2 Years in TCS (SBI Core Banking Project)

I seriously don't know from where to start??? I still remember the very first day when I came to Mumbai to join TCS the first wind that given thrust to my career plane. We [Siddharth,Pramod,Gourav,Kamlesh (all my ILP mates)] reported to TCS RMG(resource management group which has the responsibility to assign the projects to new/experienced employees of TCS). We came to know that we were allocated to project IE State Bank of India. We were supposed to report to SBI Global IT center Belapur Navi Mumbai.

On 3rd March 2011, I joined SBI project in mumbai. Our Project lead Vishy had taken our interview and we were welcomed aboard in SBI TCS Team. There are a lot of teams which work collectively in order to give support to SBI. Some of the teams like PSO, PSO Arc, GL Team, Loans , Deposits, GLIF, NDVP, Con-fig, Testing etc etc. All teams work as a single body in order to support the huge banking system of SBI. I was selected in PSO team. Siddharth, Pramod and Gourav also were selected in PSO Team.

SBI project is just like a temple of knowledge. You can learn a lot of things like .Net,Unix, Shell scripting, Perl, Oracle SQL, PL SQL, Cobol, PHP, Databases, CGI etc depending on the team in which you are allocated. I was allocated to PSO Team so I got to learn about UNIX, Unix Shell Scripting, Oracle SQL/PLSQL. But for learning things you have to be self motivated and give your 100 percent.

I still remember the words from my lead that “In SBI there is a lot of things to learn and only sky is the limit for the learning”. He told me that I am supposed to monitor and give support to the SBI Systems which drives 20% of India's economy. He told that for my job I should be efficient enough in Unix as it is like a bread and butter for the project. I felt very proud from inside and puffed my lungs with air. After our Interview with vishy we all were introduced to the PSO Team. I was introduced to the monitoring team, module leads and other team members with whom I am supposed to work in coming days in SBI. Vishy told pointing to monitoring team that this is the hot spot from where issues popped out and were resolved. I was told that PSO team has six Bogs in place. I can choose any of the bogs and sit with the team mates and know the system in a precise way. I went to Bog 1 and meet Amit Ji and Venus. What a personality??? Venus always used to be in happy mood. He always have some story with him and ready to make everyone cheerful with his talks. He was the guy who introduced me with the system on the very first day. Amit ji was having a very calm and serene kind of personality. He was really down to earth and have a enormous amount of patience. I am damn sure I will never gonna meet such kind of person in my whole life.

The best experience in SBI is the PSO Team. It was a awesome feeling to work with such a team. I felt like my college days were back. Everyone use to support everyone. We not only used to work together but we used to share our every good or bad, happy or sad experiences. We used to share our celebrations / frustrations / angriness / funny franks. One day I got very much frustrated with something in the project then I met one of my team lead Jaiwant. He is a person with very good leadership qualities. He acts like a catalyst for the person whose life became slow and steady because of some office or personal issue. He had the solution for everything. He used to motivate people a lot and finally pump them with all kind of positive energy. Every another people whom I met in SBI have unique quality. For Instance Nishikant / Rahul Hooda [ Tech Guru] , they have everything in their database. Whenever any issue came in SBI systems they just smile and give the fixes in a very calm manner. I have never seen in my whole career that these people were tensed because of any issue in SBI. They don't have pressure word in their dictionary.

I had to travel daily from thane to belapur for my work in SBI. It was difficult though but somehow I managed it for six months then I planned to shift to some where nearby to office. But the decision of shifting to belapur was not easy as I have to leave my college friends and start of from level 0 alone. After making my decision ahead I started searching for an accommodation near by Belapur. Then I met Kitty[Krishnamurthy] that is what the whole PSO team used to call him. He was a nice guy and he was about to shift somewhere else in belapur only. I felt like shifting to belapur nearby to office will be beneficial for me. This is the reason I shifted to belapur and had kitty,Ravi, Darshan and Nithin as my new room mates. Belapur, Its a very calm place in hearts of Navi mumbai far away from the crowded roads and streets of Mumbai. Unlike Mumbai it had a very calm and peace environment. Whenever I felt bored I used to stroll around the creak area of belapur with my office colleagues. Belapur has lot of options for a guy who is kind of foodie. It has a great destination for person who enjoy having variety of Indian cuisines . Sri krishna, Surash, Sugrash, Calypso, Center Point, Turning Point, Biryani Guru, Kinara, Lazeez Garden, Vandana etc are the list of top places where foodies want to hang around and have a blast. Thats all about Belapur.

