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Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

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Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#101

Post by gaius »

abhinai wrote: post #16
alexandernst wrote: post #13

There is one thing I'm completely sure about. Code quality is an order of magnitude worse. I'm not really sure why, but that's how it is. With a few exceptions, the norm is to get a shit show every time something is outsourced to a team in India or China.

The reason is simple. They don't 'care'. They don't get rewarded for writing great code. They are not responsible for maintaining it. They don't get to see it work in the wild. Most probably, they don't even understand the problems that the project is trying to solve. It is simply very hard to 'care' under the circumstances outlined above. And it is very hard to write quality code when they don't care.

The reason is simple. They don't 'care'. They don't get rewarded for writing great code.

No, it's that an outsourcing company makes money on billable hours. If you can bill the client for fixing bugs, then why would you care about introducing them in the first place?

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#102

Post by icebraining »

throwayaslkdjfl wrote: post #92
icebraining wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Other countries"? The person you're responding to is Chinese.

So he can't be American because he is Chinese? Think for a sec what you are actually saying. You are confusing ethnicity with country. Those two don't equate.

The profile says they work for Alibaba in NanJing. I'm pretty sure that's not in America.

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#103

Post by random314 »

kamaal wrote: post #78
maxxxxx wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Most software engineers work for outsourcing companies. " Is this still true? I have heard that years ago it was prestigious to work for the likes of Infosys but now the best engineers work for Indian startups and the outsourcing companies only get average ones or worse. This seems in line with the people my company gets from outsourcing companies. They all seem pretty clueless but the direct hires are quite good.

>>I have heard that years ago it was prestigious to work for the likes of Infosys It is, even now. Walk in to any engineering college, and ask where most people want to work. Another dark untold truth of Engineering in India is, Electronics/Electrical branches have a lot better quality students, than CSE/InfoScience. Sometimes it's like night-day. This is because a degree in EE/ECE gives you a diverse range of career…

Strongly dispute this ECE vs CS characterization. CS is preferred over ECE in India. Source: ECE graduate from India. There is some wierd kind of projection going on with parent post.

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#104

Post by cvrjk »

mc32 wrote: post #3
Bucephalus355 wrote: post #2

In those counties, hierarchical management tends to be the norm. Managers have much more power, and there isn’t the equivalent of these rockstar 10x engineers we see in the US. Respecting the hierarchy and the process of governing employees can be much more important than delivering a brilliant feature.

I think there is (was?) one difference (at least for some) between Chinese and Indian developers: Indian developers sometimes aim to be managers as it confers more prestige when it comes to considering marriage, compared to a contributor. Perhaps it's changed.

Not a lot though. I am still a junior dev, but a lot of senior devs have reminisced about how they wanted to continue dev work, but had to take up managerial positions for social reasons. Marriage is one side of it. Apparently, people look down on you here if you stay a dev for long because it appears as if "you weren't capable enough".

And then there's also money. As someone else stated, rockstar engineers don't occur too often. Pay plateaus after certain years of dev work here in most places.

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#105

Post by nindalf »

satej-s wrote: post #64

I worked as a Full Stack Developer with BookMyShow in Mumbai, India. We are a ticketing company somewhat like TicketMaster is in the United States. The company was around 10 years old and transitioning from what one could term as a start up mentality into a full fledged product company. Methodology: had formally adopted Agile around 2016-2017. A part of this adoption included some formal training by an experienced ag…

I find my experience similar to yours. The difference in culture between companies that developed their own products rather than doing outsourced work was night and day.

Also, Java is ubiquitous. I only ever met one developer who was competent in C++. The rest think they know C++ but couldn't write a single non-trivial, idiomatic, correct program in it. (I don't know C++ either, FWIW). This leads to the bizarre situation where everyone writes in their resumes that they know C++, many interviews happen in C++, but few companies use it in development.

> Most of the country learns English

I don't think this is true. Certainly anyone working as a programmer would have been through 12 years of schooling in English with English textbooks for all subjects, followed by 4 years of college again in English. I have never seen a variable or any documentation in any other language. Before smartphone keyboards became a thing, I didn't know anyone who typed in their own language.

However, only a small fraction of the country learns English well enough to use it professionally. A significant proportion of the country, mainly in rural areas, don't learn English. Many of them don't complete school either.

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#106

Post by Havoc »

kamaal wrote: post #69

1. Most work is still from outsourcing. A lot of that work is good. It depends on your preferences, and what you want out of the job. 2. Training was a thing a decade back. A lot of companies would spend a fortune on training people. 3. Even until a while back, and may be even now. Growth was high, and a lot of people got/are getting rapidly promoted. Sometimes this happens very early in career. You have a lot of man…

What do you mean by cartel in this context? Like a mafia type network or something ? Or drug cartels?

