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India’s IT industry laid off more than 56k employees this year

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Re: India’s IT industry laid off more than 56k employees this year

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of being downvoted until my comment is dead like below, I have to say I agree with muninn_. This is a great thing for India, and it's really unfortunate that the US has been poaching academic and technical talent to their own advantage, and the disadvantage of less well off countries for so long. The brain drain of the US (and the UK and Germany to a much smaller extent) is a real phenomena, and it's espe…

It's not like Indian developers are being kidnapped and shipped over on a boat to the U.S. Everyone who comes to the U.S. does so on their own volition, jumping through crazy immigration hoops. It's a free market for jobs, and if in the past Indian (or for that matter Chinese and other countries with a brain drain) companies couldn't complete, well that's their own fault.

Your position seems to be based in an assumption that the issue is competitiveness alone. Another factor is Indian companies like wipro and reliance are buying operations outright in North America.

The ship and kidnapping reference to slavery is in poor taste, It might be easier to get your point across and help people be more open to exploring your perspective if you weren't so easy and loose with colloquialisms that are rooted in something that likely doesn't represent you.

Re: India’s IT industry laid off more than 56k employees this year

#333
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

badly implemented remote tests. Ftfy

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4k994j/if_... This is how good talent views any kind of tests. I can't blame them. There is no other professional industry in the world, where candidates with 6+ years of professional success are asked to sit a god damned test every time they apply for a job. Insulting doesn't even begin to describe the problem with this concept. Don't get me wrong, I understand where…

If insulted doesn't begin to explain it, entitled might.

I think the tests are annoying too. Still is ultimately called work for a reason, we show up to get things done that are challenging, sometimes unpleasant and often necessary.

As a developer who hires other developers, I don't place the value in testing on what a developer can code, but how quickly they can learn and how well they can solve problems and communicate - testing can help shed a light on non technical strengths or shortcomings.

A good test focuses as much on higher level analysis as coding. The majority of new developers with a few years of skills may not have developed quickly enough in this regards yet.

Re: India’s IT industry laid off more than 56k employees this year

#334
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

badly implemented remote tests. Ftfy

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4k994j/if_... This is how good talent views any kind of tests. I can't blame them. There is no other professional industry in the world, where candidates with 6+ years of professional success are asked to sit a god damned test every time they apply for a job. Insulting doesn't even begin to describe the problem with this concept. Don't get me wrong, I understand where…

I’ve worked as a software developer for 20+ years and have hired others many times. People lie on their resumes to an extent that is difficult to believe until you see it. Sometimes they can talk intelligently about coding in a way that can get them through a “talk about your history” interview (a good interviewer can usually pierce the lies, but a mediocre or inexperienced interviewer might come out thinking they can code).

It’s very hard to guarantee that every first-round interview includes a seasoned lie-detector. A coding exercise is an imperfect, flawed, sometimes insulting approach that’s better than the alternatives.

When done right, it can be a nice conversation about coding, algorithms, and how to collaborate. And prove that the candidate can code.

Personally, I don’t mind being interviewed with a coding exercise even though I could be many of my interviewers’ parent. I love programming and talking about programming with programmers! And it gives me a chance to interview my potential future collaborators in a setting that’s less structured than a sit-across-the-table Q&A.

In my experience, someone who refuses or takes offense at a well-framed coding exercise is probably not going to be someone you want on your team. By well-framed, I mean introduced in a way that’s not insulting on the face of it, like a multi-hour takehome exercise before even meeting the candidate and talking about the job and why you are interested in them as a candidate. That’s just lazy interviewing and I wouldn’t want to do that either.

Re: India’s IT industry laid off more than 56k employees this year

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of being downvoted until my comment is dead like below, I have to say I agree with muninn_. This is a great thing for India, and it's really unfortunate that the US has been poaching academic and technical talent to their own advantage, and the disadvantage of less well off countries for so long. The brain drain of the US (and the UK and Germany to a much smaller extent) is a real phenomena, and it's espe…

It's not like Indian developers are being kidnapped and shipped over on a boat to the U.S. Everyone who comes to the U.S. does so on their own volition, jumping through crazy immigration hoops. It's a free market for jobs, and if in the past Indian (or for that matter Chinese and other countries with a brain drain) companies couldn't complete, well that's their own fault.