Coming back to PSO project, there was a lot of cons attached to it as well. We have to work in shifts IE 24X7 project. We as a team work in three shifts IE Morning,Afternoon and Night shift. Only Project Managers, Team Leaders and Module leaders have the luxury of coming in general shift. Talking about work life balance at work it was not at all possible, the only reason is that our daily routine used to be based on shift schedule [Our shift time table] and planning out any thing was not that easy. Even if you were willing to involve in some extra curricular activities apart from office hours that was not an easy go. People working in PSO team not have the luxury of enjoying on so called holidays like Holi, Diwali, Christmas, etc. We also used to work even on national holidays like Republic day and Independence day. I still remember although having plans for diwali, I ended up working in night shift on diwali. Nothing was in place like leave policy, release or transfer policy, appraisal policy, work around in shifts etc. I should not complain but even getting a leave approval was not a zap of knife. You had to plan your leaves in advance IE before 3-4 months ahead only. Getting a leave was just like a Rollo coaster ride which used to have a lot of ups and downs. So in PSO not only work but every other thing was the challenge. Just imagine how a person is going to feel if he drafts one request mail to someone and eagerly waits for the reply. But finally at the end he gets a reply after 2-3-5 months. How could anyone is going to keep a track of mail which he has sent 2-3-5 months back.??? That was really frustrating and irritating. Every other day people will be getting blasting for one or other reason without being known about the gravity of the situation. I have seen a lot of talents getting killed in PSO not because they were not willing to do anything its only because there was a lack of proper platform,support and motivation.

One thing about PSO project is that its a awesome place if you want to get settle, then this project is like a heaven for you. Since every work is dependent on the job checklist which is followed throughout the day, there was a little probability of any issue coming in normal work around in our project. Sometimes we used to devote our full day just monitoring the SBI systems without the intervention of any issue. We have the luxury of going to breaks for 1-1.5 hours after the arrival of afternoon shift team since there was an overlapping of 3 hours for morning and afternoon shift team. The project is heaven for those people who are not bothered by monotonicity of work.

After spending two years of my career in PSO team, I started planning to move on. There was a strong urge inside me to change the environment around me. I posted my profiles on job portals and started getting calls from other firms. Having worked for 24X7 project and knowing all the process and technicalities of such project, I just had the basic expectation from new job. I was in search of more challenging profile which would involve a lot of learning and motivation. Now I never wanted to repeat the job of 24X7 support project. Yes for one thing I will be really thankful to SBI PSO, the technologies that I worked upon IE UNIX,Shells and Oracle. This project gave me a very strong foundation for my Technical skillet and was really helpful for building core blocks of my career. After working for PSO you will see a Unix pro inside you. I appeared for many interview and got selected too. But the mere expectation of not working in shifts kept me away from many offers. Finally I got an offer from one product based firm in Pune.

Last day, I really felt bad I was about to leave PSO team, the place where I learn so many things. I hope to work with such nice team in coming future. I am really uncertain about my team with whom I will be working in near future. I am really anxious. I am really going to miss my every single moment I spent in PSO team. I still remember the last PSO party in J9 lounge. Finally I got released from services of TCS on 5th April 2013. Right now I am looking forward to work for gemalto, a firm dealing with digital security in Pune.

Thank a lot for going through my blog. Bi Bi and hope to meet you soon with new stories.

