Mr. Brijesh Kiruba: I've been a part of Impiger technologies for close to 10 years. Before talking about my journey with Impiger technologies, I'd like to say that Impiger Technologies is an 18-year-old organization; we started as a telecom company, with headquarters in the US with founders from Tamil Nadu. We have pushed forward intending to give a better digitalization experience for our customers. In the last 18 years of our journey, we have transformed from telecom to mobility to the digital space, to automation and now to the intelligence space, as we mentioned earlier. I have been part of this organization for the last ten years, and we have seen Impiger as a development center for most of our US customers. In the last ten years, we have transformed ourselves into diversification, entering into markets like Africa, the Middle East, Singapore, and India. Being a part of the business team, I have been able to meet customers for Impiger Technologies and provide solutions to multiple customers in the manufacturing industry, government, and education, to name a few. We have been able to provide value to them, and we have been part of their system. I have been a part of this journey, and together with our team, have been able to contribute to it.

GT: Despite the growing technology and the demands in IT industries, unemployment exists among fresh graduates. What do you think about this, and what are the strategies to overcome it?

Mr. Saravanan: Unemployment is virtually non-existent for freshers. For example, India’s top four IT companies are likely to onboard over 2 lakh freshers in FY22, says a report by Business Today. The bottom of the industry pyramid or the organization pyramid of every company is comprised of about 40% freshers, providing them with ample job opportunities. Graduates today have a very particular role to play in specific industries. A B.Com graduate or a graduate in any non-computer science field will get opportunities in banking, retail and commercial space. B.Sc computer science graduates are preferred by many companies as well. As of now, there are plenty of employment opportunities for everyone, but it is required for them to sharpen their analytical skills. They should develop skills like communication, and the ability to articulate and interpret things. The only factor is passion, as in if somebody wants to get into jobs related to technology domains, they need to be technologically curious.

GT: You have studied ECE; what experience did you gain from it, and how did it change your career?

Mr. Sivan Ammamuthu: Irrespective of the major or discipline that you come from, understanding the fundamentals and learning to work on appropriate software is crucial. I did incremental learnings as I moved forward. The key element is learning and adaptability.

GT: Impiger technologies' vision involves "Giving back to the society". Can you give us a brief on that?

Mr. Sivan Ammamuthu: "Giving back to society", simply put, is giving back to the roots. We have come from different parts of the social organization and regional backgrounds and have dissimilar societal backgrounds. We strongly believe in "How do we go back to the roots and give back to the roots?", so we uplift everybody in this organization. In our society, that's the fundamental thing. It can be achieved through multiple ways, such as the form of education, helping the needy or upliftment activities, for instance, fundraising and so on. Our thought process is to go back to the root, understand the problems and how to rectify them.

GT: What advice would you give to aspiring software professionals?

Mr. Saravanan: There are two values from the hiring perspective for software professionals. RITE values: Respect, Integrity, Trust and Empathy, and the other one is SWAT values: Smart, Working hard, Articulate – Any topic must be articulated in a manner which can be understood, and the last one is Technology Curiosity - As an IT professional you must have curiosity, Respect for the profession, friends, company and customers. These are the values that will help IT professionals in their careers. A career is similar to a marathon in that the athlete starting will be slow, but the ending will be fast and requires patience and energy to pick up the pace. The issue today with many IT professionals is that as soon as they start, they aspire to reach the top within 5-10 years. If not, they become frustrated and may end their career within 15 years. To be successful, you need to be steady, consistent and adaptive towards dynamic change.

Mr. Sivan Ammamuthu: From my perspective, we need to ask ourselves, 'Am I relevant?', because what was relevant yesterday is not relevant today. To be relevant, software professionals need to develop new skills, understand what the business is looking for, and most importantly, the software side of the skills such as communication and presentation. A person can learn a great deal and code well, but they must also be able to communicate well. To summarize, be relevant to your industry and develop your soft skills.

GT: what qualities do you expect from prospective candidates in Impiger technologies?

Mr. Brijesh Kiruba: From an alignment standpoint, the first thing we look for is more of attitude and aptitude; their alignment towards our goal, so what we look for is their learning, their aptitude for learning, how quickly we'll be able to train them, and if they'll be able to align towards our goal. That's what we look at from our initial perspective.

GT: What are the hiring methodologies in Impiger technologies?

Mr. Saravanan: We have different techniques to hire people. We have a traditional way of conducting online assessments and group discussions. But in recent times, we have had a different thought process. We don't want to select people based on scores; we want to select people who have the potential. Their score or their school doesn't matter to us. If people have potential, then they are ready to get hired. "Hire for potential" – that's what we do in the interview. And we have also moved from traditional assessments to the design thinking process, where we do not conduct any tests; people will be asked to participate in the workshop and given a problem statement where their problem-solving abilities will help them clear the assessment.

GT: What are the future goals of Impiger technologies?

Mr. Saravanan: Today, we have 400+ people; we are small, flat and have absolutely zero hierarchy. Anybody can reach out to anybody, so it's a very aspirational company, and we wanted to make our organization the most preferred place for young blood like you to come and join us. We would like to be the best employers for women. We don't want to be the same company for everybody as a lot of things keep changing; we want to be a different organization for different people - it means we should be able to fulfil the aspirations of different layers of professionals who will be working with us.

Mr. Sivan Ammamuthu: From a business perspective, today we are dealing with IT services as a digital transformation organization; where would like to be is, enabling business transformation in a more collaborative way for our clients. We are carrying that today, but is it enough is the question where we want to focus on how we transform the business - to achieve that we need to really understand on how the business operates. We would like to be a collaborative strategic partner, not step in as a partner or an outsourcing vendor.

GT: Is there anything you would like to say about the interview initiative by Guindy Times on the collaboration with ITrix?

Mr. Sivan Ammamuthu: It was really good. I am participating in an interview after a long time. It takes me back almost 5 years to when I’ve been interviewed in Paris where it included a different set of questions carried out by professional people. Today I didn’t feel any difference from that experience in the way that you both have conducted the interview; truly professional, from the way you put forward the questions. That is commendable work from each one of you. Another point to mention is the structure of the questions where multiple dimensions were covered. It shows the thought that went in behind it. You covered business, people, soft skill perspective, and input of the students in your way, and we tried to explain it in our sense; that's another excellent thing I felt.