The problem is that the US has capita available that other countries simply don't. If we follow this trend to it's extreme conclusion we end with a world where one country has all the capital and imports every smart, skilled, or otherwise top percentage person in terms of economic value, to the detriment of the entire rest of the world.

Other countries can obviously incentivize people and startups like the US does, and that may slowly close the culture gap, but the US is already way ahead in capital. It's also hard to justify incentivizing an industry which already makes more than most of a country does via capital injection. When half the country is food insecure, the 2-10th percentile of the country getting handed government money doesn't go over well, anywhere.

Re: India’s IT industry laid off more than 56k employees this year

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually in Philippines pretty much everyone speaks a quite understandable English compared to the average Indian that thinks to be speaking a perfect English while the reality is quite different.

"Understandable" to you, based on where you live and what dialect of English you speak :)

For most folks in the US, understanding a Spanish accent is easier than most Indian accents. This is especially true for lower paid support roles.

Re: India’s IT industry laid off more than 56k employees this year

#337

I see a large number of bright Indian developers now staying back in country because its almost impossible to get H1B visas (that was actually the case even without Trump and now its getting much worse). This has started interesting trends in India. All of the sudden, now there is VC culture shaping up and I'm seeing lots of Indian developers doing their own startups. Indian newspapers frequently are putting spotligh…

Your narrative has some flaws. Startup events have been happening in India since past 10 years or so. Ever since Google won the war with Microsoft.

Flipkart was founded in 2007. Ola soon after. This H1B visa issue is more of past 2-3 year issue. Admittedly it will have some impact. But definitely not the narrative you paint.

Re: India’s IT industry laid off more than 56k employees this year

#338

I truly believe offshore IT work was mostly a scam in the first place. The work they produced was of very low quality, and often was more expensive because you had to go back in and fix everything. The whole game was to overcharge western firms for cheap crap produced by shoddy programmers overseas. The IT outsourcing firms would pocket the difference. Come in and promise the world, overbill and underdeliver. Then th…

What if the value add of off shore had nothing to do with the work done, but with the threat of replacement. Not that you could actually do the replacement, but the threat of it could result in reduction in wage growth that more than made up the waste of using off shore outsourcing.

Don't think I've seen this idea explored before. Maybe the numbers show it is completely idiotic (I did basically come up with it in the shower). Guess its my new conspiracy theory of the month.

Re: India’s IT industry laid off more than 56k employees this year

#339
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that fast typist is an indicator of a good developer, but a slow typist is an indicator of someone who hasn't spent a whole lot of time in front of a keyboard.

Or they have some motor disabilities in their arm/hand, which you should check for before making a judgement. Some people have carpal tunnel, some people have tremors, some people might have other condition they might not have even know themselves or would like to talk about openly.

Or if they don't have any fingers.

Re: India’s IT industry laid off more than 56k employees this year

#340
post #337

I see a large number of bright Indian developers now staying back in country because its almost impossible to get H1B visas (that was actually the case even without Trump and now its getting much worse). This has started interesting trends in India. All of the sudden, now there is VC culture shaping up and I'm seeing lots of Indian developers doing their own startups. Indian newspapers frequently are putting spotligh…

Your narrative has some flaws. Startup events have been happening in India since past 10 years or so. Ever since Google won the war with Microsoft. Flipkart was founded in 2007. Ola soon after. This H1B visa issue is more of past 2-3 year issue. Admittedly it will have some impact. But definitely not the narrative you paint.

I know one example: http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/02/news/india/snapdeal-india-ku...

He was denied h1b visa in 2007, came back to India, started a company that created jobs in India.

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