Chandan Singh

Life in mumbai: version 2.0

Hii ,

It has been seriously so long that I have posted on my blog. Today I have completed exactly 1 year and 3 months in mumbai. Life has changed a lot after coming here new place, new friends and new people. I came here with my friends (college friends) and I was dam sure that I will be staying with my old friends no matter what comes on my way. But today when I look back then I can see a lot of things has changed. TCS...... here in mumbai there are a lot of TCS offices and client sites where we TCSers work. Because of this reasons only I have got separated with my friends. As day passed my friends got separate TCS locations to work with and finally a day came in our life when we have to shift to nearby places to our office. Right now I work in Belapur SBI data center for SBI one of the esteemed client of TCS. TCS churns out a lot of domestic revenue from SBI only. Presently I live in belapur  with my project team mates. They all are from karnataka (Kitty, Ravi , Darshan and Nithin). They are really great people by heart. After shifting  to belapur from thane I hardly meet with my old room mates. Its not because I don't want, its due to unavailability of time. I am in production support and have a very rough schedule. I have to work in shifts that also includes night shifts. I hardly get week off on Saturday and Sunday which is normal week offs for my friends working in TCS offices.This is why people say that it is worse to work in production support project that too in a live project like SBI where the whole system breaths because of your working only. One mistake and the all branches of SBI in India is going to be affected. I was very much proud to know that we are indirectly driving 20 percent of India's economy. That is the criticality of our project. Initially when I joined this project everyone used to tell like that. 

But now I feel its a bullshit. Its because from day one I am getting to do single thing all the time. The work is so monotonous here that even a stone will come out of SBI screaming that "I can't handle it anymore". The SBI issue is like that if you came to know about any issue then you have to follow the predefined procedure to solve it. No innovation nothing. Now I feel like for many issues coming for SBI CBS production I can solve it even in my dream. That is not because I have a lot of confidence, its because I have became monkey who is acquainted with all the tricks and twirls which he used to do everyday. So this is the reality about SBI project. One more thing which is really pathetic about this project "People" / "Managers". The people whom u meet here I can challenge you won't find them any where else in the world. Enough of my frustration in mumbai. Sorry to bother you guys. So if you are being allocated to mumbai, never ever never ever come to SBI belapur project. 

Bitten by insect of Professionalism: Life @ Mumbai version 1.0

Hiiii everyone....

So long......I was just dying to write something on my blog........but the some circumstances were not allowing me to do so. Anyways....I am going to share about my experiences at mumbai.

I still remember the day when I with my friends landed at mumbai. The bus dropped us on unknown road at almost 3 O' clock in the morning. I was half asleep then. I had never imagined that this is how my day will be going to start at mumbai. After some inquiry, I came to know that the place was named Fountain hotel, Ghodbunder road, Thane. I tried to call some of my friends who were already got allocation in mumbai. But, it was three in the morning even ghosts were sleeping, what to say about normal human beings. I saw some auto rickshaws standing nearby, but when I went to hire one, I found that even taxi drivers were fast asleep. What a start of the innings at mumbai. I just told my friends to wait for some time as we don't have any other option.

After an hour of wait syndrome, one friend picked the phone and gave us the address where we had our temporary accommodation arrangements. I hired one auto and told autowala to take us to that address. Whenever you visit any place for the first time, you would be going to face the same villain first that is auto or taxi wala. As soon as they sense that you are new to this place, they 'll start telling you all the stories “This address is very far from here”, “I had not been to this place before”, “Our engine is very old and requires more fuel” , “I am charging you very less”, “Ohh!! so many luggage, you have to hire two autos”. I just wanted to freak out on all these dialogues, but had no other option.

Finally after so much of exasperation I finally reached my friend's flat. The very next I had to face the real challenge of getting accommodation near by my job location. Searching a rented accommodation in mumbai is a tedious job. You have to keep on calling many numbers and each number you called , 'll redirect you to four to five numbers again. Finally at the end of the day, you will find your mobile phone crying “No More Memory left For adding Contacts”.One thing that helped us a lot in mumbai that is “INTERNET”. One of my friend told us to just check out sulekha.com. I just submitted my request at the site and soon started getting calls from all around for accommodations. I finally got an accommodation near Thane Railway Station.

Life at mumbai is very fast. First there you will find huge traffic on roads of mumbai. I kept wandering that from where these many numbers of vehicles are coming. Initially I found very difficult to cross the road. Here you will find each and everyone running for their job. You will find only one expression on everyone's face “I am getting late and I am very busy right now!!!” . 

One of the best thing in mumbai is the “Local Train Service”. The whole mumbai subdivision is well connected. If you get once acquired by the local train links, then whole mumbai would be in your hand. Mumbai local is divided into three lines that is western,central and Harbor line. There is so much rush in the local trains that you have never imagined in your life. The whole train once get jam-packed you will find yourself as a solid substance molecule that struggles for intramolecular space. Even the local train station seems to be so crowded that you will struggle to stand at the platform. I have never seen the station over bridge so crowded before in my life. Many a times I have faced a deadlock situation at station over bridge. People get struck in the crowd and have no other option apart from waiting.