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#107

Post by kamaal »

random314 wrote: post #103
kamaal wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I have heard that years ago it was prestigious to work for the likes of Infosys It is, even now. Walk in to any engineering college, and ask where most people want to work. Another dark untold truth of Engineering in India is, Electronics/Electrical branches have a lot better quality students, than CSE/InfoScience. Sometimes it's like night-day. This is because a degree in EE/ECE gives you a diverse range of career…

Strongly dispute this ECE vs CS characterization. CS is preferred over ECE in India. Source: ECE graduate from India. There is some wierd kind of projection going on with parent post.

My point is about outsourcing firms. Service companies prefer EE/ECE above CS. Of course product companies prefer CS candidates, and often pay well too.

Albeit a good chunk of CS people get into service companies too.

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#108

Post by kamaal »

cvrjk wrote: post #104
mc32 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is (was?) one difference (at least for some) between Chinese and Indian developers: Indian developers sometimes aim to be managers as it confers more prestige when it comes to considering marriage, compared to a contributor. Perhaps it's changed.

Not a lot though. I am still a junior dev, but a lot of senior devs have reminisced about how they wanted to continue dev work, but had to take up managerial positions for social reasons. Marriage is one side of it. Apparently, people look down on you here if you stay a dev for long because it appears as if "you weren't capable enough". And then there's also money. As someone else stated, rockstar engineers don't occ…

>>Apparently, people look down on you here if you stay a dev for long because it appears as if "you weren't capable enough".

>> Pay plateaus after certain years of dev work here in most places.

One reason is what I mentioned in other places in this thread. India's socio-economic conditions in some way shoe horn a person's perspective to move towards bureaucratic work. But a big part of that is a lot of outsourcing firms grew 100% YoY, at some point in the 90's and early 2000's. They had to keep promoting people to ensure there was pyramid to run down a chain of command. That's when there was a complete emergence of layers and layers of career managers.

Companies had to also sell it as a viable option or no one would take it. So they created huge perks, visa advantages, money and all that, to lure people towards management. It sort of got amplified, because management is a low ball job, with big returns.

Now you have plenty of crowd, without skills, and hasn't done any engineering intensive work over decades. And they don't want to get run over, by engineering folks, so they keep that culture going, or everything ends for them.

The other part of that is, of course, India has tons of young people coming out of colleges every year, so they can keep hiring freshers at throw away salaries, while experienced peoples' salaries reach a plateau.

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#109

Post by kamaal »

kkarakk wrote: post #83
kamaal wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I have heard that years ago it was prestigious to work for the likes of Infosys It is, even now. Walk in to any engineering college, and ask where most people want to work. Another dark untold truth of Engineering in India is, Electronics/Electrical branches have a lot better quality students, than CSE/InfoScience. Sometimes it's like night-day. This is because a degree in EE/ECE gives you a diverse range of career…

i'd say most managers from india are pretty worthless if i talk from a purely experience based domain knowledge perspective, it's four years of college education they don't pay attention to followed by 2 years of a job they don't pay attention to and then ka-ching MBA PROGRAM followed by doing whatever the company that hires them wants them to do. lots of wasted education and experience is basically pointless.

>>i'd say most managers from india are pretty worthless

Bureaucracy is one of the most desired jobs in India. People spend their prime years in 20s, in coaching institutes to crack UPSC- India's equivalent of entrance exams for government civil services. The reason is you get infinite scope to take bribes once you are placed. Like imagine having a blank cheque all life. On top of it you get premium accommodation, cars, drivers, and an army of servants.

MBA, and managerial jobs are the remainder population's way of enjoying the above perks. And they resemble the same levels of inefficiency, waste and corruption.

I can bet nothing will change in India, even decades from now. Once you create such incentives at a social level, people just follow it for generations.

Before software, there was similar craze for Bank manager jobs and CA's. And for the same reasons. You do little to no work, and pretty much splurge in luxury.

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#110

Post by kamaal »

Havoc wrote: post #106
kamaal wrote: post #69

1. Most work is still from outsourcing. A lot of that work is good. It depends on your preferences, and what you want out of the job. 2. Training was a thing a decade back. A lot of companies would spend a fortune on training people. 3. Even until a while back, and may be even now. Growth was high, and a lot of people got/are getting rapidly promoted. Sometimes this happens very early in career. You have a lot of man…

What do you mean by cartel in this context? Like a mafia type network or something ? Or drug cartels?

Its like, imagine a mini people structure within a company. Within that structure, people who exist, get like all the benefits, raise, RSUs, travel opportunities, Visas's etc. Of course you also get shafted if your out of it.

In India, its easy to arrive at such structures, because identities based on caste, religion, languages, state etc. Once you get a sufficient mass of 'your people'. You start to reward them, and build up your group(cartel), from there its dog eat dog. Heck even layoffs happen on those grounds.

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