omg.... u think TMnut so good in planning in management meh? they indeed need more network engineers to assist in their limited bandwidth nowadays. but where the money come from? and hardware cost in implementing more bandwidth is not cheap.

the bottomline : poor management poor planning = profit lost
when there's not enough money = throttle the bandwidth for and keep signing more new custom not enough bandwidth still want more customer....really

IT scope is very big. Not only programming.

i think one of the problem is the company itself.. some company treat their IT staff like company kuli where they ask u to type the company sales document, write letter using word while the job scope is to maintain company server.. one of my friend quit the job because of tat and he work in singapore.. i tot singapore would be better than here.. rupa rupanya same only..

Another problem is company do not do a proper planning before develop a software. They just copy the last project and do major customization on it until the program look bulky and unstabble. Code is a mess. Then new guy would have trouble to identify the correct flow because there is no documentation about the software they building. They built wat they think is right for them until customer say it is wrong then developer had to correct it. Project like this is 100% total failure because customer would not know until they finally use it for few week. By tat time the deadline is already pass.

Not to say wat but i think what my previous boss say is true. Last time development is more standard because it quite new. He told me last time he as a project manager he hired those peo with experience in the fields. Like the module is tax. then he will find top 10 peo who know tax veli well. put them into a room with those developer and customer's staff and ask them to come out with a best flow.. by the time my ex boss will have a very tick documentation. He told me the document is as tick as those yellow pages. Sent the document and ask the customer to sign it and verify. If customer sign then the system flow is verify n only start develop. If any changes during the develop he will ask the customer to request and pay for the changes. Because he already old n let those younger generation to rules the company until the company loss money.

Now peo are looking for short cut by just customize the previous program whereby both company policy is not the same. It was like a mess as time pass. Day by day code is modify until slow down the system performance.

So if the company sux no matter where is the company it still sux

This post has been edited by ckseng: Nov 13 2006, 11:32 AM

ckseng,

no choice, most of the software house in malaysia is like that...no proper project management...what their thinking is get payment ....

I feel the "low demand" is because "low quality", do you want to buy a helicopter if it might stop functioning when u are middle of watching KL city ? Even its very cheap ? These things need maintenance, if u cant use them, dont buy(strategy for most bosses). Seldom will think buy 1st, then fix and improve later.

Perhaps its a culture problem and not really a nationality problem?

Thats the thing, often times the people with the business sense are the ones making the technical decisions. From a business point of view, you'd think that copying from the last project and making tweaks would save you a lot in reinventing the wheel. Often times it doesnt work that way.

Thats the waterfall process, it may used to work in the old days, nowadays it doesnt anymore in a lot of cases. In fact even if customer signs it means nothing. Customer can force you to change without paying a single cent, and often do here. This is because of the damned backwards mentality of Customer is King.

Does ppl from EE background really have no chance to compete with IT graduates in job offers related to system/network etc?
I know the certs like ccna etc exist to certified the knowledge, but do employer really thing its compulsory to have one rather than to accept maybe a promising EE candidate without one, n maybe send him for training/test later on?

*looking in the perspective of jr.engineer/technician positions,

This post has been edited by e-jump: Nov 16 2006, 07:37 PM

The problem with IT is not just local. Here are my 2 cents:

1. Malaysia is caught between cheap countries like Indonesia, Thailand, China, India, Pakistan etc and innovative (but expensive) countries like US, Sweden, Australia. We are in no man's land. If companies want cheap, they hire foreigners from other developing countries. I was in a major ERP project (if you don't know what ERP is and you graduated in IT, you better go shoot yourself) for one of the biggest M'sian company, and almost half of the people on the project are from Thailand and Indonesia. On the other hand, if companies want innovative solutions to complex problems, they hire the Mat Sallehs and we had a Dutchman for our project director and an Indian from UK as the project manager.

2. No grassroot IT. For example, in UK. You have football schools for kids and teenagers. All the big clubs have youth academies. In Brazil you have babies playing football before they can even walk (ok, I'm just exaggerating). But you get the point. Same thing with IT. A lot of the Mat Sallehs and even the Indians and Chinese (from India and China, not our local ones) start learning programming and databases from an early age.

3. No detailed or concerted effort from the government. Taiwan and South Korea started out 50 years ago as poor agriculture nations but look at where they are now. They have good national policies and strategies. They promote their industries and encourage foreign direct investments. They build their infrastructure. They build their education system. What does Malaysia have? 9th Malaysian Plan? 3rd Industrial Plan? MyICMS 886? Results speaks for themselves and we are no where near Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong or Singapore.

4. Attitude of the Malaysian people. Heck, I'm willing to bet you a dollar that half of the people reading this post don't know anything about 9MP, 3IP or MyICMS. Macam mana nak maju ni???

Epep,

You are looking at the glass as half empty. Actually, I am looking at it as half full.