Initially I was not knowing that in which TCS office I will be joining. I had to report at TCS Resource management group, Yantra park, Thane. TCS yantra park office is very nice place. RMG Yantra park redirected us to report to TCS gateway park, Anderi. Process of project allocation at TCS sometimes takes a long time. People after getting release from ILP have to wait for a very long time to get into project. Again this depends on your luck that in which project you are getting absorbed. You can get a foreign client's project or ingenious project. I was the lucky that I got my project allocation on that very day. That was the main place where our fate was going to be decided. Every One from ILP batch got project allocation there. I got “SBI Core Banking Solution” project. I got allocation at Belapur, Navi Mumbai. My room mates got seibel, ion and database management project respectively.

There is still a lot of things that I have to tell you about my job in mumbai. I 'll talk to you later. Have to go. Bye Bye.

Thank you!!!!!!!

Chandan Singh

TCS-ILP: Integration Phase, Gandhinagar Gujarat.

Hiii Again,

I m really sorry that I am sharing my TCS-ILP experience very late. I am very busy with the work here in Mumbai. That's another story I will tell you some other day.

By the end of Induction Phase, I came to know that our batch will be going to reshuffled and again distributed in groups for Integration Phase. Again lots of excitement, lots of curiosity, lots of surprises were waiting for us. On the next day we got the batch streaming schedule from our ILP Co-ordinator.

I got UNIX/C++ Stream. My room mates got EntSol and JAVA respectively , lucky fellows. I was very upset that I got UNIX/C++ stream. Thoughts keep wandering in my mind about what new I am going to learn??? This is the same thing which I know. I was not sure of getting good projects coming out of such stream. I started laughing on the pathetic plight of my expectations.

From Next day onwards our stream specific technical sessions started. There again new faces, new class, new faculty and again we all have to start from beginning. Everyone was having the same kind of frustration level for having UNIX / C++ stream. People learning java have luxury of working in graphics rich compilers and to see their output with colorful screens. But we have only one option with

Unix that is same traditional black screen no graphic interface nothing. Initially these things keep bugging our mind, but as more days went by we came out of frustration. After that we realized UNIX is not a jab of knife. It requires continuous practice and a lot of effort to cope up with UNIX. That made us proud. I was also not knowing that there are more proud moments which are waiting for me in near future.

The Integration Phase is much more interesting than induction phase. We have enjoyed a lot while having sessions with UNIX Instructor. We had so much of fun in integration that we went to our college memories. Our Unix faculty was very intelligent lady I tell you. In integration phase we came to learn Unix, shell scripting, oracle sql/plsql, Pro * C etc. Pro* C was the great thing. It gives us flexibility to connect oracle database with C / C++ programs.

The suggestion I would like to give you for ILP Integration phase is just sit back, relax and go with the rigor of the session, everything will be fine. In the end of integration I had two practical evaluations, one for Oracle and another for Unix. I also had one theory evaluation which is objective type. Don't worry you will be clearing all evaluations easily. Then at our final day I got my release letter and I was supposed to report to TCS Mumbai office after five days. PACK YOUR BAGS, ITS TIME TO GO TO MUMBAI. Now I am in Mumbai working on some banking project. There are so many things that I have to tell you about Mumbai. I will tell you about it on some other day.

Till then

Bi Bi, Namaskar, khuda hafis, sabba khair, tata, sayo nara..............

Chandan Singh

Sucess Story.........

From Chandan Kumar Singh, B.Tech Computer Sci.

TCS ILP Gandhinagar- The Journey Begins

Hello everyone,

I am so grateful that some body is willing to go through my experiences at ILP. I am Chandan Singh, from Gaya, Bihar. Please forgive me if I am having any sort of grammatical mistakes. I have got Gandhinagar, Gujarat as my ILP Center. I have to report at Gandhinagar on 16th December, 2010. We were the premapped batch at Gandhinagar. We were supposed to join the Gandhinagar development center after our training.

