7 ms·

Those people claiming ISRO does it at a shoe string budget, because they reuse yes they do. But we are talking of a factor of more 10 here. Let me put facts on

by kamaal 13y ago

Those people claiming ISRO does it at a shoe string budget, because they reuse yes they do. But we are talking of a factor of more 10 here. Let me put facts on ground. Go and visit any ISRO campus in India. See the kind of offices they work in, they kind of food canteens they eat lunch at, they kind of buses they travel in and take a look at how much they are paid. I assure you will be shocked. In fact shocked will be a mild statement to make. These people work on ordinary steel tables, with fans over their heads. Eat the 15 rupee rice-curry meal and travel in 20 year old buses. Well forget all that. Take a look at pictures of ISRO available over the internet, they look like to be taken in some one's garage than a space research organization. Your average MacOS/iOS app development start up has better working conditions and infrastructure than any ISRO office in India. I'm not talking just about the work place infrastructure. Even the working gear, stuff like computers etc. For the salaries and the net compensation ISRO offers no ambitious well qualified youth in India would be willing to work there- I'm even surprised they have even gotten this far. Note, you are comparing a salary for something like 20K per month with a salary of something like 100K a month Google offers. You get peanuts for building the most important pieces of technology in the history of mankind, compared to building websites for sharing cat pictures. This is working on shoe string budgets to its very extreme. I hope these people get better funding in the future. And yeah for those people too worked up about spending some 100th decimal rounding error of India's budget on a mars project. That is doing far more benefit to India's reputation, than a yet-another-scam-infested scheme.

