Can we shift from application support to development role...?

Hey guyz,
Im a B.E in CSC branch, with my engg i did asp.net course in the mean time...and landed on a application support role. I'm intermediate in programming skills(i'm working on it), But i would like to be a programmer in the near future.Can i shift from a support role to a development role in asp.net.....will the app. support experience count for the development profile. Or i have taken a wrong start for my career ?
I have been doing support role for now for more than three months.
Need suggestions guyz.

AFAIK, App support doesn't count in Dev opportunity. If you are not 1yr experienced in support, i would suggest you start looking for another job, if you seriously considering development. My brother, who tied up with support, till today can't get dev job, even in his current company(which promised they will shift him after 2 yrs to dev. duh, another false promise). So it is clear, landing a job in dev from support is not easy, and the chance of getting into also thin. Better start prepare now.

I too have come here with similar dilemma.
A friend told me of a job at HCL Technologies, I didn't read the job description and went for an experience, the job was tech support and I got selected. I was told that after probation period, I'll get chance to change department. I'm more of a developer and can do network troubleshooting as well, but a job involving talking a lot isn't really my cup of tea. Is anyone here from HCL that has seen someone getting in a developer role from the tech support ?

The job is also fairly low paying, CTC 15,000 per month and will probably involve moving out to Delhi. Should I take it or let it pass ?

HCL may or may not let you change the department, but are you willing to take that risk? Just ask them to give a letter saying that you can change department after your probation period and if they give, go ahead and take it.

But from my experience, no one will give you that letter of confirmation. Just confirm this with him and in case they are not ready to give the letter, better you let it pass and start searching for development based jobs.

See if you are really willing to make the move, you can, but path would be hard.

This is the same reason I ask my friends who wants to join development not to join support and all. But peoples starts thinking very big from the beginning and they ended up in support job.

My salary for first job was 4500/-, I knew, that salary was not going to help me in anyway, but still I took it, as I needed the experience and I could learn the industrial process.

But my friends wanted higher salary, and landed up in tech support.

See, if you really want to make the move, get a job as a fresher, don't show any experience of tech support. Yeah salary will be low, but once you get the experience salary will rise gradually.

Anyway, I'm from .NET Domain too..!! It's been 3 years now

krishnandu.sarkar said:
See if you are really willing to make the move, you can, but path would be hard.

This is the same reason I ask my friends who wants to join development not to join support and all. But peoples starts thinking very big from the beginning and they ended up in support job.

My salary for first job was 4500/-, I knew, that salary was not going to help me in anyway, but still I took it, as I needed the experience and I could learn the industrial process.

But my friends wanted higher salary, and landed up in tech support.

See, if you really want to make the move, get a job as a fresher, don't show any experience of tech support. Yeah salary will be low, but once you get the experience salary will rise gradually.

Anyway, I'm from .NET Domain too..!! It's been 3 years now

Exactly my opinion. My first salary was 8k and i never felt bad for that. But my friends who landed up in tech support got 20k+ at that time. Now after 5 years, i am ahead of those guys, in both money and technology, which is making me feel good for the decision i made. Never go after money, just chase after what do you like and money will be there, in no time. All you need to do is, grab a opportunity, learn as much as you can, and once you have enough stuff, you will get money which you never dream about.

furious_gamer said:
Exactly my opinion. My first salary was 8k and i never felt bad for that. But my friends who landed up in tech support got 20k+ at that time. Now after 5 years, i am ahead of those guys, in both money and technology, which is making me feel good for the decision i made. Never go after money, just chase after what do you like and money will be there, in no time. All you need to do is, grab a opportunity, learn as much as you can, and once you have enough stuff, you will get money which you never dream about.

That's right. Now my salary is around 20k and my friends who joined Wipro and all are getting 12 - 15k and as a Team Lead.

But I have seen some of my friends sitting idle for a full year just to catch hold of a dev job. I, personally, don't think waiting for 1 yr or more is justified against doing any other profile like support. But if the waiting period is less than a year, then it's fine.

dashing.sujay said:
But I have seen some of my friends sitting idle for a full year just to catch hold of a dev job. I, personally, don't think waiting for 1 yr or more is justified against doing any other profile like support. But if the waiting period is less than a year, then it's fine.

It all depends on you skill level. As a fresher getting a job is little tricky unless you are good at basic. If you don't have that hope, neither the skill, better you go for support.

furious_gamer said:
It all depends on you skill level. As a fresher getting a job is little tricky unless you are good at basic. If you don't have that hope, neither the skill, better you go for support.

What if depsite of skills, you don't get dev profile ?

dashing.sujay said:
What if depsite of skills, you don't get dev profile ?

dude i waited for year and half to get my first real dev. job. Till then i worked in small companies that pay off my expenses, even that too s/w dev. oriented. (I was UI Designer). If you set your goal straight there is nothing that's not gonna happen. The main issue with guys today is., they lose hop after few failed attempts. It took me around 40-50 interviews to get into the job which helped me grow. Nothing will happen over-night, especially with IT field. Some get into by luck(on-campus where questions mostly based on competitive/analytic), but some get after a lot of hard work. I suffered a lot, and i ripe the benefit now.

In that time, if i decided to go with tech support, would i be there where i am now? So it all depends on you.

furious_gamer said:
Till then i worked in small companies that pay off my expenses, even that too s/w dev. oriented. (I was UI Designer).

This is the main thing, "if" only you get a job mid way then only its justified. Most of the people don't get dev job even when they're ready to get a meager 5k.

dashing.sujay said:
This is the main thing, "if" only you get a job mid way then only its justified. Most of the people don't get dev job even when they're ready to get a meager 5k.

Do you think i didn't get any tech support job in between. I was adamant and picky. So as always, always about you.