Our group consists of 25 people. We reached Ahemedabad on 10th December, 2010. Why so early?????As we were premapped batch we are supposed to make our own arrangement for accommodation. It is very easy to get accommodation at Gandhinagar, people used to come and take you to many apartments. Just you need to pick one out and negotiate the rent. Then the flat is yours.

The info-city at Gandhinagar is very good. It has all the residential apartments, bungalows and shopping complex at one side and all Offices, info-city club resort on the other. Info-city has four huge office buildings namely tower 1,tower 2,tower 3 and tower 4 respectively. ILP center is at tower 3 which is also known as “Nal Sarover”. Gandhinagar is heaven for those who like peace,natural beauty, greenery, cleanliness and less crowd. Believe me this place is just like heaven, it is the second greenest city after Chandigarh. Gujarati people are very polite and helpful. They will help you in every possible way. Enough for the place I think.

At 16th December,2010, we reached Tower 3 “Nal Sarover” sharp at 8:45 AM. First we had to make entry at reception and then we seated our self in auditorium. Then a group of HRs came and they had taken sessions on introduction,company's vision,mission, its policies, processes and many more things.They stressed on calling them with their first names, no sir no madam. I spent half of the session thinking, “what is going on exactly?”. Then that thinking process made me very tired and spent remaining half sleeping. Just you all need to keep your eyes open.

After the HR sessions, we proceeded to TCS Canteen area. There HDFC Bank employees were eagerly waiting for us to open our salary account. It was just a simple process, we need to fill up two forms. But let me tell you that the form was just unbearable for us, they have just taken our signatures at more than 60 to 70 places. Yes, you read it correctly it was 60-70 times. I just felt of applying ctrl+C and ctrl+V over there. But it was not possible. They will open your two accounts. First one is your salary account which will be saving account and second one is current account for your all reimbursements.

Then again HR had taken hr session on leave policy and our salary structure. He showed us how to use “Ultimatix” tool. Its an ERP tool which is used by all TCS employees and TCS to keep track of all internal processes. Our first day at TCS ended right there.

On second day also they had given sessions on information security, dos and don'ts at TCS, Tata Code of Conduct, Confidentiality Terms and conditions. Just imagine first two days at TCS and nothing related with studies till now. Initially we were very tensed that TCS is going to take “pre-Test “ and divide us into batches on our performance. But TCS just divided us randomly on second day only. Every batches were given their schedule timings which they needed to follow it from next day onwards.

From next day onwards we sat in our respective learning rooms for training sessions. We used to have two sessions: technical session and life skill session. In technical sessions we used to get all technical stuffs. But life skill sessions were great. You all will going to enjoy in this session a lot. All type of stuffs goes on here dancing singing, skits, ads, comedy, professional grooming and a lot of things. I still miss my ILP life skill sessions. This time TCS has changed its training trends. Now , no more OOPS concepts using scheme. They taught us OOPS and Programming concepts using JAVA. They taught us many things like SQL,UNIX concepts, process models, Software development methodologies especially Object oriented Analysis and design etc during induction phase. Just be prepared to get your hands dirty. That is what trainers used to tell us during technical sessions. Mind you if you are not ready to devote yourself for the work then TCS may be the bad option for you. They used to give us many assignments which we were supposed to complete and upload on the system.

Now you will be thinking about evaluations. Yes they take two individual evaluations and four group evaluation called “mile stones”. Both the individual evaluations will be based on programming and mile stones will be based on dummy project which they will assign you in group. Let me tell you, it is very easy to score good marks in individual evaluations if you are good at logic building We were having three technical sessions and one life skill session daily. We were given two tea beaks of 20 minutes each and one lunch break of 35 to 40 minutes.

Party at TCS: yes TCS had given us a grand party near studio apartments. “Shine and Shimer”- This was the title of party. DJ was playing a great combination of songs by mixing them. We enjoyed a lot over there. Every one just given some steps at party and we just rocked on. Some of the ILP participants also performed on stage. They also performed “Fashion Show”. It was awesome I should say.

I have just completed my induction phase. All milestones and evaluations over. I have cleared my induction phase and my integration phase is going to start from day after tomorrow. Recently we got opportunity to change our posting to mumbai after training. I have applied for the same and I have to report at mumbai branch after completion of my training. I am very happy for that. See you at TCS, don't worry you are going to have great days ahead.

Thank you for your patience reading.

Chandan Singh.