skrish 13y ago
I used to stay in a paying guest accomodation during my first job. My roommate was a guy who had just joined ISRO - we graduated same year but from different colleges. And I also had a chance to interact closely with 2 other friends who were working with ISRO at that time (one was a senior in college). His payscale started at Rs.8000 per month (in 2001 that was less than $200usd). He was a production engineer. He would be up for next revision of payscale & promotion pending a review in 4 years! He knew that. I used to wonder what keeps them motivated and I used to constantly question them. One common thread you find based on these conversations is that they are extremely satisfied with work - each of them used to say that what they are working on is UNIQUE that nobody else in ISRO is responsible for. And buck stops with them. They knew that. That sense of ownership and the way the employees connect to a much larger cause is something unbelievable at ISRO, in my perspective. I used to be in awe of every conversation about his superiors, the work and their perspective of the organization in general. I think it is an interesting case study in organizational behavior and what keeps you motivated with factors other than just money. Teaching is another profession I think requires similar mindset. ISRO somehow hires the right kind of people, the employees within the organization are not so flamboyant setting examples for new hires and helps them connect in a way it makes people see contribution to a bigger cause. Just my observation from what I have seen from close quarters. BTW, it is also given that he knew they get pension after retirement, medical benefits & all such taken care of for his entire life because he is part of the organization. Would love to read if there are any case studies on this.
- kamaal 13y ago
  Its also parental and social pressure. All the best trying to explain the people around you, that you are joining ISRO and not some company like Wipro, TCS or Infosys. You will receive a nice lecture and may be have a angry fight session with your dad. In overall's you yourself will be tired after a few days when you watch some one doing far less meaningful, important or difficult work taking back big pay checks, driving a luxury car, and living in a >1cr flat. And then of course your marriage, wife, kids and expectations from them and all that. Its truly sad that these people are paid so badly. Infrastructure and entire thing is so dismal, my heart aches that things of this importance are treated this way in our country. I'm sure every Indian teenager wanting to do some meaningful job has faced this situation. I had a tough time convincing my parents I was about to leave a call center job in a big MNC to write embedded software at a small unknown firm. The situation deteriorated so badly my parents threatened they would fall very seriously ill if I didn't do as they say. Finally I had to relent to working at a big software giant. People say fight the society. But you can only fight a few battles in life. Career is already a tough battle, fighting society to achieve to work something meaningful is waste of time and energy. We still haven't changed. There are people who even have doubt's if projects like these are necessary. A safe job, a good pension to take care of, male children, jewellery, good deal of real estate and social pride is all we value in our society. Mars project? Well who cares about that?
- anupshinde 13y ago
  As an organization, ISRO is political and bureaucratic. I have a good "set of friends and family" worked there or working there. There are good people and bad people (projects) there. You must be lucky to get into the right one. The pay scale is not competitive - But its not worse. The perks are really good. i.e Ultimately they get paid a little less than a private cos. The perks from the governments should not be discounted EVER. I work in a private co. which is much better than the Infosys/Wipro/etc s.w co's (also with a relatively much better pay). But I can tell you, ISRO job is better than mine. If I could opt today, I would go to ISRO. With a little lesser pay, you also get peace of mind. This might not be important at 22s or 25s. But at 30, as a husband and a father, I can surely tell you ISRO gives much better lifestyle. i.e you can work for 2 hours or 16 hours if you enjoy that. Average employee productivity there sucks - literally. But at that non-competitive pay, government should not expect more. You also have a "safe-job" and lesser work pressure. There are certain projects that are high-pressure jobs - but those are rare. An important factor to keep you motivate might also be "working for your country". I have worked for large govt. projects for western countries and it give you ZERO sense of pride. It is "just another project". And I worked for a very small system for the transportation in my city. And just that feeling of watching that system being used in my country gives me a hell lot of sense of pride/achievement. I don't know if everybody feels the same way - but that is one of the biggest motivation factors for me (I don't work for ISRO / govt)
anupshinde 13y ago
Generally, I would have simply agreed with what you said. (and what you said is true) But! Stop complaining at this one moment. And take a look at the achievements of this country's people. They don't have world's best food, world-class infrastructure and not enough money to hire world class talent either. Probably they have world-class corruption in the country. How many countries achieve this after having these many "core" problems. Salute to the people who achieved this feat.
- DanBC 13y ago
  > How many countries achieve this after having these many "core" problems. It is a great feat! It's confusing to me how India can plan something like this, but cannot fix the problem of buying train tickets. I've heard that the queues can be quite long. But it is exciting to see India sending things into space.
  - pagade 13y ago
    If you meant buying online, the problem was solved long back.. https://www.irctc.co.in/ https://www.irctc.co.in/ Believe me the website works and is used by millions.. Queues still remain long due to lack of computer literacy and reach of internet..
    - aks314 13y ago
      While they are doing a better job on this, it still crashes @ 10am daily - right around the emergency quota for the day starts. They also need daily maintenance for an hour or so.
    - yashg 13y ago
      And not to mention it is India's largest ecommerce site :)
- xmonkee 13y ago
  >They don't have the world's best food Strongly disagree. We really do. But yeah I generally agree with your post.
suhair 13y ago
Agree with most of what you say. But before jumping into portraying a shoe string salary take into account the "corruption adjusted benefits" that Google and other companes could not offer [http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/behind-the-sband-spectrum-scandal/article1200374.ece http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/behind-the-sband-s...]
