<\/a>L-R): Rich Hillebrecht, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Riverbed Technology, Jerry M Kenelly, Chairman and CEO, Riverbed Technology India, Nandan Nilekani, Ex-Chairman, UIDAI, Kartik Subbanna, Vice President of Engineering, Vineet Abraham, Senior VP of Engineering, Riverbed Technology India; Nagendra Venkaswamy, Vice President for India and SAARC, Riverbed Technology. PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Pereira<\/p><\/div>\n
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Q. What do you look for when hiring engineers? Are tech degrees the only thing that matters?<\/strong><\/p>\nVenky<\/strong>: We are moving away from the credential and degree based hiring to talent based. It really doesn\u2019t matter which college you went to. The best talent is not necessarily available only at IITs or BITS Pilani. Talent is everywhere and we are looking for it. There are highly intelligent people out there that don\u2019t necessarily have blue chip degrees and credentials. Getting into IIT is a difficulty for a lot of Indians. If the pool becomes bigger when I look for talent, then it changes the game.<\/p>\nSo it is really about one\u2019s ability to learn and to adapt, to absorb new technologies, to work in teams, and to think on one\u2019s feet.<\/p>\n
Q. What is the next major Riverbed product that is being developed in India?<\/strong><\/p>\nVineet Abraham: <\/strong>For the next big release of SteelHead, 80 percent of the work is being done in India. It includes all the cutting-edge features. Our newest product is the SDN WAN solution, for which the core work was also done in India.<\/p>\nQ. What is your attrition rate? How do you keep people here for a longer term?<\/strong><\/p>\nVenky: <\/strong>Our attrition is just 5 percent. People usually leave to get married or when they go for higher studies. We do not do much ADM (Application Development and Maintenance) here. When you do cutting-edge stuff, people will want to stay with you. Our engineers in India are working on the latest products.<\/p>\nVineet Abraham: <\/strong>We have a high rate of referrals. Our employees also bring in their friends. This holds people together. Nobody in the company has an office\/cabin or an employee number. And that\u2019s also applicable to the CEO. Everyone who joins is treated as if they are with us for a long time. Even a new recruit is made to feel that way. So people are accessible at all levels and this helps in building products quickly. So it is a flat organization where everyone has a voice. We have 2,300 employees yet that spirit is still prevalent.<\/p>\nWe have a session like the Short-time show where people come and pitch their ideas. Every quarter our engineers come and pitch their ideas. Somebody will fund it and make that product happen. So we create an environment of ownership and fund the innovation from within the company. And that\u2019s another reason for low attrition.<\/p>\n
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About Riverbed <\/strong>(from company notes)<\/p>\nRiverbed, at more than $1 billion in annual revenue, is the leader in Application Performance Infrastructure and WAN optimization, delivering the most complete platform for the hybrid enterprise to ensure applications perform as expected, data is always available when needed, and performance issues can be proactively detected and resolved before impacting business performance. Riverbed’s 27,000+ customers include 97% of the Fortune 100 and 98% of the Forbes Global 100.<\/p>\n
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Brian was hosted by Riverbed Technologies India Pvt. Ltd. in Bengaluru.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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India\u2019s IT industry is a source of skills for the global market. But it has for long been grappling with a problem: Of the 1.5 million engineers graduating every year, only a fraction of these are employable straight out of university; they must undergo a period of training (for quality and management, for instance) before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4023,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[110],"tags":[870,869,880,875,873,874,871,877,878,832,876,872,866,865,336,879,867,868],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Why Riverbed is hungry for Indian engineering talent - Digital Creed<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n