Thank you guyz for all the opinions.......
If i work as a tech support job for atleast a year .....in the mean time i sharpen my skill on .net....would'nt that help me in dev. job hunt, even as a fresher(for dev profile) or exp(in application support)....?
Or i have to compulsory leave my current employer to pursue a job in development.

It's up to you, you can continue working while you get a dev job. But as you are saying you'd be sharpening your skills for a year and all. I won't recommended that. Take few months to prepare yourself but not a year.

If you are working for a year and take another year to sharpen your skills, it will become hard as you spend more time to find a job. What I mean is, employers looks for the break period between college and getting job. In that case you have two options, either show that you were working as support to support your living or you can say you didn't worked anywhere. Both can have their own impact.

Many companies don't take developers if they were previously working as support, whereas many companies don't take people who were sitting idle for 2 years after college or so. They may ask a reason for it which you won't be able to show.

I'm saying this, because at my previous firm, I saw they just rejected a guy for the same reason. He came up to interview and said that he was sitting idle for 3 years because he didn't got any job. And they just rejected it saying how come a good engineer couldn't get a single job in 3 years, there must be some fault. Though they took the interview, which was not good, I mean he couldn't answer many things correctly.

what I have seen for transition
tester --> developer OK
developer --> tester OK
support --> support OK
support -->others not a single case

Only in one condition you can shift from support to development is when you are getting entry to a company through whiteboard test + code competition + interview , these doesn't happen in Indian service based companies(TCS,INFY etc) but happens in product based ones(CA,Dell & many startups).

Bottom line is if the company is evaluating you based on your support experience then expect a support job.

But there is a way, if you could pull a few strings and get yourself in some Enterprize tool(example(any one): PEGA,Thunderhead ,Informatica & the likes of these) experience & apply based on these then you will get a dev job for sure.
Requirements: Confidence to pull off a bluff like a pro, learn the damn tool like without it you will die.

Most Indian service based companies use mostly enterprize tools to provide solution.

hey guyz......thanks for the suggestions....have been busy lately.....!
I submitted the resignation through e-mail to the competent authorities a week ago & willfully accepted to work for the following week (w/o pay)....so that my replacement can be found (mentioned this in my resignation letter).Now they are asking me to work 2~3 days extra....so that my replacement could be trained.I said no,it cant work out,now they are threatening me that they can take any legal action...! :-(

What if i would have left the job just in first 2 weeks during the training period......with or w/o notification.....would their response be same as now....?
Will it affect my future aspect of job hunting in development field......due to this can i be blacklisted in the IT sector (though i have resigned through legal way....not vanished just like other people do)

Ok there are few things that matters here...

1. There are difference between a trainee and permanent employees. You have some responsibility.
2. Did you fulfill your company's Notice Period as per HR policy?
3. Generally companies give threat like that but they dont do anything.
4. If you have met HR policies you can threat them in return to file a case against threatning even after fulfilling HR policy and break the mutual understanding of working a week without pay.

I guess you shouldn't have agreed to work without pay, as no one works for free.

You can threat them but only if you dont need releasing papers and all, else move out cleanly.

max_snyper said:
hey guyz......thanks for the suggestions....have been busy lately.....!
I submitted the resignation through e-mail to the competent authorities a week ago & willfully accepted to work for the following week (w/o pay)....so that my replacement can be found (mentioned this in my resignation letter).Now they are asking me to work 2~3 days extra....so that my replacement could be trained.I said no,it cant work out,now they are threatening me that they can take any legal action...!
What if i would have left the job just in first 2 weeks during the training period......with or w/o notification.....would their response be same as now....?
Will it affect my future aspect of job hunting in development field......due to this can i be blacklisted in the IT sector (though i have resigned through legal way....not vanished just like other people do)

Well they dusually don't go on blacklisting you in the global DB unless you have some recovery pending on your head , or something of big concern.

krishnandu.sarkar said:
Ok there are few things that matters here...

1. There are difference between a trainee and permanent employees. You have some responsibility.
2. Did you fulfill your company's Notice Period as per HR policy?
3. Generally companies give threat like that but they dont do anything.
4. If you have met HR policies you can threat them in return to file a case against threatning even after fulfilling HR policy and break the mutual understanding of working a week without pay.

I guess you shouldn't have agreed to work without pay, as no one works for free.

You can threat them but only if you dont need releasing papers and all, else move out cleanly.

What happens if i dont get releasing papers....is that thing of a concern for next job as it has been only 3 months.....and then too this job exp. would'nt be applicable for any dev profile.

In that case, releasing papers doesn't matter. Also it's about 3 Months. If you are on Probation Period just bash them in face and move out.

quit and quickly get a dev job in some small company for very less money
improve and move up the ladder .. as in small company to big company

that's exactly how its done. many top companies hire developers only from IITs and NITs.. but there are plenty of others who come join after 2yrs of experience just because they are really talented and can crack the stupid dumb absurdly difficult useless interviews

btw you need to start and apply for interviews right away from today, this is part of the practice.. more you give, better you become..
if you wait for 1 yr to prepare, its never going to happen...

oh and also move to bangalore, you are in mumbai expecting a dev job and climbing up the ladder by switching companies yearly ? not going to happen... LOL..

^^Follow that.

thankx guyz.....All your suggestions will definitely help me in the current scenario as well as in the near future...!

First Rule of Professionalism : Never work for free(unless you are helping some social cause).

If you are not in rush for urgent money, i would say join a small company. There's many startups now-a-days in India.
Small company does not mean small package compared to the bigones. You may start small but you will grow faster.
Though you may have to play many roles/responsibilities. Plus side is you will have better exposure & knowledge compared to big companies.

And about location I would say go to Bangalore, your sustainable cost will be around Rs.8000/per month.