SISO Times

Tomorrow is July 14th 2011. It was exactly four years back that I entered the corporate world fresh from the college life. My software engineer's life started at SISO. So I thought I will pen my memories about it.


It was February of 2007; three more months were left for my graduation. I wanted to get into networking companies. I was interested to get into Cisco, and no one other company sounded interesting to me then, so I had let go many opportunities. Cisco was one of the last companies to visit PESIT in the Tier 3 slot, and when it came I could not clear the written test. Only consoling thing was that all my close friends at PESIT were also in the same state, and we use to crib about not getting into the product company now and then.

After the Cisco episode I had learnt my lesson and I had decided that I will give some serious tries to get into one good product company. At this point, the savior “Samsung India Software Operations” came into the picture. SISO had come for campus placements at PESIT for the first and last time (as they believe no other college other than IIT, NIT and BITS is good enough for their campus placements).The presentation given by HR and the work at SISO seemed to be interesting. The salary was another attractive point. So with one written test, one tech interview and one HR round I got into SISO. The best thing was my very good friends, Raghu, Dada and Mohan also got through. Half of my bench was in SISO now. For me this is how the life at SISO started on July 14th 2007.

First three months at SISO was fun, this consisted of 1 week training at Royal Orchid, 1 month C and C++ training and then another 2 months networking domain ramp up as I had chosen Telecom and Networks division at SISO. From the time I joined SISO until I left, I have worked at Telecom and Networks division itself , in various projects in Wireless and Core networks.

Samsung Electronics is a very diverse company, working on TV, Ovens , Mobiles, Printers, Memory Chips to System LSI chips. You name a electronic gadget and Samsung will have its presence. SISO being Samsung Electronics largest overseas R&D centre works on all these products except for home appliances and digital cameras. According to me the best division in SISO is SAIT (Samsung Advanced Institute Technology) Labs or ATD, now even Telecom and Networks is part of this group. This is because ATD generally works on advanced technologies and standardization, where the scope for research is more. Work life balance is quite high in this division.

Mobile division in SISO is huge, it is the largest group in SISO with almost 75% of employees working in this division. Mobile division at SISO is very dynamic, where change is the only thing which is certain. There is generally little more pressure in this division compared to any other divisions at SISO. This division mainly concentrates on commercialization, which brings in lot of revenue, so one can expect lot of onsite and better hikes at this division. There is also large amount of politics that needs to be faced in bigger teams at mobile division; it is one of the toughest parts at SISO. Some teams in mobile divisions are actually very badly managed, where the average working hours is the only thing that is counted. But yes there are some very good awesome teams also present in the same division.

SISO's advantages are in its pay, onsite, cutting edge technologies in consumer electronics domain and job security. SISO also provides lot of freebees like free breakfast, lunch, dinner, cab facility, annual gifts, and discount sales. As a fresher if one joins SISO, there are lot of things to learn and also lot of opportunities to go onsite in a short span. Also one can get involved in many of extracurricular activities like Casa-Fete, Football , Cricket , Chess , Rajyostava celebrations , Dandya Nights , Singing, Short Story , painting, Floor decoration etc...

As every coin has two sides, even SISO has. It has a very strict security policy; one has to go through metal detector every day. A person cannot work from home at any cost. A person cannot be flexible in his work timings. Employee should be in office for 9 works irrespective the amount of work one has. The organization is bit of autocratic type, where everything is decided by our higher authorities and we need to just follow them. Taking leaves is not that easy, particularly if it is for more than 3 days, even though the amount of work one has is less. One thing is for sure, according to business requirements one can be moved from one domain to other in a short time , and we should be ready for the continuous change that takes place. Some teams in SISO work very hard , going for night outs continuously for months together, particularly when employees are at Korea or USA for mobile commercialization work.

I at SISO had a good time. The job was cool, not much hectic mostly into R&D of wireless networks. Going to Korea twice a year for the demo of our prototypes making patents and writing papers was definitely special to me. I made life time friends at SISO like Arjun , Dhinesh, Somu, Aman , Manju, Sunil, Sharath , Suresh , and Jithu. Being with friends was the best part at SISO; I had lot of fun with them at the office as well as out of office.

But yes I was not happy with everything at SISO, particularly the now and then change of projects being done now and then, the timing policy during 2010, the strict security policy, the lack of value for employees feedback, the rigid rules and lack of confidence in employees ability and skills all made me to think for change . And out of box, from nowhere I got a very good opportunity at HP to work for processors, that also for one of their leading servers, with a decent hike. I never gave a second thought before taking up this opportunity because from my engineering days the two subjects I liked a lot were Microcontrollers and Networks. I had worked in the networks already for 3 year and 6 months and now the second most interesting thing was beckoning me , and I just sent the acknowledgement ..........