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Indian IT, “You're Fired”

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Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”

#122
post #99
post #5

The Indian IT situation has reached somewhat of a breaking point, hence the current situation unfolding. The real low level stuff is now being increasingly automated thus eliminating the need for cheap labor to do such tasks. At the same time the Indian firms never quite managed to broadly move up the value chain into more innovative and cutting edge areas, which is still very much the realm of local offices of their…

I have observed a different phenomenon: in the last 10 years, "startup culture" has swept over India. There is very little innovative or cutting edge being done in the US either outside of the universities (where many of the researchers are Indian) and a few big companies (Google, Facebook, et al -- who all have large engineering offices in India as well). Honestly, I find it easier to hire for skills like AWS, node.…

I'm guessing a lot of companies that offshore are going for cost savings and many of those wouldn't spend much on training anyway. India really needs to focus on product development to move up the value chain. Look at South Korea as an example. Practically half the electronic gadgets we buy come from there.

Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if this is your intention, but it is petty to blame someone, who is seeking legal employment, of conspiring to take away your jobs. The decision to use labor arbitrage was taken by managements in developed economies. The workers didn't position themselves in a way that created the arbitrage. It's silly, to say the least, when your reaction is "what did you expect would happen, when you decided to steal a…

Are you sure you're replying to the right comment? Or was the thread poster's comment edited? Your comment seems to add a little context that isn't there.

The post was not edited.

Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”

#124
post #99
post #5

The Indian IT situation has reached somewhat of a breaking point, hence the current situation unfolding. The real low level stuff is now being increasingly automated thus eliminating the need for cheap labor to do such tasks. At the same time the Indian firms never quite managed to broadly move up the value chain into more innovative and cutting edge areas, which is still very much the realm of local offices of their…

I have observed a different phenomenon: in the last 10 years, "startup culture" has swept over India. There is very little innovative or cutting edge being done in the US either outside of the universities (where many of the researchers are Indian) and a few big companies (Google, Facebook, et al -- who all have large engineering offices in India as well). Honestly, I find it easier to hire for skills like AWS, node.…

Though it is easier to hire people with skills in XYZ tech, it's important to note that Indian IT companies have bred a culture of knowledge purely on paper.

A civil engineer/Electrical Engineer/ Electronics Engineer / Industrial Engineer / etc, just out of college, joins a services company as a "developer" with a pay around 5000 USD a year, works for a few years on, say SQL, goes to the local "IT training institute" run by Mr. ABC with "X+ years of onsite experience", pays them Z amount of rupees, "learns" "T" tech for 3 or 6 months, gets a certificate, applies for a job in another IT company desperately looking for people with knowledge in "T", joins, struggles through and then rinses and repeats.

I have seen it personally.

Of course, not all of them are like that, but I am sure more than 50% are milled from the same process. That is why you get so many engineers able to do some specific things in some specific technology, but are scarcely able to innovate or think out of the box.

There is a whole slew of IT training institutes and hundreds of trainers, staff, photocopy shops, cafeterias, etc, which thrive on training an ever churning flow of "IT" engineers.

Add to that, an "IT" engineer expects to be a "Technical Lead" in a matter of 5-6 years, a "Team Lead" in a matter of 8 years and a "Project Manager" in about 12 years of experience. My numbers for the years maybe a bit off though.

Contrast this to developers in Europe or elsewhere, you have technically strong developers with decades of experience honing their skills in a myriad of tech and gathering a repertoire of programming techniques, tools, practices, etc.

Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”

#125
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can forego severance in the worst case. But in India, the companies won't give us service certificate if we don't dance to their tunes. This certificate is required for the next job.

To elaborate on your point, and to seek a little clarity on what's going on here... The severance deal thing is kind of like a bonus for helping make the transition easy... you can forego the bonus and "stick it" to your employer, but it won't necessarily affect your future employment opportunities. I assume the certificate thing is like a proof of employment? So HR saying "Play by our rules or we'll do everything in…

More reading if you're thinking "what on Earth is a relieving letter?": https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/20945/what-is-...

Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”

#127
post #32
post #15

I've never understood the ways that modern companies handle layoffs- call people into a meeting room one by one, tell them they're being let go, then escort them out of the building. It's not just that it's cold, but it builds a huge cloud of oppression for everyone else. I just watched this happen to a friend, and the guy who was sitting next to him is now saying "I could be next, better start talking to recruiters"…

Immediately escorting fired employees out of the building is an extremely aggressive signal, and I don't know if it gets used much outside of USA. It's possible to do layoffs in a completely different way, but it takes time and management patience. When Nokia fired thousands of employees back in 2011-13, they created a program called Bridge that offered former employees seed money to create startups, and even the pos…

I once got fired that way...

I won't give too much details, but basically it was this:

Bigwig liked me. Guy directly under bigwig, was my theoretically boss. back then I didn't understood office politics, and kept communicating with bigwig directly, because project was his idea, and his coding style was similar to mine (when he used to code) so he understood what I was doing.

I made a genuine screwup due to mental illness (now treated), guy under bigwig fired me.

I complained to bigwig on the same day, he unfired me.

I still had screwed up though... so bigwig gives me some deadline to fix my stuff.

Some weeks later, about 3 days before deadline, bigwig had to take a business trip...

So guy under bigwig shows up, tell me to show him "now" the project, since I was counting on using all the days on the deadline, it wasn't ready, so he tells me I failed and I was fired.

I tried to argue, and find bigwig... but he didn't let me, instead he made me get escorted out of the building, I didn't even got to clean my desk (like 2 years later a co-worker that grabbed my stuff returned them to me when we went to the same event).

Of course I still tried to contact bigwig, but I just wanted to ask my stuff back. Found out that they deleted my e-mail, blocked my personal e-mail from their server, reception stonewalled me (kept giving me obvious excuses to not pass on my call to anyone), banned me from the building (that had other companies too but...) and so on.

And that is how I found out the hard way how office politics work...

Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”

#128
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immediately escorting fired employees out of the building is an extremely aggressive signal, and I don't know if it gets used much outside of USA. It's possible to do layoffs in a completely different way, but it takes time and management patience. When Nokia fired thousands of employees back in 2011-13, they created a program called Bridge that offered former employees seed money to create startups, and even the pos…

I once got fired that way... I won't give too much details, but basically it was this: Bigwig liked me. Guy directly under bigwig, was my theoretically boss. back then I didn't understood office politics, and kept communicating with bigwig directly, because project was his idea, and his coding style was similar to mine (when he used to code) so he understood what I was doing. I made a genuine screwup due to mental il…

But, seriously, in some views the day the screwup happened was the day to leave. Sometimes we seriously overstay our welcome. The 'bigwig' had no business overriding the manager in charge at all.

Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”

#129
“Quit by 10 am, or you’ll be terminated and no benefits or relieving letter will be provided”

This sounds like a horrible threat. What are labour laws in India like? Is the company abusing the legal system by forcing their employees to quit via threats? Why do they want them to quit instead of firing them?

Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”

#130
post #13

As someone who worked for a team at IBM where we were forced to train our replacements in India, it seems odd that anyone in outsourcing would be surprised when those roles are further reduced by automation with little regard for the wellbeing of employees.

I don't know if this is your intention, but it is petty to blame someone, who is seeking legal employment, of conspiring to take away your jobs. The decision to use labor arbitrage was taken by managements in developed economies. The workers didn't position themselves in a way that created the arbitrage. It's silly, to say the least, when your reaction is "what did you expect would happen, when you decided to steal a…

> This is just the way the world is right now. The Indian IT labor market is only just catching up to the global reality.

Isn't that pretty much what the OP to whom you are replying meant when OP wrote:

it seems odd that anyone in outsourcing would be surprised when those roles are further reduced

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