesday:
1:30 to 2:50 pm: Decision Making
3:30 to 4:50 pm : IT Project Management

Wednesday:
Morning..sometime : Econ
2-5pm:
6-8pm: Managing Services Org

Monday, October 09, 2006

GoogTube

Campus was abuzz today with this news of the all stock acquisition of YouTube. When GoogleIdol happened...I knew this was coming. I wish I could've blogged it.

A Google acquisition of YouTube would underscore what many observers believe about the future. Yes, it's about video. But it's also about a community and about reaching the so-called long tail of production and consumption opportunity on the Web.

Moreover, Google Ad-Sense and Youtube eyeballs will mint money for GoogTube.

However, this will be take-off from Google's philosophy to spend frugally on engineers to get the latest stuff made. The quest for hitting the market has reached so far ! Ppl questioned Hotmail acquisition by Microsoft for $400mn earlier....who will question this ? Will anyone? Does anyone understand what Google is doing to question it....is a question ! :)

interviews and interviews

Last week, I finished Barclays. I didn't go for Bank of America after reading the review on Vault (the review said that BoFA pays less than the industry standard and the environment is highly political).

The week before that was Salesforce.

This week, I interviewed with Microsoft and this Friday an office hour meeting with Diamond.
Diamond also has a session at noon on Thursday for their Global Outsourcing opportunities.

Letsee how everything turns out.

btw, MS interview ...went well initially ...and then they went on to link lists and stuff. However, it was a code-review and test review. I had lost touch with pointers due to exposure to Java/J2EE....but that's fine....cos at the end he mentioned... that he was just looking at the approach. I hope I get to fly to Seattle !

I am highly excited about the IPTV opportunity with Microsoft...and I look forward to hearing from them in the next 2 weeks.

Keeping my fingers crossed on all of these !

Salesforce...

That's kindda cool news. I am keeping my fingers crossed because I haven't heard from them back yet.


Salesforce Inc set to boost its Web software market

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Chinese mid-autumn celebrations

The Chinese students' association had mid-autumn festival celebrations yday at the UC (University Center).

Campus was filled with party environment. Heinz community had a potluck party. Ppl had made foodstuffs from their region. For instance, someone from the south had made southern dishes. Someone from South India had made sambar and idlis....some ppl brought in hot-dogs...some ppl brought in beer. ....etc

Also, there was another party for GSA (Graduate Students' ASsociation) at the UC in the Schatz dining room. I met a couple of MISM blokes and then got out of there as there was barely any momentum there.

All in all, there was party environment in the air.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Bill G

If you'd like to beg Bill directly for a job, his email is billg@microsoft.com. If you'd actually like an answer some day, send your questions to askbill@microsoft.com.

IPTV paper....

My telecom management paper's predictions are kindda in line with the stuff happening around now.

Today, morning, after my Barclays capital interview, when I went to Tepper for the Options class, I picked up the WSJ and discovered this article on Google idol show....media moving online and time shift...blah blah blah...

Well, this is in line with what our paper predicted of happening. Also, the earlier move of iPods having movie releases is in line with the same thing.

I think I will work on the paper more in the next mini and try to get it published or something like that. I must say Telecom Management class was really helpful in getting that perspective.

Moreover, I have also applied for Microsoft's Program Manager position with IPTV in mind. Atleast in preselect interview, I mentioned about it and I got a call for the next round. Letsee how it goes...I have given my availability on Monday for the same. Before that, I have to get most of the assignments out of the way.