- xmonkee 13y ago
  How would an Isro engineer get access to bribes and stuff? All that is for people dealing with large public funds and services.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - suhair 13y ago
    ISRO has commercial wing called Antrix corporation. Just search for the scientists and top officers involved in the scam exposed in 2011. The given link is from The Hindu, most reputed daily in India.
    - r0h1n 13y ago
      Antrix is ISRO's commercial arm. The engineers who work for ISRO have no connect with it.
      - suhair 13y ago
        Then what was the purpose of barring four scientists from holding any positions and what was this mess http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-ex-isro-chief-three-other-scientists-barred-from-govt-jobs-1641920 http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-ex-isro-chief-three-oth...? A political drama?
- xmonkee 13y ago
  How would an Isro engineer get access to bribes and stuff? All that is for people dealing with large public funds and services.
iamshs 13y ago
To be frank, nobody is really complaining in the comments. Btw on twitter three trends are for this mission: MissionMars, SriHariKota and ISRO.
- mknits 13y ago
  One more - #Mangalyaan
stokedmartin 13y ago
`Project chief Subbiah Arunan says he has not taken a vacation in the last 15 months, sleeping at Isro's satellite centre in Bangalore and going home for "about one or two hours every day". `[1] [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-24547892 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-24547892
mebesilly 13y ago
I trained at CMC Vellore and was an intern and then a neurosurgical registrar there in 1983 . I was paid 300 rupees ( around 5 dollars at current exchange rates ) a month for working 80 to 100 hours a week. Good times :-) BTW,some of my classmates who stayed on at Vellore, rose to be Heads of Department and were paid around 25,000 Rupees a month ( around $500 ) just a few years ago ( not sure what the current salaries are ).
golergka 13y ago
Russian space program was in similar conditions for the past 20 years. I have a couple of former classmates who graduated from one of the best math high schools and math universities in Russia, got great grades, won programming competitions and now work as low-level embedded C hackers, writing firmware for space chips. (It seems like the two of them are making every career decision together — they even played wow with characters 'malloc' and 'calloc' side by side.) They earn about a third or a quarter of their "market value" and do php web development on the side to get some money, but have no desire to change their jobs, because they love what they do.
- sibinpthomas 13y ago
  I literally LoL reading the 'malloc' and 'calloc'. Those guys are all-caps NERDS...kudos to them.
deepGem 13y ago
My dad worked at ISRO for 30+ years and is now retired - so what I'm saying has some merit. I don't know where you are getting the impression that ISRO engineers aren't paid well. Sure, they are not paid Google salaries but they are no way paid peanuts. A fresh engineering graduate will stand to get around 40K INR per month. Please not that if you are not landing up a software job, in India, it's a pretty shitty market out there for other disciplines. ISRO offers are great when you consider for example, what a mechanical engineer makes in other private companies. Working environment is also comparable to any software facility. Please visit the ISRO facility in Bangalore on old airport road. They have some of the most green and spacious campuses. I don't have pictures because security is super tight and they don't even let you carry your cellphones inside. For a long time, ISRO offered some of the best retirement benefits. My dad and mom don't have to worry about their healthcare costs for the rest of their lives and my dad gets a handsome pension to take care of his day to day living expenses. This has changed with the sixth pay commission. ISRO also offers housing in some prime areas, near the office facilities so that you don't have to commute much. Of course, not everyone gets this benefit and it's based more on a lottery basis. The schooling for your kids is almost free in the Kendriya Vidyala schools - and some of those schools offer top notch education. While you are employed, you pay next to nothing for healthcare (including surgeries). There is the CGHS card that you flash in almost all major hospitals and you are taken care of. As if this was not all enough, you get to work on some really state of the art stuff that others can't even imagine. There is absolutely no room for error. You just can't say 'oh crap I'll just fix that bug'. One bug might destroy a satellite or screw up the rocket launch. So, there is a lot of merit in building such mission critical systems and a ton of satisfaction. This satisfaction cannot be compared with money. During launch days, my dad would work 3-4 days at a stretch without even a phone call in between. Such was the pressure. So, working at ISRO has a ton of merits and satisfaction. It's not for everyone though. There is no glamour as such in the job. You don't have crazy parties or drunken revelries or annual outings to Hawaii. There is an enormous amount of bureaucracy and bull shit that you have to deal with. But for an engineer who loves to build mission critical applications - the place is a heaven.
- kamaal 13y ago
  Compensation is sufficient, but in no way competitive. Given the real estate market in Bangalore, some of my friends who've had foreign travel opportunities in MegaCorps are buying 80 Lac+ flats. Some more than one of them. And these are guys are mostly under 35 or some even under 30. Any one who is on VP/Director/Senior engineering managers levels is buying 2.5 Crore+ villas. Expensive cars, having vacations in foreign countries and crazy lifestyle spending's. The definition of well paid just became a whole lot different. And there is no way anyone can live that kind of a lifestyle working for a government firm. Again, you can be happy with what you get. But that thought doesn't work always. Peer pressure does amazing things to you. Even if you don't get into it yourself, you will get into it eventually once you start a family. Also note, that the public retirement investment vehicles today are strong enough and sometimes even better than the government ones. We are no longer in 1980's India. If you are well paid, you can buy your own food, pay your own bills, have your own home, car etc.
anujkk 13y ago
I don't know how different are the work environment of ISRO and DRDO but I guess it must be same. One of my colleague at Tata Consultancy Services, an ABAP developer, left his job with decent salary and an opportunity to go to UK for an offshore project of 2 years. Why? To join DRDO at salary 4 times less than what he was getting coz he hated his work and was passionate about working on something that is not just interesting but also makes a difference.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