Cheap countries like India, Thailand, China, Indonesia and so on.. The countries has limited usage of IT in their own countries. The exposure to IT application is only limited to big urban areas. So, they may have programing skill but they do not have exposure to usage of IT business. For example, online banking, bill payment and so on.

Expensive countries like USA, UK and so on have exposure to advanced IT application but the labor cost is too high and they have no idea what can work in a less developed countries.

So, Malaysians with multi-lingual capabilities and a good balance of exposure of programing and application exposure works very well.

The problem we have is our good people can find better opportunities outside of Malaysia aka brain drain. And, we do not have meritocracy in at least half of the companies in Malaysia.

Dreamer

Dearest all, I would like to contribute my humble opinion based on my years in diversified industries (sales, education, IT, servicing) and my mentors who are professors in universities.


IT jobs sux because lets face it, companies would rather hire foreign specialists who are more qualified yet paid lower than what we locals would desire/expect.

IT jobs sux because students cannot do basic programming and even if they do, some would copy blindly and submit.

IT jobs sux because indirectly students dont have inclinations towards mathematics. Initially i dont agree to this, but after realising that Mathematics somehow teaches us resources optimisation and such, it allows us to understand/create algorithms better

IT jobs sux because almost all tom d*** and harry colleges are offering IT courses (and the best part, now ALL college universities are being upgraded to a full university status)

IT jobs sux because some think IT is very generalised. Forget about how many programming subjects u learnt in varsity, focus on just a few which is deemed neccesary and important. Exaample a combo of Linux/Unix/Solaris + Oracle/DB2/Jasmine + Java/.NET/C++/SAP + PHP/Cold Fusion/ASP

IT jobs sux because theres too much IT graduates (and prospective ones) who think they can make a world of a difference. Lets face it, unless u are really damn good and gifted, otherwise IT BOOM has burst its bubble, forget about what your ma and pa want and focus on your interest/what u are good at. Besides, not everyone can be an excellent IT professional.

IT jobs sux because we fail to realise that IT is just a tool for industries. A tool is just a tool. nothing more

IT jobs sux because....hey if u cant make it in the IT industry, just change field. Theres a lot of field offering a hybrid nature of IT + management, IT + education. Who knows u may be good at it. Besides whatever IT info u gathered in university might be of good use to you later on..who knows?

PS: forgive me if i piss anyone off with my statement above. however this is purely my opinion and what i observe . Thank you

This post has been edited by HaszAhmad: Nov 17 2006, 02:59 AM

Add on to HaszAhmad post

IT jobs sux because nowadays company all take IT contract staff less permanent staff and it outsource to agency,this make the job unsecure, can terminate anytime they like,can outsource to other country they like, so no security in IT job.....

coz streamyx sucks.

hehe..certain universites prepare their IT students not for the real it world, but just to satisfy teh current need, or to suit certain organization's needs.

;( dunt really understand industry's requirement..demand n trend. they think everything will be in open source, hence moving towards fully open source, but forgetting the fact that most companies, esp multi nationals..are still in windows based..or shall i say, still using proprietary products as their main platform.
my 2kupangz

IT + Agriculture

How it sound like?

I'd say that is one major problem and I'd dare say its more than half the companies. If our industry can even get this straighten out, it will help a lot in reducing the brain drain.

I do experience myself in a project that BIG scope which programmers and system analyst expected completiton time would take at least 90 working main days.

However, bcos of the project manager wanna "show off" his capability to top management then cut the project development time to 20 days that even the days including requirement and analysis ....

I asked him go back sleep tight and changed my job immediately...and at the end in the 19th days most of the involved staffs throwing letter and ask him code himself....

hahha...

This post has been edited by frequency: Nov 18 2006, 09:25 PM

so how the manager now? u all resign already?

depands la.....

those degree/phd student can just go to big company work...
like intel,dell etc etc

casue no need major IT knowlage....

i got friend work at intel as senior engineer and he dosent even know what is intel core 2 duo,
when i ask him, he say insite they just use code name " like conroe,northwood etc etc,

core 2 duo is name by marketing, so those engineer wont know it if they dint update them IT knowlage...

I have same problem last year... then patient for 2 month, got another job

Thats not a fair assessment to make. Intel dont hire GOONS and give them senior engineer posts for nothing. I've came across brilliant mathematical and computer scientist professors from india and middle east, who doesnt even know how to activate the MS-DOS console. Does that mean those PHd holders are fluke? NO..its means, they cant be bothered or are just plain one dimensional and monotonous...

Good Day,

In my opinion, IT graduates should take proffesional certification during their studies or after their studies. At the end of the day, when u have a professional certification (such as MCSE,CEH, CCNA or etc ), you will have extra card in your hands when u apply for jobs.

I am sharing this based on my friends situation. Both graduated at the same time, the only different was one of them were having a proffesional cert. Both of them applied at SxxxL IT and the one with the professional cert got the job.