The Office

Contents

The office is located in the Verna Industrial Estate next to drug and telecom companies. As is true everywhere in Goa, cows and wild dogs roam the streets of the "electronic city". Persistent Systems Limited has its headquarters in Pune, but operates offices in many other cities in India. The company is backed by Norwest Venture Partners (a client of SolutionSet), and recently went public. Many of the currentPersistent employees in Goa worked in the same building but for ControlNet, a company headquartered in Campbell, California but with 80% of its staff here in Verna. When ControlNet was having a tough time marketing its telecom software (apparently its networking software was doing better), Persistent bought them out. The building has 3 floors: ground, first and second. SolutionSet takes up most of the SS (Second floor South) section of the building seen below with the bougainvillea on the balcony. 

If the surrounding industrial estate isn't exactly the picture of cleanliness, at least the inner courtyard of the office offers sanctuary from the surrounding heat and pollution. It has a lovely garden (a snake was spotted the other day) and pantries where you can make tea and toast any time.

People typically take one of the many shuttles and coaches operated by Persistent to transport the employees from the surrounding towns to Verna. The morning shuttles arrive at 9am and there are departing shuttles at 6:15pm and 8:30pm. It's not uncommon for people to be at the office from 9am to 8:3pm, but people do take frequent breaks and play table tennis (TT), and other games. Two of the people who are often here until the last coach are Nandhin and Sunit (as seen from my desk).

They both commute from Margao. Except on special occasions, everyone eats at the free cafeteria on the 1st floor which serves vegetarian Goan and Indian food. It's not bad. Overall, its a pretty damn nice place to work. The offices are air-conditioned (often too much) and there is a friendly, relaxed atmosphere. I usually eat lunch with a crew of Goans, and the conversation often leads to recommendations of where I should go the next weekend, differences between India, Goa, and the US, or how much I overpaid for something. I'm getting to know the PHP team pretty well since I interact with them a lot, but the .NET team has been heads-down working on the San Francisco Symphony website that just launched (http://www.sfsymphony.org/) and the EFI Partner Portal, so I haven't gotten to know them as well yet. Here is a picture of the entire SolutionSet Goa team (click for higher resolution) . 

At 6:30 pm the caterers put out snacks for us. Typically its South Indian stuff like samosas or batata vada (fried potatoes). A mixture of Konkani, Hindi and English is spoken around the office. The environment is a LOT different from downtown San Francisco at 2nd and Mission, with the bustling business people and various lunch eateries, but the work itself isn't. Writing a spec, zoning into a tricky piece of code, or sitting on a hour-long conference call is the same wherever you are.