Q. Can you name some of your leading Indian clients and the kind of projects you have done for them?
A. Some leading Indian clients are Kalki Communication Technologies Private Limited, Carmel Software Solutions, Green Infrastructure Projects Private Limited and eTrance Networks.
Projects done include customised ARM processor (Freescale i.MX6) systems, hardware circuit analysis and design for complex control systems, FPGA design, from concept to prototype, for telecommunication equipment, embedded Linux porting and device driver development and reliability engineering, to name a few.
Q. What is your marketing strategy to reach global clients? What about local clients?
A. Our current marketing, for local and global clients, is mostly via personal contacts. We have also teamed up with some USA and Europe-based design consultancies to offer our services. We provide our portfolio presentations to prospective customers and if they find that they have a matching requirement, we provide a project proposal with a fixed schedule and cost. If requirements are fluid, we sometimes work with the customer on a time and material basis to define requirements as the first phase and then move to fixed-cost turnkey model.
Q. How many design engineers would you have, related to circuit/system design and chip design? Are you looking at recruitment in the coming year?
A. Densray’s strength is in a senior team of system/ solution architects (less than 10 members). We outsource some of the implementation work such as PCB design, with reviews by in-house team members to assure quality. We also plan to recruit design engineers in junior to mid-level positions in the next 12 months.
Q. Do you hire freshers? Would you also have a training/internship programme?
A. Yes, we do hire freshers. We look for a good understanding of fundamentals and the ability to apply them to everyday engineering problems and are not specific about the college they come from. Currently, we do not have a training programme although we are open to providing internship for a few M.Tech students.
Q. What are the skill-sets that you find lacking in freshers?
A. The ability to analyse requirements and develop optimal solutions is lacking. Rather than training, it is a systemic issue. The attitude must be changed and application of the concepts learned must be given importance from day one. Students must be encouraged to learn the application of concepts that they study until they achieve a level of confidence in their ability to create optimal solutions. They should understand the trade-offs in creating a solution such as cost, power efficiency, processor speed, memory usage, number of components used, and create solutions to meet target requirements.
