Steady state in Indian IT industry

I hear everybody talking about job switches, better salary and promotions. Today for my classmates at engineering, the buzzword is management. 'I've gotta grow. Its time I get to manage a few guys' is what they say. Though a few are confused and really don't know if they have to take up management now, they are pushed into that. They adapt!

Think about what is happening. Now with four years of engineering education (which in most of the cases did not give the required knowledge) and with approximately five years of industry experience, they want to get into management. Most of them just want to get in there without even a thought of what it takes to do justice to a management position. Once they get in there, they are sucked into a world of problems and they end up struggling with daily problems. How do you think they care about the future of their reporting employees? Poor guys, they can't even think of theirs. Now this is where it stands - they end up solving day-to-day problems and nothing more.

Thinking further, may be that is what is expected out of their role - just be a middle manager - manage what is present - don't mess it up. They are given a established setup where things work today. The job is to keep it working in the days to come. Growth is organic - add more folks to the working setup and sustain it.

When this process reaches a steady state, what happens? We have a lot of mere coders - engineers (by education) who write code to specifications - though thinking is not crime, nobody is motivated to think - the creative horses get interested in everything else but work etc. We have a lot of middle managers who can just keep things running so long as nothing changes drastically. This is the kind of ecosystem we are building today or is getting built today.

What if one of the variables leading to this steady state changes all of sudden? Do we have time to wake up? Do we have time to realize? Above all, do we have the people who can think and work differently?

Guys, wakeup. We need to build talent, we need to build entrepreneurs, we need to build people who can think and work in the changing world. We need engineers with experience who can solve engineering problems in the real world in the best possible way. We need engineers who can create a new design with all creative instincts. We need managers who stand on their feet firmly, manage their day and still have time to look into the future.

Maybe what appears to be reaching a steady state, should not.