Our current staff has a combined expertise of 50 man-years in system analysis, design programming and testing and is expanding progressively. We have our own evaluating tools for recruitment and training. We are associated with computer training universities and institutes and regularly take in students on co-op programs. Promising students are inducted into the staff. A team of professionals comprising of software consultants, lawyers, engineers, cost accountants and chartered accountants assist in decision-making, identification of market focus and orientation as well as formulation of long-term policies. Our team also includes business associates in Connecticut and San Francisco in the USA.

SOFIST’S in-house staff

Four senior system analysts. All our senior system analysts have at least a Master's degree and a minimum of four years of experience in system study and analysis. They interact with the executives, supervisors and users at the client’s sites to draw up a detailed analysis of the operations. They also guide junior analysts who may accompany them. Analysts work either on full-time or part-time basis.

Three junior system analysts. All our junior analysts have at least a diploma or degree in computer applications and at least two years of experience on application programming. They normally assist the senior analysts at the client site and may also be involved in programming or in program design.

Four systems design specialists. All our systems designers have at least a Master's degree and three years of experience in system design and/or programming. They design not only the front-end but also the logic of the back-end. They ensure code-optimization by identifying routines that can form part of a common library; they also study the efficacy of code-reusability by identifying component model functions that can be plugged into other applications. They interact frequently with the programmers and also supervise program testing. System designers may be on full-time or part-time employment.

Twelve programmers. SOFIST ensures that all programmers have obtained an MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional) certificate. Programmers usually start with small applications or modules and then graduate to hard-core programming. They work in tandem with system designers and analysts. Our bottom-up approach encourages them to suggest revisions, refinements and innovations to the development in progress.

Twenty-five data-entry operators. More than eighty percent of our data-entry operators have been with us for more than three years. They are tested for keyboarding speed and accuracy as also for their English comprehension before they are enrolled. Recently they have undergone training in SGML/XML mark-up and entry. Moreover, many of them can also handle simple database manipulation tasks.