Cognizant Work Experience as SDE-1

I have been associated with Cognizant for over a year now. I came through a direct campus interview with only one round. It is easy to crack given you have your fundamentals clear. It’s a decent company to start your career with. There are several factors that depend on how much you will like the company. I was lucky to get the domain or technology I was interested in, so it was a bit smoother for me than some of my fellow interns who were stuck with domains they didn’t enjoy much. If you are career oriented person, you will have to fight for the technology that you want to work in any tech company. The training period is amazing as you will have a lot to learn along with fun activities which makes it less difficult to adapt to the newly introduced corporate life.

Being a fresher you will get ample opportunities to learn the domain properly. Rest after training it will be the same, but learning never stops, and once you are allocated a team and start working on a project a sense of responsibility kicks in. I have developed great problem-solving skills in the past few months. I am currently working as a Java developer.

My key responsibilities as an SDE 1 are:

• Designing, developing, testing, troubleshooting, debugging
• Using Java, object-oriented (OO) design patterns
• Recommending changes in development, maintenance, and system standards.
• Work closely with seniors to deliver high-quality and working production code.
• Own development in multiple layers of the stack.

Although it’s a good company to begin your career with, I feel there are some management loopholes that need to be taken care of. Employees are benched when the company has lesser projects and are almost overworked and underpaid when there is loads of work. It definitely affects their psyche and efficiency and disturbs the work-life balance to the core. Here I have listed some pros and cons of working at Cognizant.

Pros:

• Cutting-edge tech stack used
• Job security
• Healthcare Support
• Working Allowance
• Supportive environment
• Time and location flexibility
• Ability to meet personal goals

Cons:

• Lack of transparency.
• Underpaying than most of its piers.
• Tight deadlines
• Work nature can be sometimes tedious leading to low personal growth.
• The initial salary is very less and Hike is very optimal for a year.