by kamaal 13y ago

skrish 13y ago

I used to stay in a paying guest accomodation during my first job. My roommate was a guy who had just joined ISRO - we graduated same year but from different colleges. And I also had a chance to interact closely with 2 other friends who were working with ISRO at that time (one was a senior in college). His payscale started at Rs.8000 per month (in 2001 that was less than $200usd). He was a production engineer. He would be up for next revision of payscale & promotion pending a review in 4 years! He knew that. I used to wonder what keeps them motivated and I used to constantly question them. One common thread you find based on these conversations is that they are extremely satisfied with work - each of them used to say that what they are working on is UNIQUE that nobody else in ISRO is responsible for. And buck stops with them. They knew that. That sense of ownership and the way the employees connect to a much larger cause is something unbelievable at ISRO, in my perspective. I used to be in awe of every conversation about his superiors, the work and their perspective of the organization in general. I think it is an interesting case study in organizational behavior and what keeps you motivated with factors other than just money. Teaching is another profession I think requires similar mindset. ISRO somehow hires the right kind of people, the employees within the organization are not so flamboyant setting examples for new hires and helps them connect in a way it makes people see contribution to a bigger cause. Just my observation from what I have seen from close quarters. BTW, it is also given that he knew they get pension after retirement, medical benefits & all such taken care of for his entire life because he is part of the organization. Would love to read if there are any case studies on this.

kamaal 13y ago
Its also parental and social pressure. All the best trying to explain the people around you, that you are joining ISRO and not some company like Wipro, TCS or Infosys. You will receive a nice lecture and may be have a angry fight session with your dad. In overall's you yourself will be tired after a few days when you watch some one doing far less meaningful, important or difficult work taking back big pay checks, driving a luxury car, and living in a >1cr flat. And then of course your marriage, wife, kids and expectations from them and all that. Its truly sad that these people are paid so badly. Infrastructure and entire thing is so dismal, my heart aches that things of this importance are treated this way in our country. I'm sure every Indian teenager wanting to do some meaningful job has faced this situation. I had a tough time convincing my parents I was about to leave a call center job in a big MNC to write embedded software at a small unknown firm. The situation deteriorated so badly my parents threatened they would fall very seriously ill if I didn't do as they say. Finally I had to relent to working at a big software giant. People say fight the society. But you can only fight a few battles in life. Career is already a tough battle, fighting society to achieve to work something meaningful is waste of time and energy. We still haven't changed. There are people who even have doubt's if projects like these are necessary. A safe job, a good pension to take care of, male children, jewellery, good deal of real estate and social pride is all we value in our society. Mars project? Well who cares about that?
anupshinde 13y ago
As an organization, ISRO is political and bureaucratic. I have a good "set of friends and family" worked there or working there. There are good people and bad people (projects) there. You must be lucky to get into the right one. The pay scale is not competitive - But its not worse. The perks are really good. i.e Ultimately they get paid a little less than a private cos. The perks from the governments should not be discounted EVER. I work in a private co. which is much better than the Infosys/Wipro/etc s.w co's (also with a relatively much better pay). But I can tell you, ISRO job is better than mine. If I could opt today, I would go to ISRO. With a little lesser pay, you also get peace of mind. This might not be important at 22s or 25s. But at 30, as a husband and a father, I can surely tell you ISRO gives much better lifestyle. i.e you can work for 2 hours or 16 hours if you enjoy that. Average employee productivity there sucks - literally. But at that non-competitive pay, government should not expect more. You also have a "safe-job" and lesser work pressure. There are certain projects that are high-pressure jobs - but those are rare. An important factor to keep you motivate might also be "working for your country". I have worked for large govt. projects for western countries and it give you ZERO sense of pride. It is "just another project". And I worked for a very small system for the transportation in my city. And just that feeling of watching that system being used in my country gives me a hell lot of sense of pride/achievement. I don't know if everybody feels the same way - but that is one of the biggest motivation factors for me (I don't work for ISRO / govt)

