Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar as a job destination

Bhubaneswar figures in the list of Tier II cities for software companies. Tier II cities are
targeted by software companies, as attrition is less in these centers as majority of employees belong to near by places. You guessed it right like Infosys Bhubaneswar is full of Oriyas/Bengalis and there are quite a few Biharis. Kolkata being 6 hours journey, Bengalis in Infy prefer this DC. Infosys, Satyam, TCS and Wipro have opened their development centers in the city.
There is a popular saying here which tells “If you meet another software engineer in the city he has to be from Infosys”.
Bhubaneswar has opened up lots of engineering colleges and the wannabe engineers from Bihar and Jharkhand flock Orissa these days. The ready availability of man power from these colleges would come handy in bringing more Software companies to the city.

Cost of living

Cost of living is very reasonable in Bhubaneswar. What you may not like is people are not entrepreneurial in nature and sometimes its difficult to get basic things.

Weather

Being near to the coast, this place is damn humid, the summer months of April to June are very unbearable. Even Infosys relaxes the tie rule (formal dress code) they have during these months. It rains a lot here, but barring the summer months, its good place to be.

Transportation

There is no public transport system, if you don’t have your own vehicle you have to depend on Autos. Every auto-wallah here has a phone and you can book one for yourself.

Traffic

This city does not have traffic jams and there are no traffic lights at most of the places and no Street lights for majority of the roads.

Night Life and Entertainment

Bhubaneswar is a temple town and you can see a lot of our rich heritage. It has its own Forum, definitely not as good as Banglore’s but yup Big Bazzar is there and several malls are coming up and city expects to get it first multiplex soon. For now there are twin cinema halls by the name of Shriya/ Swati / Stutee. The good part about the city is its close to places like Puri and Konark. And because of continuous tourist inflow there are several large hotels like Mayfair and Swosti Plaza (Infosys puts the employees here for the first week). Most popular hangout amongst the youth is Café Coffee Day. The area near JaiDev Vihar is good one. But people would say the city is dead as there is no night life and young people may find it a little boring.

Hyderabad

Hyderabad as a job destination

Hyderabad is one of the fastest growing IT destinations in India. It houses most of the big names in software including Microsoft, Oracle, Verizon, Infosys, TCS and Wipro. Most of the software companies in Hyderabad are big ones while Banglore happens to have numerous small companies as well as big companies. Hyderabad lags behind Banglore and Pune when it comes to young crowd (read BPO employees and college students). But there are software job opportunities in Hyderabad, which make it a preferred destination for job seekers. It has computer training institutes mushrooming all over areas like Ameerpet. But if you are looking for jobs in certain special skills like embedded programming or system programming opportunities it is advisable to go to Banglore.

Cost of living

Hyderabad is much cheaper than cities like Banglore and Pune. There are areas, which are costly like Banjara Hills, Madhapur, but there are very cheap areas like Secunderabad and Mehendipatnam too. Hitech city is the center for software companies so adjoining areas like Kondapur, Kukatpally and Miyapur are developing fast and becoming costly. But if you compare house rent with other cities it is pretty cheap and advance is deposited only for a period of 2 months. On the whole Hyderabad would figure high on the Purchasing Power Parity list of big Indian cities.

Weather

Its very hot in the months of April and May, rest of the year is pretty moderate.

Transportation

There are only 2 modes of public transport buses and autos. Metro rail (MRTS) covers only few routes. Buses are mostly overloaded and its difficult to come out if you enter the bus and if you hang on the door you cannot go inside and neither risk to fall down (no need to get scared this line is exaggerated). Shared autos ply for busy routes and meter autos are always there. Meter autos are cheap when compared to Pune and Delhi but a lot of them are tampered by 20%.

Traffic

Roads are wide but people have poor traffic sense which leads to frequent traffic jams. There are several flyovers coming that may ease the situation.

Night Life and Entertainment

Hyderabad is a conservative city so party people may not like it much. It’s not hip and trendy. There are few spots but not what you expect from a big city. There are only 2 multiplexes Prasadz, PVR and you are damn lucky if you get a movie ticket there. The good news is 30 more multiplexes are coming up. You can watch most of the Hindi movies but English flicks get released after few weeks of wait. Hussain Sagar is nice place to hang out and a major food joint where North Indians like to have food is Angeethi.