I have over 15 years of experience and due to impulse decision, I quit very often in my career, so which delayed my progression. Also faced difficulties and hurdles, as i am having challenges on health front. Please advice.
This might be unpopular, but I genuinely think many engineers underestimate the long-term impact of spending too many years in service-based IT companies.
And before anyone gets defensive, this is not about disrespecting people working there. These companies have helped millions of Indians enter the tech industry and support their families. They provide stability, scale, and opportunities for freshers.
But there’s also a side nobody talks about enough.
Most service companies are fundamentally optimized around clients, billability, utilization, and delivery timelines, not engineering excellence or product innovation.
That changes how people work and eventually how they think.
A lot of talented engineers slowly get trapped in cycles of:
• Production support
• Legacy maintenance
• Endless status meetings
• Ticket handling
• Minor enhancements
• Client escalations
• Process-heavy environments
Years pass, but their actual engineering depth barely grows.
The dangerous part is that this decline happens slowly.
You don’t notice it immediately because the salary comes on time and the job feels “safe.”
Meanwhile, engineers in strong product companies or startups are being forced to:
• Solve difficult technical problems
• Build systems from scratch
• Make architecture decisions
• Think about scalability and performance
• Own products end to end
That kind of ownership compounds over time.
After 6 to 8 years, the difference becomes massive.
One engineer has learned to manage work.
The other has learned to create value.
And unfortunately, the market rewards the second person far more aggressively.
I’ve also noticed that many people in service IT stop preparing for the outside market entirely. They become comfortable inside internal systems and processes that don’t translate well elsewhere.
Then suddenly one layoff, restructuring, or client loss happens and they realize the industry has moved ahead without them.
Again, this doesn’t mean service companies are “bad.”
For many people, they are an important starting point.
But I do think ambitious engineers should treat them as a stepping stone, not the final destination.
Because real career security does not come from company size.
It comes from building skills that remain valuable anywhere.