anupshinde 13y ago

Generally, I would have simply agreed with what you said. (and what you said is true) But! Stop complaining at this one moment. And take a look at the achievements of this country's people. They don't have world's best food, world-class infrastructure and not enough money to hire world class talent either. Probably they have world-class corruption in the country. How many countries achieve this after having these many "core" problems. Salute to the people who achieved this feat.

DanBC 13y ago
> How many countries achieve this after having these many "core" problems. It is a great feat! It's confusing to me how India can plan something like this, but cannot fix the problem of buying train tickets. I've heard that the queues can be quite long. But it is exciting to see India sending things into space.
- pagade 13y ago
  If you meant buying online, the problem was solved long back.. https://www.irctc.co.in/ https://www.irctc.co.in/ Believe me the website works and is used by millions.. Queues still remain long due to lack of computer literacy and reach of internet..
  - aks314 13y ago
    While they are doing a better job on this, it still crashes @ 10am daily - right around the emergency quota for the day starts. They also need daily maintenance for an hour or so.
  - yashg 13y ago
    And not to mention it is India's largest ecommerce site :)
xmonkee 13y ago
>They don't have the world's best food Strongly disagree. We really do. But yeah I generally agree with your post.

suhair 13y ago

Agree with most of what you say. But before jumping into portraying a shoe string salary take into account the "corruption adjusted benefits" that Google and other companes could not offer [http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/behind-the-sband-spectrum-scandal/article1200374.ece http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/behind-the-sband-s...]

xmonkee 13y ago
How would an Isro engineer get access to bribes and stuff? All that is for people dealing with large public funds and services.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- suhair 13y ago
  ISRO has commercial wing called Antrix corporation. Just search for the scientists and top officers involved in the scam exposed in 2011. The given link is from The Hindu, most reputed daily in India.
  - r0h1n 13y ago
    Antrix is ISRO's commercial arm. The engineers who work for ISRO have no connect with it.
    - suhair 13y ago
      Then what was the purpose of barring four scientists from holding any positions and what was this mess http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-ex-isro-chief-three-other-scientists-barred-from-govt-jobs-1641920 http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-ex-isro-chief-three-oth...? A political drama?
xmonkee 13y ago
How would an Isro engineer get access to bribes and stuff? All that is for people dealing with large public funds and services.

iamshs 13y ago

To be frank, nobody is really complaining in the comments. Btw on twitter three trends are for this mission: MissionMars, SriHariKota and ISRO.

mknits 13y ago
One more - #Mangalyaan

stokedmartin 13y ago

`Project chief Subbiah Arunan says he has not taken a vacation in the last 15 months, sleeping at Isro's satellite centre in Bangalore and going home for "about one or two hours every day". `[1] [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-24547892 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-24547892

mebesilly 13y ago

I trained at CMC Vellore and was an intern and then a neurosurgical registrar there in 1983 . I was paid 300 rupees ( around 5 dollars at current exchange rates ) a month for working 80 to 100 hours a week. Good times :-) BTW,some of my classmates who stayed on at Vellore, rose to be Heads of Department and were paid around 25,000 Rupees a month ( around $500 ) just a few years ago ( not sure what the current salaries are ).

golergka 13y ago

Russian space program was in similar conditions for the past 20 years. I have a couple of former classmates who graduated from one of the best math high schools and math universities in Russia, got great grades, won programming competitions and now work as low-level embedded C hackers, writing firmware for space chips. (It seems like the two of them are making every career decision together — they even played wow with characters 'malloc' and 'calloc' side by side.) They earn about a third or a quarter of their "market value" and do php web development on the side to get some money, but have no desire to change their jobs, because they love what they do.

sibinpthomas 13y ago
I literally LoL reading the 'malloc' and 'calloc'. Those guys are all-caps NERDS...kudos to them.

deepGem 13y ago

My dad worked at ISRO for 30+ years and is now retired - so what I'm saying has some merit. I don't know where you are getting the impression that ISRO engineers aren't paid well. Sure, they are not paid Google salaries but they are no way paid peanuts. A fresh engineering graduate will stand to get around 40K INR per month. Please not that if you are not landing up a software job, in India, it's a pretty shitty market out there for other disciplines. ISRO offers are great when you consider for example, what a mechanical engineer makes in other private companies. Working environment is also comparable to any software facility. Please visit the ISRO facility in Bangalore on old airport road. They have some of the most green and spacious campuses. I don't have pictures because security is super tight and they don't even let you carry your cellphones inside. For a long time, ISRO offered some of the best retirement benefits. My dad and mom don't have to worry about their healthcare costs for the rest of their lives and my dad gets a handsome pension to take care of his day to day living expenses. This has changed with the sixth pay commission. ISRO also offers housing in some prime areas, near the office facilities so that you don't have to commute much. Of course, not everyone gets this benefit and it's based more on a lottery basis. The schooling for your kids is almost free in the Kendriya Vidyala schools - and some of those schools offer top notch education. While you are employed, you pay next to nothing for healthcare (including surgeries). There is the CGHS card that you flash in almost all major hospitals and you are taken care of. As if this was not all enough, you get to work on some really state of the art stuff that others can't even imagine. There is absolutely no room for error. You just can't say 'oh crap I'll just fix that bug'. One bug might destroy a satellite or screw up the rocket launch. So, there is a lot of merit in building such mission critical systems and a ton of satisfaction. This satisfaction cannot be compared with money. During launch days, my dad would work 3-4 days at a stretch without even a phone call in between. Such was the pressure. So, working at ISRO has a ton of merits and satisfaction. It's not for everyone though. There is no glamour as such in the job. You don't have crazy parties or drunken revelries or annual outings to Hawaii. There is an enormous amount of bureaucracy and bull shit that you have to deal with. But for an engineer who loves to build mission critical applications - the place is a heaven.

kamaal 13y ago
Compensation is sufficient, but in no way competitive. Given the real estate market in Bangalore, some of my friends who've had foreign travel opportunities in MegaCorps are buying 80 Lac+ flats. Some more than one of them. And these are guys are mostly under 35 or some even under 30. Any one who is on VP/Director/Senior engineering managers levels is buying 2.5 Crore+ villas. Expensive cars, having vacations in foreign countries and crazy lifestyle spending's. The definition of well paid just became a whole lot different. And there is no way anyone can live that kind of a lifestyle working for a government firm. Again, you can be happy with what you get. But that thought doesn't work always. Peer pressure does amazing things to you. Even if you don't get into it yourself, you will get into it eventually once you start a family. Also note, that the public retirement investment vehicles today are strong enough and sometimes even better than the government ones. We are no longer in 1980's India. If you are well paid, you can buy your own food, pay your own bills, have your own home, car etc.

anujkk 13y ago

I don't know how different are the work environment of ISRO and DRDO but I guess it must be same. One of my colleague at Tata Consultancy Services, an ABAP developer, left his job with decent salary and an opportunity to go to UK for an offshore project of 2 years. Why? To join DRDO at salary 4 times less than what he was getting coz he hated his work and was passionate about working on something that is not just interesting but also makes a difference.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]